Devil In A Blue Dress: Anti-Law Heroes

Crime. Drama. Femme Fetales. Anti-Heroes. Out-law Heroes. These terms are often associated with film noir produced within the early 1940s and late 1950s. After this era, the subgenre of neo-noir started being produced. Neo-noirs utilized the same themes, archetypes, and featured “the same basic storylines as classic noirs – detectives going after criminals” (“An Introduction to…” David Lebovitz). However, while detectives in classic noirs tend to associate themselves with other criminals in order to unravel the mystery, detectives in neo-noir films resolve the crime, but in doing so, they “search for [themselves], for [their] own identity and how [they] may have lost it” (Abrams 7). Racism became more prevalent as neo-noirs became more and more popular. During the era of classical film noir, characters that appeared in films were primarily white. As such, racism hardly existed because white people were common. However, as African Americans started becoming more integrated into the industry of film noir, depictions of racial discriminations, whether overt or covert, became more prevailing. In Devil in a Blue Dress, a hardboiled mystery written by Walter Mosley, World War II veteran Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins enters Joppy's bar with aspirations of finding a job in order to pay his mortgage. He accepts a job from Mr. Albright. A journey entails as he searches the streets of Los Angeles for Daphne Monet, a woman who is …show more content…
The setting is set in Los Angeles after World War II and before the Civil Rights Movement. This marked a time in United States history when there was still a separation between “black” and “white”. Communities were often segregated based on race, and African Americans could not trust law enforcement. Not only could police not be trusted but they also represented violence and danger as police officers were often not fond of African