The “Bad Girl” Turned Feminist: The Femme Fatale and the Performance of Theory

Undergraduate Review Undergraduate Review

Volume 6 Article 22

2010

The “Bad Girl” Turned Feminist: The Femme Fatale and the The “Bad Girl” Turned Feminist: The Femme Fatale and the

Performance of Theory Performance of Theory

Michelle Mercure

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Recommended Citation Recommended Citation

Mercure, Michelle (2010). The “Bad Girl” Turned Feminist: The Femme Fatale and the Performance of

Theory.

Undergraduate Review

, 6, 113-119.

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BRIDGEWATER STATE COLLEGE 2010 • THE UNDERGRADUATE REVIEW • 113

The “Bad Girl” Turned Feminist:

The Femme Fatale and the

Performance of Theory

MICHELLE MERCURE

icture the murderous femme fatale Jane Palmer in Byron Haskin’s

1949 ﬁlm noir Too Late for Tears, as embodied by the talented actress

Lizabeth Scott: gorgeous blonde locks, beautiful long legs and luscious

thick lips, all dolled up in a shimmery evening gown ﬁt for a Hollywood

starlet and sporting a gaudy necklace that sparkles the way stars light up the night

sky. Now, picture this dazzling ﬁgure stumbling over a balcony and plummeting

to her untimely death after the police barge into her luxurious hotel suite in

Mexico, accusing her of the murder of not one, but two of her husbands. Panicked

by the accusation, she grabs two big handfuls of cash from the suitcase of money

she possesses (the driving motivation for at least one of the murders, which she is

guilty of). She darts away from the police, trips, and falls over the balcony, ending

her life with a high-pitched, petriﬁed scream. After she falls to her death, the

money she has so desperately clung to disperses into the air, hovering around her

dead body like snowﬂakes in a snow globe. The ﬁnal image of the glamorous Jane

Palmer culminates in a close-up of her hand: palm open, face up, with three bills

strewn alongside it on the pavement where she meets her death.

Having the manipulative, greedy, seductive, murderous femme fatale fall to

her death, as in this example, or perhaps be punished in some other manner—

jail or marriage—is supposedly a distinctive characteristic of ﬁlm noir, or at

least this is what I anticipated prior to my examination of the femme fatale

in the dozens of ﬁlm noirs I set out to view. I anticipated that my analysis

of the archetype of the femme fatale in classic ﬁlm noir would reveal the

following attributes: a female character who is beautiful and manipulative,

cold and calculating, one who knows how to use her femininity in a way that

can destroy men. I assumed that these women would epitomize evil, and that

it would be a challenge for me to uncover their positive qualities by simply

taking a feminist approach. However, the results of my analysis of ﬁlm noir

do not, in most cases, provide an example of a female character who is purely

evil and deserving of such punishment; instead, I ﬁnd it very difﬁcult to know

for certain the extent to which most of the femmes fatales I encountered

are good or bad, even the murderous, greedy Jane Palmer. The femme fatale

challenges the expectations of the viewer who anticipates that she will be

purely evil, by seeming simultaneously good and bad.

This ambiguity represented in the archetype of the femme fatale provides

a solution to one of the biggest concerns facing feminist theory today.

Michelle is a senior

majoring in English.

After graduation, she

delightfully plans to

continue her studies

in English as a graduate student at

Simmons College in Boston, MA.

This paper—a revision of a much

larger one that she completed with

funding from a2009 ATP summer

grant—shaped her application for

Simmons in many ways, as well as

her professional goals. She is very

thankful to have had Dr. Matt Bell as

her mentor to share the experience.

And grateful for his effort to guide

her research in gender studies and

ﬁlm studies, which she hopes, now, to

pursue at the graduate level.

114 • THE UNDERGRADUATE REVIEW • 2010 BRIDGEWATER STATE COLLEGE

Within a patriarchal culture, voicing feminist theory in the

very language used by that culture has presented a problem

for feminist theorists who wish to communicate in a voice

that has no afﬁliation with the patriarchal structure, one that

will free women from its constraints. The patriarchal structure

allows the male ﬁgure—the subject—in society to assume the

dominant role and to retain all of the power, while the female

ﬁgure is nothing more than an object meant to satisfy his

desire; she is more or less a powerless ﬁgure in this structure,

one with little or no voice. One way to hypothesize a solution

to this problem of voicelessness is to create a unique voice for

feminist theory—a language—that does not have any afﬁliation

with the patriarchal structure. But this seems highly unlikely

considering that any newly created voice (any newly created

language) will inevitably be linked to the one conceived by the

patriarchal structure, for it too must be conceived within it.

