The Lessons of Film Noir

Hey my beautiful readers!

Have you ever wondered if there was an entire film genre that you can relate to without even knowing it? Have you ever noticed a similarities between the events in your life and the things that the stereotypical things that happened within a film genre? For me, that genre was Film Noir.

My fascination with Film Noir started during my Sophomore year of High School when I was taking a course called The History of the Motion Picture. The Professor showed the class two films from the genre. I believe that the films were The Maltese Falcon (1941) and Casablanca (1942), both films starred Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre. The aspects that drew me to Film Noir are the things that I have yet to figure out. As part of the course, the Professor assigned us an assignment to review the film and critique it based on what we like and don't like about the film. From what I can remember, I wrote the review on Casablanca because of its memorial and realistic conclusion. I said that Casablanca had a lot of mystery to offer compared to The Maltese Falcon, which isn't a complete lie. Casablanca is one of those films that I kept close to my heart since I've graduated High School. Why is that? Aside from the fact that its as old as the death of one of my all time favorite actresses, Carole Lombard. I kept Casablanca close to my heart because I've seen it before High School. I've seen the basic plot come to life around me.

Take the four typical characters in the genre, for example. There's the Anti-Hero, the Femme Fatal, the Villain, and the Girl Next Door. The Anti-Hero is someone who usually has a bad history but changes over the course of the story. The Femme Fatal is a person who's usually shown as a "sexy" young woman wearing a tight dress and red lipstick to lure men into her secret plots. The Femme Fatal is also the person who usually gets themselves in danger and they are intertwined with the murderers plot which backfires on them, which ends up with them being murdered. The Villain is someone who is obviously shown as the dangerous people in the story. They are also the people who has the initiative to ruin people's lives. These are the people who doesn't care who gets hurt or the consequences that comes with their actions. Lastly, the Girl Next Door. They are the people who's seen as innocent and happy within the course of the story. They are also the people who the Anti-Hero really wants but doesn't realize it. However, The Girl Next Door character is hardly used in darker films within the Film Noir genre because of directors wants to use darker and deeper characters to better flesh out the storyline.

If you take those four character archetypes from the Film Noir genre and apply it to the people around you, you'll notice some sort of similarities between the archetypes and the kind of people to avoid or embrace in the near future. But there's a catch... The catch is that whichever character archetype that you think that you are won't be as clear as you think it is to find.

For me, the Villain has always been society, the Philippine media, and beauty trends because of how much influence the media, society, and current trends has on a teen aged woman. I believe that we don't need to wear the latest trends to be glamorous because it's what society tells you that you should wear. But isn't being glamorous, the same thing as standing there and being dumb? At least, that's what Hedy Lamarr defines being glamorous but there's more to being glamorous than just a look. Being glamorous is also being smart and doing a "man's job" as proved many numerous Femme Fatals and female Villains.

The Anti-Hero is my family because they're the ones that tends to apply the aspects of the social norms to either myself or my sister. The fact that they don't know about this blog and the kinds of topics that I talk about on social media and in school, just proves to me how much stuff that they need to discover about me. I know because every time that I have to remind my grandmother that I'm asexual. It doesn't stick. It doesn't stick because she keeps on saying that people would be shocked if I've gotten myself a boyfriend. Because I'm not the type of girl who would lower herself for that kind of thing, I prefer to go out with my artistic abilities rather than some bullshit guy that my grandmother pushes onto me.

As for me, I am both The Femme Fatal and The Girl Next Door because I know the things that aren't the things that most Filipinx women would care about at all. For starters, I care about women's independence because I think that above all women could make a name for themselves in the world without a man to fight for them. Women aren't weak and vulnerable. Women are passionate with the things that they believe in. I believe in social justice. I know that the #BlackLivesMatter is a thing and people support it but it seems to be a narrowing concept to me because if Black Lives Matter does that mean that Asian or Latinx lives does not? If so, does All Lives Matter?

Till then,

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