Femme fatale

These two films rely upon two contemporary visions of womanhood that formed part of German and Italian Fascism’s propaganda. These prevailing images divide women into two possible camps, one is cosmopolitan, urbane, skinny, hysterical, decadent, and sterile while the other is national, rural, floridly robust, tranquil, and prolific. The former, symbolic of modernity, was an obvious threat to the regime’s efforts to enfold women in the economic and social strictures demanded by Italian Fascism.…

What comes to mind when you hear the name, Dorothy Dandridge? Many think of her arguably best film, 1954's Carmen Jones, while others remember the sultry but unconventional femme fatale. Today, Dandridge is hailed as a pioneer for African-American women in film. In fact, Dorothy Dandridge was the first African-American woman to be nominated for an Academy Award for best actress. However, her legacy remained unacknowledged by the mainstream entertainment industry until 1999, when Halle Berry…

Casablanca is considered to be one of the greatest films of all time, and it’s not hard to see why. Coming at a time when the world needed it most, the film brings comedy and romance to a dark situation. It is often considered a noir film because if this darkness, but it’s lightheartedness, along with other elements, keeps it from falling into the gloomy genre. Released only a year apart, Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon share multiple commonalities, which fuels the debate over whether or not…

Within the film Chinatown, symbols place the largest role in the aesthetics of the film. One the most prominent symbols is a broken, damaged, or imperfect lens. Gittes uses two watches to help aid him when he was tailing Mr. Mulwray. The idea behind it was that Mulwray would run it over and stop the time so Mulwray can determine when he left. The broken lens symbol was also shown when Gittes was investigating the farm involved in the government scandal, where one lens in sunglasses was broken.…

it was certainly a matter of researching to find out the ideal way to format and enhance it in order to make it perfect. This was helped substantially by a book called ‘Save the Cat’ by Blake Snyder [1]. In looking at various points towards the Femme Fatale and castration anxiety, we looked at the book ‘Feminism and Film’ by Maggie Humm [2] and ‘Visual and Other Pleasures’ by Laura Mulvey [3]. These helped us in writing and portraying phallic imagery (in the form of a gun) and the death of Mia…

With the 1990s noir heroines, the female protagonists experienced another cultural change in gender roles. The 1990s noir more angry female protagonist rose to the surface while third-wave feminism was impending, and as discussed before, following up as a kind of critique to the second-wave. The third phase of feminism destabilized the earlier constructs, and an appealing sexuality while also being self-reliant and clever, was not considered to identify with male oppression (Genz & Brabo, 2009,…

Heteronormativity is the belief that people can be categorised into definite and interdependant genders, women and male. It postulates that heterosexuality is the only sexual orientation. This ideology states that sexual relations between these two genders are most suitable within opposite sexes. These views are based in relation to biological sex, gender indentity, sexuality and gender roles. Gender refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviours, actvivities and attributes that a given…

films. In David Lynch’s psychological horror Blue Velvet, viewers are introduced to the character Jeffrey Beaumont who is a young man who helps a young attractive club singer investigate the case of her missing child. Dorothy Vallens appears as a femme fatale throughout the movie viewers sympathize with her but we don’t necessarily find her trustworthy at times. The scene were viewers are introduced to the severed human ear is the most natural gross value the film shares in comparison to…

Having family or people to care for empowers people to stand up against their beliefs despite the repercussions. In the novel We there are three characters that have different motivators to rise against the government. Mainly speaking of O-90 who wants to get pregnant, even though it is prohibited by One State if the pregnancy is not approved. She begs D-503 to help her, but he is hesitant to do so because he is aware of the consequences. O-90 says, I must have a child and I’ll leave, I’ll…

to relay to the audience that noir fiction tends to communicate the dreadful situation we have in our society with the use of the protagonist’s detailed narration. In noir fiction, there consists an anti-hero, who reflects more to real people, a femme fatale and selfish people who all live in a corrupt society,…