Taking into consideration this inevitable link to the past, instead

of rejecting the patriarchal structure as a source for change,

feminists should embrace it and use it to their advantage. This

is a much more feasible way to present a voice for feminist

theory: to embrace the patriarchal language of the past and to

revive the voice of feminist theory as it already exists there.

What I propose is a return to the archetype of the femme fatale in

classic ﬁlm noir. She voices feminist theory prior to its existence

through her ability to perform, most expressively when she is

seen as the spectacle in a musical performance. She displaces the

role of the male subject by resisting his power to know whether

she is good or bad, and to what extent she is good or bad. In the

speciﬁc ﬁlms I will address, she “acts” as the object of his desire

by performing for him, but is she really performing for him,

or does her performance serve another purpose, a more selﬁsh

one, perhaps? The male protagonist often appears frustrated

by her performance, rather than satisﬁed by it. By denying

pleasure for the male subject through her objectiﬁcation as a

spectacle on stage, she causes tension to arise in the subject

and object of the patriarchal structure. This tension that the

femme fatale causes neither “contests” the patriarchal structure,

nor attempts to “converse” with it.

Instead, it speaks from

within the patriarchal structure, without letting it understand

her meaning. Exposing this voice that has been neglected

offers feminism a unique way of communicating. Although

my research for the extended version of this project focused

on four classic ﬁlm noirs, in the interest of conserving space,

here, I will only be focusing on Gilda by Charles Vidor and

This Gun for Hire by Frank Tuttle.

I am particularly interested

in examining the archetype of the femme fatale from the

perspective of a third-wave feminist, a perspective that is often

in conﬂict with the views of 1970’s second-wave feminism,

which argue that placing women in such roles as performer,

actress, and sex symbol causes women’s oppression.

In my

view, such roles actually—and actively— resist oppression. By

speciﬁcally looking at the musical performances by the femmes

fatales in these ﬁlms, I will show how the femme fatale “acts”

out the theories of feminism prior to their emergence.

Before I begin my analysis of the femme fatale, though, I want

to frame my research by looking at how prior scholarship has

regarded this subject matter. I will begin by looking at the

treatment of the genre of ﬁlm noir, according to scholarly

history. Classic ﬁlm noir is restricted to a speciﬁc historical time

period—the 1940’s and 1950’s. Some of the key characteristics

of ﬁlm noir are a male protagonist (usually a private detective),

the element of criminality, a lack of morality, and an ambiguous

plot. But there are other identiﬁable characteristics as well, such

as the use of black and white ﬁlm instead of color; discontinuity

of time, in the forms of ﬂashbacks or ﬂash-forwards; strange

camera angles; a voiceover, usually by the male protagonist; the

use of wordplay, mostly in the form of double entendres; a

nighttime setting; urban landscapes; roadways and cars; and,

of course, the archetype of the femme fatale, a dangerously

beautiful woman who leads men to their destruction. These

characteristics, although they are not all present in every ﬁlm

noir (some contain many of them, while others contain only

a few), help to create an aura of uncertainty that accurately

reﬂects the time period in which these ﬁlms were produced,

making them identiﬁable as examples of ﬁlm noir.

Many changes in domestic and economic structures began to

occur during this time in the United States (both during and

after World War II), creating uncertainty in its citizens over

both moral and structural issues in regards to their daily lives.

For one, the fact that women were forced out of their newfound

independence in the work place—achieved during World

War II, when men went off to war and women dominated

the workforce—and back into the domestic sphere led to a

sense of confusion concerning the roles of women and men

in the workplace and at home. Consequently, the duplicity

of the femme fatale in ﬁlm noir is often seen as a reﬂection

of the confusing status of women in society at that particular

moment in history.

The male protagonist is often confused by

her duplicity: her beautiful and innocent outward appearance

may mask corruption and evil.

