Here is the assignment due 24 hours

Carlos -

A decent start to your midterm essay, though you may want to undertake a

revision, since there are a few concerns with it as things stand right now. You

demonstrate a good comprehension of the narrative of this classic film, but an

even stronger understanding of how the film is a product of its times. It’s

definitely the case that the film demonstrates the limited options available to

women at the time, whether they be a housewife like Phyllis or a college student

like Lola. At the same time, the time frame as you enumerate it is not entirely

accurate - what you note about the context is after WWII and this particular

movie was released midway through the war. It’s not entirely accurate, as a

result, though it is more or less correct in terms of what you’re suggesting about

how society positioned women. This was actually problematic and complex

during the war years as women were mobilized to do things like build aircraft

and weapons. In addition, as you will see indicated in the margins, there are a

few places where you need to explain things a little more clearly. You also need

to be much more specific at times. Furthermore, there are some inaccurate

passages - such as when you suggest Neff and Phylis are married - they are not.

They are, instead, engaged in an affair and it leads them to murder Phyllis’

husband Mr. Dietrichson. It’s important to be accurate and precise and it might

make sense to take another look at the film to make sure you are saying what you

really wish to say. The grade below reflects these things more than anything else.

If you choose to undertake a revision, there are a few things to do in addition to

fact checking and rewatching the movie. First, while each individual point is

clear for the most part, the paper lacks a larger, overarching thesis and argument.

It is plain enough that, you wish to talk about gender and morality in the film,

which is fine, but you need to consider a broader way of framing the issue. In

each instance, you should relate your examples and observations back this

overriding concept that is the crux of your discussion – that the film is really

about gender roles as they pertain to conventional morality - the kind of social

climate of the 1940s in other words. Otherwise, when you talk about morality it’s

a little vague exactly how you mean that term. What is at stake, in other words,

in the film’s treatment of gender and morality, separately and alone? That would

address the larger issue of the correlation between gender, sexuality and morality

- what noir does as a genre is bring these things together under a single heading -

which is deviance from convention - something to which you allude but should

fully engage. These things are all related, so with each paragraph you need to

correlate things more directly to a concrete thesis, something that will tie together

the disparate strands of the discussion. Otherwise, at times it seems that you are

not really engaging the assignment as written; it seems, instead that you’re

arguing around the point and assignment rather than directly addressing it.

Second, while you have a good discussion of Phyllis and what she represents you

have to do two things. One, you have to consider how, in her boredom and

frustration with being confined to her home, she acts on in terms of sleeping

around and committing a murder and two, how she finds a willing and eager

partner in Neff, something which turns her from suburban housewife to a femme

fatale. So, in order to be comprehensive when it comes to gender and morality

you have to engage with Neff and his association with Phyllis, because it’s the

male-female interaction that highlights a noir’s treatment of gender roles. The

kinds of questions to mull over are: How does the femme fatale Phyllis highlight

the deficiencies of Neff as a man? What does it reveal about masculinity through

Phyllis’ actions? What makes the weak man weak in comparison to the female

character? Consider that Neff has failed to properly take on the social role

typically assigned to the men in society. He is an unmarried man over 30 who

has no home and is rootless. Consider how Neff’s masculinity is problematized.

He is a ‘weak’ character in terms of traditional manhood. How does this

weakness manifest itself? How can we understand how Phyllis speaks to his

weakness and also to his sense of himself as a man? Just as the femme fatale

violates the norms of middle class values, the male protagonist does as well – it’s

just that the femme fatale’s actions reveal this to be the case. How does this pose

a threat to society? How is this framed in moral terms? What is the function of

Keyes in this regard? You don’t even mention his character but he’s pivotal not

just because Neff is betraying him for sex, but because he also reveals something

about the femme fatale as well as about masculinity. There’s one last thing to

consider when it comes to the femme fatale: Just why is it that morality, deviance

and sexuality are linked? What does that suggest in terms of a larger symbolic

argument that the film is attempting to make?

So basically, you’re on the right track here, but you need to follow through in

order to make a truly convincing argument about the film’s depiction of gender,

and by extension the noir concepts of deviance and morality.

Tentative Grade: C+