Both Gilda and Bound resist the ideological work of genre conventions by simply existing in the movie genre “film noir.” To extrapolate, this movie genre centers on a deadly woman (the femme fatale), one who lures through her beauty and posses ulterior motives and power. This position is usually held by men in movies that exercise familiar gender roles. In the movie Gilda, it is the main character Gilda who performs this function, while in Bound it is Violet. However, each of these films resists conventions in different ways.

Gilda is working within the framework of strict heterosexuality. Her character resists the gender constructions of her era through subtle acts, for example, the repetition of “Put the Blame on Mame.” This song, as Dyer argues, “points to the illegitimacy of men blaming women, where film noir generally is concerned to assert just that.” In addition, Hayworth’s character exhibits a sense of freedom, both through her lack of past and current actions. She has power; it is Gilda who is actually running the show. However, I would argue that the movie stops there in relation to making a stand against genre conventions. Gilda is at the same time a story of a very sexualized and aesthetically beautiful woman who is subject to the male narration of the film, and as Dyer again argues, this helps to construct the viewers image of her. This construction is male on two counts, she is defined and meant to be sexually desired by the male (gaze). In this way she reverts back into the cinema woman of 1940's who is not concerned with resisting ideological genre conventions but instead perpetuating them.

Bound challenges gender conventions through the character Violet. She is a modern day femme fatale exhibiting the aesthetic trademarks mentioned by Dyer, "hair coiffed to appear lustrous and flowing tactile fabrics such as velvet and satin made into dresses." She is alluring, sexually powerful and the one with the control over the male. However, Bound complicates this further through the introduction of the character Corky. I am going to challenge Straayer's article in reference to his construction of the sexuality in Bound as "binary." It is precisely Corky's ability to straddle multiple sexual identities that allows Bound to function as resistance to the sexually conventional. According to Straayer, Violet is either femme fatale or femme butch, Corky is apparently just butch, and in the end he concludes that Violet is both. It is my interpretation that Corky and Violet embody many different gender roles - butch, femme, femme fatale, and femme butch. There are times in the movie in which I found Corky to be just as "feminine" as Violet. This film is amazing because it also plays on the viewers ideas of sexuality and allows the women to embody many different sexualities - the movie like life is not a binary choice.

Both films mobilize race and nation in relation to gender and sexuality. Gilda does so through the act of placing the events in a foreign land. All of the mayhem that takes place throughout the movie can be left behind as Gilda and Johnny are free to leave Argentina at the end of the movie. An exotic locale that can be fled, while the things experienced there are suddenly okay because they happened abroad. A great modern day example of this is Vicky Christina Barcelona. Bound does this through the use of racialized main female characters. Violet is a Chinese American, while Corky is a Jewish American. In addition, there is the presence of the Italian mob. (It is also important to mention here the secen that displays African American violence. It is shown on the T.V. screen when Cesear turns it on to cover up the real gunshot noises.)The homosexual acts taking place are being preformed by bodies that are understood as "racialized," making the film all the more "exotic." Exoticisicng homosexuality and race is very common, a great example of this is the way in which the artist Frida Kahlo is understood in American society.

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What is interesting is how her bi-sexuality is such a big part of her identity. There were countless male artists who came before her that were homosexual, yet the Western perception chooses to focus a great deal on her lesbian relationships.