The femme fatale is an actress in every sense of the word. She

lies, cheats, double-crosses, even murders her victims, and

then cries, screams, sings, or whispers words of affection to

the male protagonist to win him over, only to double-cross

him again. It seems that everything she says and does is a

fabrication of the truth, and her motive (although it too is

often ambiguous) is usually greed. If her act isn’t enough to

snare the male protagonist into becoming infatuated with her,

BRIDGEWATER STATE COLLEGE 2010 • THE UNDERGRADUATE REVIEW • 115

leading him to his destruction, her outward beauty will usually

do the trick. Some of the most prominent characteristics of the

outward appearance of the femme fatale include a cigarette,

long, sexy legs that often dominate the frame, thick, luscious

lips, gorgeous, wavy hair that frames her face perfectly, and an

attire that is often very ﬂashy: fur shawls and coats, long gloves

that extend to the elbows, evening gowns that shimmer and

sparkle, clothing that reveals legs, cleavage, arms, back, and/or

shoulders, and a sexy pair of high heels. But it remains unclear

why her image is so important, and exactly who it is important

to. Is it important to the femme fatale herself? Does she gain

pleasure from the sight of her own beauty, or is it meant for the

pleasure of others?

Where feminist ﬁlm theory is concerned, the femme fatale in

ﬁlm noir, with her focus on creating a ﬂashy outward appearance

to attract the opposite sex and her inclination to perform for

the male protagonist, is a primary example of how ﬁlm has

constructed society to view women primarily as objects (or vice

versa—how society has constructed ﬁlm to support this view

of women). Laura Mulvey uses the term “to-be-looked-at-ness”

to articulate the inseparability of the two structures (ﬁlm and

patriarchy) in Visual and Other Pleasures. She writes,

In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in

looking has been split between active/male and passive/

female. The determining male gaze projects its fantasy

onto the female ﬁgure, which is styled accordingly.

In their traditional exhibitionist role women are

simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their

appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact

so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-

ness. (19)

The male is the active one; he is the one who looks. The female

is the passive one, the one being looked at. Our society has

been structured according to this division of “active/male” and

“passive/female.” According to many second-wave feminists,

the femme fatale supports this structure, not only by allowing

herself to be looked at, but also by provoking such attention in

the ﬁrst place, and therefore she acts in no way as a role model

for feminist theory; instead, she is seen as a primary example

of how not to act onscreen. Her “performance” for the male

protagonist entails passivity, placing the male in the active role

of “looker,” rather than the passive role of “looked at.” It seems,

for feminist theory at least, that the only solution is to reverse

the two roles, to have the female become the active one—the

looker—and the male become the passive one—the looked at.

But before this can be achieved the patriarchal structure that

deﬁnes our society—a structure that allows the male to occupy

the position of power, and compels the female to act as his

object of desire and remain powerless—must be either changed

or abolished.

My research suggests that taking another look at the femme

fatale will make a new contribution, speciﬁcally to feminist

ﬁlm theory, one that allows the image of the femme fatale as

spectacle—an image that has previously been a negative one for

women—to occupy the dominant role, one usually reserved for

the male ﬁgure in our patriarchal society. Through her musical

performance of “Put the Blame on Mame,” Rita Hayworth,

playing the role of Gilda in Charles Vidor’s 1946 ﬁlm Gilda,

exposes just how one might speak within the patriarchal

structure without either “conversing with” or “contesting”

it. In her second performance of “Put the Blame on Mame,”

Gilda—who throughout the ﬁlm has been falsely portraying

herself as a promiscuous girl to make her ex-lover Johnny

Farrell jealous—begins stripping off her clothes during the

number as he watches, slowly removing her long, shiny black

glove, swinging it around, and throwing it into the audience.

She proceeds to do the same with the second glove, and then

with her necklace. She would take her dress off, too, except

in the words of Gilda herself, she’s “not very good at zippers.”

After Johnny has Gilda dragged off stage, he confronts Gilda,

saying, “What do you mean by it?” He cannot comprehend

the meaning behind Gilda’s striptease. He then slaps her and

storms off. Shortly after, Detective Maurice Obregon clariﬁes

the situation for Johnny. He states, “Gilda didn’t do any of

those things you’ve been losing sleep over. Not any of them.

It was just an act, every bit of it. And I’ll give you credit. You

were a great audience, Mr. Farrell.” The important point to

make here is that Gilda has only been acting promiscuous;

her performance is speciﬁcally designed for Johnny to see.

