Inherent Vice, feminist work?, always sez Alice, even when not ten feet tall

[Carvill, John]

The post-WWII thing is a pretty common (and commonly accepted) theory of Film Noir. Not sure about making it specific to male anxiety over loss of stature or masculinity.

> he genre would seem to re-empower men because they show a very strong white man with a gun in his hand who can fix the world's problems on his own...

Hmm. Or sometimes they show a very strong white man with a gun in his hand, who gets kicked around, betrayed, sold out, cheated or even killed by a *woman*.

Don't think the post-WWII male, if he's suffering some sort of masculinity crisis, could find much solace in Film Noir.

> However, I think they reflect the anxiety more than the solution..

Yeah. Don't think they provide (or suggest) a solution. And I'm not sure the type of anxiety they don't offer a solution for has much to do with loss of stature/masculinity. Other than that, I unequivocally agree with Ms Abbott. Haven't actually read her paper though. Will look it up.....

Cheers
J

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf Of Mark Kohut
Sent: 12 February 2010 04:25
To: pynchon -l
Subject: Inherent Vice, feminist work?, always sez Alice, even when not ten feet tall

A writer and scholar named Meghan Abbott published "The Street Was Mine: White Masculinity in Hardboiled Fiction and Film Noir." 

Crux was, she sez [interview in Brooklyn Rail, Oct 2009], rise of [the genre] relected a white male anxiety about a loss of stature and power at that time, coming out of the depression and WW2. Especially in the post-war experience, there's a sense of an embattled white masculinity. ...the genre would seem to re-empower men because they show a very strong white man with a gun in his hand who can fix the world's problems on his own...
..However, I think they reflect the anxiety more than the solution because they're filled with neurotic men suffering madly and unable to control themselves. 

Discuss. 

Discuss Doc as the 'solution'....