Queerness in Film Noir

Film Noir typically defines the mood and the atmosphere of a scene in terms of darkness, fear and ultimate melancholy. We have seen it in all the three movies we have watched in class: Persepolis, Gilda and Bound. From the steamy look of shadows, the endless amounts of stairs in Persepolis and Bound, to the glow of Gilda’s hair, there is a particular quality to film noir that has us staring intently at the screen. Within film noir, there is also an indication of queerness and race represented through film noir.
In Gilda, the character of Gilda has the gender orientation of a femme fatal, a woman who is femme-identified in her actions and her dress and who is “lethal.” (Lethal is a word I added here because this is how I personally frame a femme fatale as an independent woman who goes against what everyone wants, especially society.) Gilda represents this as a woman who is working against her gender identification as a woman that sits quietly and obeys all that her husband wants. Gilda represents an independent woman that made her way from New York City to Argentina on her own, but this is contradicted as we see her as a married woman. Her husband, Ballin and his relationship to Johnny, however, demonstrates a lot of queer activity. The mere fact that Johnny would give up his life for Ballin and their constant talks about Ballin’s phallic-looking cane which serves as a “friend,” gives queer indication of their friendship. Ballin stretches their relationship from a bond to a friendship to a partnership which ultimately furthers this queer connection. In the film when they are all talking at that table about Ballin’s new marriage with Gilda and how they are now three and how before there was three, Ballin clearly indicates this friendship as something more that friendship, there is a lot more behind this bond.
In the film Bound, there is a scene in the beginning that gives off as soon as it begins that the women in the elevator are both queer. The effect of the two women wearing black leather jackets gives off the impression that they are both equal and queer, however, the fact that at many times the camera angle is looking up at Violet and down at Corky contradicts this in that they aren’t equal socioeconomically. Violet’s job as a prostitute and the fact that she is the mistress of Cesar, a mafia man, would be automatically be presumed as bisexual, however, a woman can have sex with men and be a lesbian. Her queerness is displayed through her femme fatale appearance; Corky, on the other hand, is a butch-identified lesbian. She needs not to act a certain way or be seen in a certain way to be known as a lesbian: the way she dresses stereotypically suffices in letting the audience know that she is a lesbian. During the constant darkness in the film during their passionate love scenes or when they are speaking secretly, the film noir resembles their queer sexuality and their bond between one another.
In Bound, there is a constant progressiveness to women that push beyond their genders as someone they really are. Queerness is racialized here by the mere fact that “queers” are just as racialized as brown bodies. Corky is especially racialized because of her appearance as queer that gives off this marginalization of homosexuals. In terms of Violet, she is not as racialized as Corky would be because she is femme. Femmes pass in daily society as heterosexual women and they aren’t totally discriminated against on this front. In terms of Gilda, there isn’t a clear way of racialization of queerness in the film.
This is a picture of Corky and Violet in their black clothing further instigating film noir and queerness.

http://nymag.com/images/2/daily/intel/07/09/04_bound_lgl.jpg