And the fact that Johnny is unable to read the falseness of

her performance (both on and off stage) reveals how Gilda

uses the language of the patriarchal structure—her image as

a spectacle—to practice the theories of feminism. She voices

feminism through her performance by rendering it unreadable

to the male subject that objectiﬁes her, redirecting the power of

the patriarchal structure to herself—the object.

Feminist ﬁlm theorists might contest this claim. Mary Ann

Doane, for example, suggests that the femme fatale is not an

exemplary model for feminist ﬁlm theory. She argues,

…the femme fatale is situated as evil and is frequently

punished or killed. Her textual eradication involves

a desperate reassertion of control upon the part

of the threatened male subject. Hence, it would

be a mistake to see her as some kind of heroine of

modernity. She is not the subject of feminism but a

symptom of male fears about feminism. Nevertheless,

116 • THE UNDERGRADUATE REVIEW • 2010 BRIDGEWATER STATE COLLEGE

the representation—like any representation—is not

totally under the control of its producers and, once

disseminated, comes to take on a life of its own. (2-3)

Here, Doane is suggesting that the femme fatale is more powerful

as a ﬁgure that reveals that there is a patriarchal structure in

place, one that gives priority to the male subject, than as a

ﬁgure who shows how to speak from within that structure. She

claims that the femme fatale should not be seen as “some kind

of heroine of modernity,” but rather a “symptom of male fears

about feminism.” And while the femme fatale certainly can be

seen as a “symptom of male fears about feminism,” by the way

she is often destroyed by the end of the ﬁlm, signifying the

“reassertion of control upon the part of the threatened male

subject,” I would suggest, as Doane begins to suggest here, that

her “representation—like any representation—is not totally

under the control of its producers and, once disseminated,

comes to take on a life of its own”: there is the possibility of

more than one interpretation of the femme fatale.

In the case of Gilda, she is speaking a language indecipherable

to her male subject, Johnny. It is indecipherable to Johnny

because he is unable to know for certain which performance is

the “real” one, her act on stage as a stripper or her act off stage

as a promiscuous girl, because she is always “acting” for him.

For example, in one scene, after Gilda tosses her cigarette in

the direction of a passing guest at the casino, the guest tries to

persuade Gilda to have a drink with him by commenting that

the cigarette’s landing on him “means we’re gonna have a drink

together.” She immediately responds by saying no, but seeing

Johnny headed their way, she recants: “On the other hand, I’d

love to.” Johnny doesn’t know that all of this is an act because

Gilda doesn’t want him to know. The question is: why is Gilda

always acting for Johnny, and why can’t he see it is all an act?

The answers to these questions reveal Gilda as a “heroine of

modernity.” By causing this tension for Johnny, Gilda prevents

the satisfaction of his desire to control her. Gilda successfully

uses her objectiﬁcation to produce a pleasureless experience for

her subject, a frustrating one, in fact. What she is really doing

by performing for Johnny (on and off stage) is teaching him

(and the viewer) a lesson: that his (and our) relationship with

her should not be one of subject versus object, active versus

passive.

And Johnny clearly does desire to control Gilda. Johnny marries

Gilda in order to punish her for being promiscuous while her

husband, Ballin Mundson, was still alive. Immediately after

they are married Johnny brings Gilda to her new home where

she is startled to see that a painting of her late husband is

hanging there. Here, Johnny acknowledges his intent to control

her in a voiceover: “She didn’t know then what was happening

to her. She didn’t know then that what she heard was the door

closing in on her own cage. She hadn’t been faithful to him

when he was alive, but she was gonna be faithful to him now

that he was dead.” Johnny gets Gilda all wrong. First of all, he

is mistaken about her inﬁdelity; it was only an act. Second, he

claims Gilda as his object—a possession—that he will keep in

a “cage,” denying her independence. Here, he is being faithful

to his dominant position in the patriarchal structure that gives

all of the power to the male subject, but when Gilda performs

“Put the Blame on Mame” for Johnny, stripping off her attire,

frustrating him to the point where he slaps her, she is revealing

that there is a gap in the structure, where she can show the

male subject that it is a more pleasurable experience for both

her and him when the woman is an active subject rather than

a passive object.

According to Doane, this gap in the patriarchal structure that

Gilda reveals is an interpretation only made possible through

the feminist theoretical discourse that emerged long after the

ﬁlm was produced. She suggests that the incorporation of

female spectatorship into cinematic discourse, a perspective that

focuses on the female viewer’s identiﬁcation with the images on

screen instead of the male’s desire for the female as object on

screen, is what allows “gaps, outlets, blind spots, excesses in the

image” to express a feminist answer to the masculine structure.

