Traditional crime stories have changed over time due to the values and changing contexts within different societies. The film ‘Rear Window’ composed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1954, America and the short detective story ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’ in the novel ‘The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in 1891, England illustrate how the values and changing contexts within a society contributes to the changing conventions of the genre of crime. Crime texts are valued and appropriated into a range of contexts predominantly due to the fact that they convey a community’s moral, ethical and cultural concerns. The values of a society, including gender equality, justice, social security and science, as well as the changing contexts within a society, including the fear of communism, the mistrust of the authority, the advancement of technology and consumerism have
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Hitchcock’s film ‘Rear Window’ belongs to the ‘hard-boiled’ and ‘film noir’ era of crime, the post W.W.II period. This sub-genre usually casted the detective as a well educated private eye who outsmarts the police. This was a period when growing senses of social insecurity and the fear of a nuclear war spread within the USA. Many people in the society didn’t trust the authorities; they were suspicious of others due to the war as well as the chaos and suffering it brought. The loss of faith in the justice system and skepticism towards politics during the McCarthyist period is symbolized in the interactions between the amateur detective, Jeff and the official detective, Doyle; Doyle continues to dismiss Jeff’s claims as seen in the phrase ‘There is no case to be solved. There never was.’ even when he presents Mrs Thorwald’s wedding ring as evidence. Thus, societies’ changing circumstances influenced traditional crime
Hitchcock’s film ‘Rear Window’ belongs to the ‘hard-boiled’ and ‘film noir’ era of crime, the post W.W.II period. This sub-genre usually casted the detective as a well educated private eye who outsmarts the police. This was a period when growing senses of social insecurity and the fear of a nuclear war spread within the USA. Many people in the society didn’t trust the authorities; they were suspicious of others due to the war as well as the chaos and suffering it brought. The loss of faith in the justice system and skepticism towards politics during the McCarthyist period is symbolized in the interactions between the amateur detective, Jeff and the official detective, Doyle; Doyle continues to dismiss Jeff’s claims as seen in the phrase ‘There is no case to be solved. There never was.’ even when he presents Mrs Thorwald’s wedding ring as evidence. Thus, societies’ changing circumstances influenced traditional crime