Comments | red_eft: ...whores?

red_eft

...whores?

Apr 07, 2007 00:46

Old news, I know, but... back when Sin City came out, a lot of people (okay, mostly guys) were excusing the sexism because it was based on "film noir." At the time, I thought "...it's been a while since I've watched 'The Maltese Falcon', but I don't remember there being a lot of whores in it ( Read more... )

movies

Comments 7

ratcreature April 7 2007, 09:30:33 UTC

Not that I'm aware of. I had a phase of love with noir detective stories, and I don't remember whores either. I mean, you get the "treacherous woman" thing a lot and they may sleep with guys to gain advantage on them and such, so maybe it's related in that scheme that cast women as either as "virtuous" virgins or mothers and shoves the rest into a "whores" category, but not *literal* whores.

red_eft April 7 2007, 20:54:00 UTC

The thing about noir, though, was that it was kinda into ambiguity, so while it certainly had woman issues, it *wan't* as cleanly black and white as virgin/whore, most of the treacherous women were women in positions of power anyway.

(The comment has been removed)

red_eft April 7 2007, 20:52:05 UTC

*nods* *That* makes sense- the pulp books got away with more than the movies did in general. But while noir definitely has its own gender issues, it's not *quite* the same as Miller's.

Here via WFA spiralsheep April 7 2007, 14:08:50 UTC

You managed to make me laugh about something which isn't actually funny, bless your moderately cool cotton socks. :-D

Re: Here via WFA red_eft April 7 2007, 20:21:17 UTC

Glad to hear it. *g*

Here via CSN arionhunter April 8 2007, 05:11:41 UTC

The problem with Miller and his noir inspirations is that his early work (Up until Batman: YO) for the majority follows genre conventions with some Miller twists/problems.

After YO, though, it's like looking at film noir under an amazingly powerful magnifying glass. Everything is magnified until it becomes an absurd parody of itself. It's almost Liefeldian: Instead of pouches, there can never be enough whores.

shilohmm April 9 2007, 00:59:13 UTC

I've seen Lady of Burlesque, with Barbara Stanwyck, described as film noir. Strippers, not whores, but that's as close as I can get. I'd hazard a guess that only rabid Stanwyck (or Gypsy Rose Lee) fans have seen it, though. Haven't read or seen from Sin City, but going on other Miller stuff I've read Stanwyck's character wouldn't exactly fit.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036094/