She writes,

It is all a question of timing. Feminist critical theory

must be attentive to both the temporality of reading

and the historicity of reading. What has to be

acknowledged is that there are, in fact, constraints

on reading, constraints on spectatorship. Social

constraints, sexual constraints, historical constraints.

If there were no constraints, there would be no

problem, no need for feminist criticism. The difﬁcultly

is to hold on, simultaneously, to the notion that there

are constraints and to the notion that there are gaps,

outlets, blind spots, excesses in the image—to keep

both in tension. (41)

That there is “temporality in reading” suggests that the

interpretation of Gilda that is now available through the theories

of feminism is one that might not have been possible prior to

the emergence of such theories. Even though the “gap” Gilda

reveals already existed, it could not be interpreted as voicing

feminism prior to the emergence of this theory. In other words,

although the voice of feminism has existed all along, it is a voice

that has been severely neglected due to the “social constraints,

sexual constraints, historical constraints” mentioned by Doane.

Feminist theory, and speciﬁcally feminist ﬁlm theory, should

concern itself with investigating these “gaps, outlets, blind

BRIDGEWATER STATE COLLEGE 2010 • THE UNDERGRADUATE REVIEW • 117

spots, excesses in the image,” such as the one revealed by Gilda,

to achieve a different perspective from which to view women in

ﬁlm, not as passive objects, but as active subjects, placing them

on equal terms with their male counterparts.

How would this type of spectatorship Doane seems interested

in differ from current spectatorship? Another feminist theorist,

Teresa De Lauretis, voices her concern over this issue. She

states, “The challenge to classical narrative cinema, the effort

to invent ‘a new language of desire’ for an ‘alternative’ cinema,

entails nothing short of the destruction of visual pleasure as we

know it” (59). Although “a new language of desire” certainly is a

goal that feminist ﬁlm theory should strive for, “the destruction

of visual pleasure as we know it” seems to be an unnecessary

prerequisite for achieving this goal, and the “gaps” revealed by

the femme fatale corroborate this. Gilda’s relationship with

Johnny ends on a happy note, with the two of them reunited,

Johnny ﬁnally understanding that her promiscuous act was

just an act. But Johnny only comes to this conclusion through

Detective Obregon’s observation of the situation. He never

actually deciphers this information for himself. So is he really

capable of hearing Gilda’s voice, seeing beyond the power of

the constraints of the patriarchal structure, understanding the

message behind the “gap” revealed by Gilda? And if not (which

appears to be the case, considering there is no evidence of his

coming to this conclusion on his own), is this really the best

example of how to visualize “a new language of desire” in ﬁlm?

The answer is no. Gilda merely offers an example of how to

use the (neglected) voice of feminism through her “act” that

frustrates the male subject into becoming unable to decipher

it. She does not offer the male subject (or ﬁlm theory) any

solution for how to hear her message. For this, we must turn

our attention towards another ﬁlm noir, Frank Tuttle’s 1942

This Gun for Hire, and another femme fatale, Ellen Graham.

The ﬁrst image onscreen of the actress Veronica Lake playing

the role of Ellen Graham is an image of her arm extending out

from behind a wall in an audition hall at Fletcher’s Theatrical

Agency. Her entire body follows, revealing a long, shimmery

gown that is perfectly ﬁtted to her slender frame, and gorgeous,

lengthy, wavy blonde hair framing her soft white face. This is

the grand entrance Ellen makes for her audition. She proceeds

to perform magic tricks as she sings. While singing “Now You

See It, Now You Don’t,” she makes billiard balls, cards, and

herself, among other things, disappear and then reappear again

while singing lyrics that seem to suggest that women’s love is

very inconsistent. She sings, “Have you ever seen the love lights

/ In a lady’s eyes / And then suddenly watch it vanish away”

at the start of her performance. Throughout the remainder

of the song she repeats the chorus of the song: “Now you see

it / Now you don’t / …That’s love.” With this performance

Ellen is auditioning for a position that places her as an object

meant to satisfy the desire of the male subject, a typical role

for a woman in a ﬁlm (or society) structured by patriarchy,

yet through her lyrics Ellen suggests that you can see “…love

lights / In a lady’s eyes / And then suddenly watch it vanish

away,” which positions the woman in the role of control. It is

the male subject who is at her mercy. She holds the ability to

show “love lights” and then make it “vanish away.” The fact

that Ellen’s performance is clearly meant to objectify her does

not necessarily mean that she is not in the position of power.

