Film Studies

Women in Noir

Noir Nights: A Doom of One’s Own
4 Tuesdays, November 12 to December 3, 2024, 6:30 pm to 9:30 pm  
Instructor: Jennifer Fleeger, Ph.D., Ursinus College

Independently minded and sexually provocative, the women of film noir often misdirect the investigation, confound the narration, and upend the stagnation of America’s moral code. They complicate our understanding of sex and power, expressing their desires in ways often unavailable to “real” women. What do these figures reveal about politics, art, gender, and Hollywood stardom from the 1940s to the turn of the 21st century? 

This course examines four key noir films, considering how women’s representation defies contemporary ideas about “progress.” With a portrait at its center, Laura (1944) positions art as a cipher through which we construct an idea of “woman”—only to then break it open. With a flashback structure led by Joan Crawford’s voiceover, Mildred Pierce (1945) sweeps us into the world of its protagonist, a divorcee with far more business acumen than romantic awareness or maternal temperance, letting us imagine an America run by formidable women. Klute (1971) brings us to the neo-noir era, a period dominated by thrillers in which fears of technological surveillance intersect with anxieties over representing women’s bodies. With her continued prominence, Jane Fonda is the ideal star through which to analyze this shift. Finally, with Bound (1996), the first feature directed by the Wachowskis, the noir cycle’s latent lesbian desire is brought to the fore, if not into the “light.”