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| Performativity and the “Degeneration” of the “Femme Fatale” in Film Noir |
| Zhang Qiang1，2 |
1.School of International Studies, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225127, China；
2.School of Arts and Humanities, Dallas 75060, USA; |
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Abstract Postmodern philosopher Judith Butler views identity as a signifying practice rather than an ontological being and thinks that identity construction is closely related to social cultural discourse. In the film noir which is characterized by claustrophobia and destabalized morality, the suspension of existing values provides various possibilities for identity construction of “Femme Fatale”. A comparative analysis of the femme fatale in Double Indemnity and Basic Instinct, in terms of themes, plot and visual representation, reveals that in the shift from implicit representation of sex to explicit one, the fatal figure in postmodern films has unwittingly been “objectified” as the sexual performer under the male gaze and been assimilated by the patriarchal social discourse, thus losing her original subversive power.
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Received: 10 November 2014
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| [1]Butler,J．Gender Trouble：Feminism and the Subversion of Identity[M]．New York：Routledge，1990．[2]Butler,J．Bodies That Matter：on the Discursive Limits of “Sex”[M]．New York：Routledge，1993．[3]Place,J．Women in film noir[C] //Kaplan，E．A．Women in Film Noir．London：British Film Institute，1998:47-68．[4]Stables,K．The postmodern always rings twice: constructing the femme fatale in 90s cinema[C] //Kaplan，E．A．Women in Film Noir．London：British Film Institute，1998:164-182．[5]Harvey,S．Womans place: the absent family of film noir[C]//Kaplan，E．A．Women in Film Noir．London：British Film Institute，1998:35-46．[6]Dyer,R．Resistance through charisma: rita hayworth and gilda[C]//Kaplan,E.A．Women in Film Noir．London：British Film Institute，1998:115-122．[7]Borde, R., Chaumeton,E．Towards a definition of film noir[C]//Silver, A., Ursini, J．Women in Film Noir．New York：Limelight Editions，1996:17-26． |
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2015, Vol. 17 