As in Gilda’s musical performance, her ambiguity gives her

more power than her male subject, who fails to decipher the

meaning behind the patriarchal discourse she speaks. But what

happens when the subject fails to adhere to his position in the

patriarchal structure, fails to objectify the object?

Ellen is not objectiﬁed by Philip Raven—the male protagonist

in the ﬁlm who kidnaps her after both the police and the men

who hired him to kill a blackmailer begin tailing him—at

all. And he won’t let her use her objectiﬁcation, her skill of

ambiguity, to subvert his power. Raven rejects her femininity

(whether it is real or an “act” of femininity). When she places

her hand on his shoulder and tries to reason with him, Raven

reveals that he is on to her seductive act. Shaking her hands off

of him, saying, “Come on, take your hands off of me. Button

up, will ya? I’ll take care of Gates my way,” Raven clearly shows

no desire to objectify her; he sees right through her ambiguity,

realizes that her femininity can be used to control him if he

falls into her trap. But the following morning, he strikes a deal

with her, one that is made on both of their terms, without the

need for her to “act” ambiguous. She will help him escape as

long as he retrieves the chemical weapons that Gates possesses,

so that no harm can be done with them. He is practicing

feminism by resisting the desire to objectify her, and instead,

attempting to communicate with her—through the patriarchal

discourse offered to them—a message that is indecipherable

to the patriarchal structure, because according to the (hetero)

patriarchal structure the male subject should desire to objectify

her.

And instead of having her perform for him as a passive object

onstage, he asks her to perform as him by impersonating him

so that he can escape the cops. Raven’s desire to have Ellen

impersonate him does more than just help him escape the cops

who are after him; it also transforms Ellen from a passive object

to an active subject, revealing that the roles of men and women

can be displaced within the patriarchal structure, even using the

patriarchal structure. But it only transforms Ellen from passive

to active in terms of how she is perceived by the patriarchal

structure. Ellen is only looked at by the cops as active when she is

wearing a disguise. As soon as Ellen crawls out from underneath

118 • THE UNDERGRADUATE REVIEW • 2010 BRIDGEWATER STATE COLLEGE

the immobile train she is hiding under, one of the cops removes

Raven’s hat from her and conﬁrms her role as object by saying,

“So old man Brewster was right. She is Raven’s girl, huh. All

right, Crane, I’ll take over.” In this cop’s perception, Ellen is

nothing more than “Raven’s girl,” as if to say Ellen can only

be thought of as being someone else’s possession—in this case

Raven’s. But if Ellen is perceived as active when she is wearing

the disguise, then how can she so easily revert back to being

passive once it is removed? There seems to be a problem with

the perception of the onlooker who allows this distinction

between passive and active to be made in accordance with

her attire. The cops believe the act. They believe that Ellen

in Raven’s hat, striding across the railroad tracks, is in fact a

man, Raven, because according to the patriarchal structure,

a woman cannot occupy the place of the active subject; she

must remain passive. And since Ellen’s identity is revealed as

woman, it only makes sense to the patriarchal structure that

she is acting for her male subject—Raven—thereby occupying

her role as passive object. The removal of the disguise can only

reveal Ellen’s power to the spectator who does not see her in

terms of the patriarchal structure. Both Raven and the viewer

know that Ellen willingly participates in Raven’s escape, for her

own beneﬁt as well as his, that she is an active subject. To an

onlooker like Raven, who sees her as an active subject, whether

she is wearing a disguise or not, Ellen’s power can be used to

create a level of communication between the passive object

and the active subject that is achieved through the patriarchal

structure, yet indecipherable to it.

This representation of the ability to communicate a message

between the active male subject and the passive female object

within the patriarchal structure contradictory to the structure is

how “a new language of desire” becomes available to the viewer

who is able to decipher that message through contemporary

feminist critical theory. In the words of Doane, “It is all a

question of timing. Feminist critical theory must be attentive

to both the temporality of reading and the historicity of

reading.” In other words, without feminist critical theory this

interpretation would not be available. Even though the viewing

of the relationship between Raven and Ellen has been available

since 1942, when the ﬁlm was produced, it is only through the

present perspective of feminist theory that their relationship

can be interpreted as the practice of feminism.

