monsterous femine

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Film Noir

In the movie genre of film noir there are classic female roles which can be succinctly categorized . These roles range from the bombshell to the goddess and in each there is a sense of strong power in the woman . It is this powerful woman as a lead role that gives film noir that added edge over other movie genres . The following will analyze the females in film noir and present to the reader a substantial base of evidence that

women as lead protagonists are all-powerful and not weak as the frequently clichyd high-heeled screamers from over-done horror movies (Kaplan 22-34

One movie where the lead actress is all-powerful is in Ridley Scott 's Alien with Sigourney Weaver . Weaver plays a character named Ripley whose main objective during the progress of the film is to survive . In this survival mode the audience becomes aware of her strength because she does not go into the typical survival emotion of fear when she is being hunted by the alien but she fights back it is in this aggressive and forthright state that Ripley becomes not only a film noir goddess (a classic beauty ) but also a warrior , and thereby eliminating any gender boundaries that may have existed prior to the release of this film

Ripley 's character is stuck in outer space , thereby making pathways of escape limited and in this limitation there is the choice of hiding or seeking . In this gruesome game of hide-n-go-seek , Ripley comes into her own , and gains the strength necessary to fight the alien . Ripley uses her knowledge of the ship , or the geography of the ship , in to better survive . This type of intellect is rarely permitted to be a part of the female protagonist of a film - in fact , the female protagonist of a film prior to the genre of film noir was mainly seen to be a compliant somewhat dim-witted counterpart to the male role . Such female lead roles began changing with the incorporation of Katherine Hepburn , or Ingrid Bergman . With the expanse of movies making a direction of complexity with their female lead roles such film noir classics as Alien (1979 ) or in the re-direction of film noir Kill Bill (2003-2004 ) there exists this alternative lead female whose bravery , strength and persistence was unimagined with the dawning of cinema when the roles of the female as portrayed in Funny Face (1957 (with Audrey Hepburn ) or in Mr . Deeds Goes to Town (1936 (wherein Jean Arthur plays a one-dimensional role of Louise `Babe ' Bennett /Mary Dawson . These aforementioned films did not lend much to the female lead as they merely wanted to portray a love scene without any real depth of the character A very cut and dry comedy , or worse yet , a simplistic and pedestrian portrayal of man meets woman and no real intricacy in the relationship exists (Kaplan 100-104

In the film noir portrayal of women they are mysterious and...