Censorship and Patriarchal Ideology

Abstract

This chapter begins by examining theoretical models for the study of narrative provided by anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss and Tzvetan Todorov. For a period from the early 1930s until the mid-1950s, Hollywood films were subject to regulation by censors who had the power to alter the cause–effect logic of the narrative in order to make it comply with their patriarchal moral ideology. This included the rule of ‘compensating moral values’, which assured that a character who committed an immoral action had to be either punished or redeemed within the narrative. Melodramas position the central female character as a victim, and are narrated from her perspective. The melodrama narrates a female predicament and offers female viewers a lesson in how (or how not) to behave. Meanwhile, films noir are typically narrated from the male perspective and position the male detective/hero as a victim of female manipulation or betrayal. The ‘femme fatale’ is a male construct; she represents male anxieties about women's changing roles in society, especially her sexual and economic independence. Neo-noir films deliberately subvert the rule of ‘compensating moral values’ and offer female viewers a rare opportunity to derive pleasure from narcissistic identification with the femme fatale.