References

Angel Face. Dir. Otto Preminger. Perfs. Robert Mitchum, Jean

Simmons. 1952. DVD. Warner Home Video, 2007.

Borde, Raymond, and Etienne Chaumeton. A Panorama of American

Film Noir (1942-1953). San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2002.

Criss Cross. Dir. Robert Siodmak. Perfs. Burt Lancaster, Yvonne De

Carlo. 1949. DVD. Universal Studios Home Video, 1996.

De Lauretis, Teresa. Alice Doesn’t: Feminism, Semiotics, Cinema.

Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984.

Dead Reckoning. Dir. John Cromwell. Perfs. Humphrey Bogart,

Lizabeth Scott. 1947. DVD. Columbia TriStar Home Video, 2002.

Doane, Mary Ann. Femmes Fatales: Feminism, Film Theory,

Psychoanalysis. New York: Routledge, 1991.

Evans, Sara M. Born for Liberty: A History of Women in America. New

York: The Free Press, 1989.

Freedman, Estelle B. No turning back: The history of feminism and the

future of women. New York: Ballantine Books, 2002.

Gallop, Jane. The Daughter’s Seduction: Feminism and Psychoanalysis.

Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1982.

Gilda. Dir. Charles Vidor. Perfs. Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford, George

Macready. 1946. DVD. Columbia Pictures, 2000.

Kaplan, E. Ann. Women in Film Noir. London: British Film Institute,

1980.

Mildred Pierce. Dir. Michael Curtiz. Perfs. Joan Crawford, Jack

Carson, Ann Blyth. 1945. DVD. Warner Home Video, 2005.

Mulvey, Laura. Visual and Other Pleasures. 2nd ed. New York:

Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.

Siegel, Deborah. Sisterhood, Interrupted: From Radical Women To Grrls

Gone Wild. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.

Silverman, Kaja. The Acoustic Mirror: The Female Voice in Psychoanalysis

and Cinema. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1988.

The Big Sleep. Dir. Howard Hawks. Perfs. Humphrey Bogart, Lauren

Bacall. 1946. DVD. Warner Home Video, 2006.

This Gun for Hire. Dir. Frank Tuttle. Perfs. Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake.

1942. DVD. Universal Studios, 2004.

Too Late for Tears. Dir. Byron Haskin. Perfs. Lizabeth Scott, Don

DeFore. 1949. DVD.Dark City Classics, 2003.

Walsh, Andrea S. Women’s Film and Female Experience: 1940-1950.

New York: Praeger, 1984.

BRIDGEWATER STATE COLLEGE 2010 • THE UNDERGRADUATE REVIEW • 119

Endnotes

See Jane Gallop’s The Daughter’s Seduction: Feminism and Psychoanalysis

for a clearer understanding of what Gallop means when she uses the terms

“contest” and “converse” (134).

There are other ﬁlm noirs that feature a musical performance by a femme

fatale, including dancing, singing and playing a musical instrument: Lauren

Bacall as Vivian Rutledge in Howard Hawks’s The Big Sleep (1946), Lizabeth

Scott as ‘Dusty’ Chandler in John Cromwell’s Dead Reckoning (1947), Jean

Simmons as Diane Tremayne in Otto Preminger’s Angel Face (1952), Yvonne

De Carlo as Anna Dundee in Robert Siodmak’s Criss Cross (1949), and Ann

Blyth as Veda Pierce in Michael Curtiz’s Mildred Pierce (1945).

For more information regarding second-wave feminism and third-wave

feminism see Estelle B. Freedman’s No turning back : The history of feminism

and the future of women and Deborah Siegal’s Sisterhood, Interrupted: From

Radical Women To Grrls Gone Wild.

A Panorama of American Film Noir (1942-1953) by Raymond Borde and

Etienne Chaumeton offers a more elaborate deﬁnition of the term ﬁlm noir.

See Sara Evans’s Born for Liberty: A History of Women in America and

Andrea S. Walsh’s Women’s Film and Female Experience: 1940-1950 for a

broad overview of the history of women in America. For a more speciﬁc

understanding of women in ﬁlm, look at Molly Haskell’s From Reverence to

Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies and Ann E. Kaplan’s Women in

Film Noir.