3. How did we represent: gender
Female - mysterious, violent, murderer, beautiful lady.
Male - detective, drunk, black.
4. How did we represent: Locations
The pathway.
The office.
5. How did we represent: age
Femme Fetale - 40s
Detective - Quite young
6. How did we represent : Class & Status
Femme Fetale - Classy, quite high in the Socio Economic Group.
Detective - Also quite high in the Socio Economic Group.
7. How did we represent: ethnicity
Femme Fetale - White
Detective - Black
9. How did we represent ‘people’ in the world of our
film?The Femme Fetale is represented as violent.
Whereas the detective is represented as a ‘fool’, manipulative and gullible.
So, in our Film Noir we chose to make the Femme Fetale the killer. She has that beautiful look and outfit on, just as you would expect because the stereotype is that women look after themselves and are beautiful. However, we decided to make a twist and have her kill off the detective. We represented her as the murderer of the detective. She’s quite violent in the way that she kills him off with a bomb. She takes it out of her glamorous bag, showing that she is quite mysterious and doesn’t make it obvious for anybody.
On the other side, the detective, is black. We decided to do this because at the time that this film is set, it wouldn’t have been acceptable for a black person to be a detective. Of course, we are not racist, but we are representing the male actor in this way as he would be in the 1940s. If you look at the screenshot on the image, you can tell that he has been drinking as he wakes up, still holding his glass, which is by now empty, and there’s also a bottle of alcohol places right next to him which indicates that he was drunk, which for a black detector, also would have not been tolerated. Because the actor is black, that is the reason for him being killed off right at the beginning of the film.
As the credits roll through, the femme fetale is walking on a pathway, it’s quite a simple location yet has a very mysterious look. This is because it’s represented as very bleak, yet we are not showing where is she going, what location she is at exactly. All we see is a concrete path.
Another location includes the office. We represented it as quite distressed, as you can see from the ripped wallpapers and the messy table, filled with paperwork. We decided to do this because it also links to the Detective’s life. Other than that, the office is slightly lit from the window, meaning that the street light is shining through the blinds. An office is usually quite neat and tidy, whereas here, it’s not. This is because we wanted the audience to be able to tell what the detective is like, before we actually see him.
Here, there’s quite an age gap between the two people. The femme fetale, is quite old compared to the Detective, we represented this through the way that she was dressed. She is wearing a knee length dress which would have been more acceptable for a lady her age. She’s wearing high heels, which are not too high. This would show that she is classy, yet still wants to be quite comfortable.
The Detective, is pretty young. We represented this, also through his outfit. He’s wearing a checkered shirt, not a plain white top which you would have seen on a Detective around the age of 40. This shows that he’s not very serious, because he still wants to look quite fashionable and nice.
The Femme Fetale is represented as very classy and sophisticated in this Film Noir. We represent this through her facial expressions, her walk, her outfit and also her gestures, body language. She seems extremely confident and trustworthy of herself as she disposes of the bomb in the cabinet. She is shown as not at all scared through her facial expressions, especially when she turns around and laughs at the Detective, almost mocking him because she knows he’s about to die. We can see she’s quite rich and classy because her outfit is very sleek, she’s wearing a knee length dress which is quite tight around her body and she also has a black handbag which compliments her dress and makes the outfit look quite rich. Also, she’s wearing high heels which are obviously quite expensive and you would expect a lady in the 1940s to be wearing heels if she was quite wealthy.
The Detective, he is also quite high in the Socio Economic Group. He obviously has a high role, as being a detective was quite an important job to have in the 1940s. He has been drinking alcohol which would have been reasonably expensive which would mean that he earned quite a lot of money to be wasting it on alcoholic beverages.
The femme fetale is an American white lady. We chose to do this because she would have been quite racist towards the Black Detective as this was unacepptable in the 1940s, to have a black detective.
In our Film Noir, we decided to represent the femme fetale as quite a violent lady. There is quite a twist on both of the roles in these two genders, as usually it would be the other way round. However, we decided to swap it just to see how it would turn out and to challenge the stereotypes. So, as mentioned, the femme fetale is quite violent. She kills off the detective right at the beginning which quite obviously shows that she is cruel and heartless.
The Detective on the other side, is represented as a gullible person as he doesn’t hear the lady come in, he only wakes up when he hears the door shut. He is also manipulative because he is being mocked as he is killed off right at the beginning, meaning that he wasn’t wanted in the world as a human being, again, because he is black.
The stereotypes in our opening sequence of the Film Noir were quite basic and simple, we didn’t want to change too much therefore we kept it as you would usually expect it to. The Femme Fetale is a beautiful lady. The Stereotype is that she would be well dressed, wearing make up which looks beautiful and period style hair. We did all those just to show how glamorous she is and to highlight her confidence.
The detective, is male. Just as you would expect it to be because female detectives aren’t really popular and never were, as they would be expected to do a bad job. He is also wearing a button up shirt, looking neat. Another thing, for a male it is quite stereotypical for them to be getting intoxicated a lot more than women, which we show here in the screenshot by having the empty glass and bottle of alcohol on the desk.
