Women In Film Noir

Hollywood’s film noir represents a hard-boiled and cynical portrayal of American life that is mostly about a male-dominated world. Attractive male characters lead the film’s storyline, and female characters such as a femme fatale take their positions that indicate in relation to the male protagonists. Also, in general, the world of dark, corruption and crime are usually described in film noir, and thus it shows a strong sense of social contradictions. “Outrage,” directed by Ida Lupino, strongly criticizes the male-centered society and the film culture during the period. This is largely because not only does she represent an unvarnished image of the inexcusable crime, especially rape, but also provides the audience with the use of mise-en-scene to reproduce the protagonist’s entrapment and emotional distress, and thus makes us understand a legal failure of the attack with logical depictions.

A considerable number of people might think that the spider woman or a femme fatale. According to the reading, “Women in Film Noir,” written by Janey Place, the author describes the portrayal of women in film noir by saying “Visually, film noir is fluid, sensual, extraordinary expressive, making the sexually expressive woman, which is its dominant image of woman, extremely powerful.” However, Ida Lupino does not follow its presentation of powerful woman. She approaches to the opposite female archetype, a redeemed woman who is a victim of the crime and who is be psychologically and physically traumatized by