doubled their wages.”
9
Nevertheless, it still had contradictions in society, as women were still expected to maintain their traditional roles and only work out of necessity until the male
workforce was reintegrated with society. This viewpoint was even more prevalent among war veterans when they returned home after the war. Many war veterans still kept their traditional
pre-war viewpoints about traditional gender roles or even felt more strongly about them. As women also made up a greater viewership in movie theaters during the war, more
films had to be produced that were appealing to them. As a consequence, more melodramas were made with stories that female moviegoers could relate to. Therefore, “Femme noirs –
noir films written, produced, or directed by women – share many traits with the woman’s film: female protagonists; gender anxiety; and ambivalence, or downright cynicism, about
marriage. In addition to treating women’s issues, then, these films blurred generic boundaries and brought strong women characters into formerly male territory.”
10
2.2 Post World War II Condition
Wheeler Winston Dixon detailed the effects of the war for veterans when WWII was over. “They returned to a world transformed into an alien landscape, something they didn’t
understand and didn’t recognize as home, a place full of new and strange social customs, in which the fabric of prewar society had been torn asunder by massive social, economic, and
political change.”
11
In essence, post-war noir films depicted the realities of the new world they had to adjust to.
In the mid-1940s, many of the noir films reflected cynicism by a society that was suspicious of others, even though the USA had won the war. These kinds of films depict a
9
Osteen, Mark. Nightmare Alley: Film Noir and the American Dream. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 2012, p.186.
10
Ibid, p.187.
11
Wheeler, Winston, and Dixon. Film Noir and the Cinema of Paranoia. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009, p.9.
kind of nostalgia for a past time in the wake of a changing society. People felt insecure and mistrustful of others as they lost their sense of security and innocence from before the war.
This kind of nostalgia is evident in the film The Postman Always Rings Twice. Most movies produced during the time were family films and escapist musicals. The noir films made in the
mid to late 1940s wanted to express what the undercurrent feelings and realities were really like of the period. These films tried to convey a darker perception of American life, not just
the happy endings of family films. “At their peak in the late 1940s, these crime films comprised as much as 16 of Hollywood’s annual output.”
12
Many of these films were made as social criticisms of one form or another, depending on the year they were made.
The cynicism and concern regarding the post-war society was due to many factors occurring simultaneously. For example, the big band music of the 1940s started to be
replaced by rhythm and blues and later rock and roll. Television became more important as people prioritized family life and did not congregate with their friends as much in movie
theaters or other social functions. People were also focused more on material possessions. As society was continuously changing at a rapid pace, the small-town living conditions were not
applicable anymore. The end of the war, in fact, also signaled the end of past times as America was thrust into a new unpredictable future. The feeling of uneasiness about the
future was exposed when Japan surrendered on August 14, 1945. “That same night the War Department dispatched 37,300 telegrams to war contractors canceling 83,000 uncompleted
munitions contracts worth 17.5 billion 209 billion in 2009 purchasing power, thus saving the last possible defense dollars.”
13
As soldiers would be returning home and women not sure of their places in the workforce, this created much uncertainty and concerns about a recession
that are depicted in this style of film.
12
Lingeman, Richard. The Noir Forties: The American People from Victory to Cold War. New York: Nation Books, 2012, p.190.
13
Ibid, p.17.
For Lingeman, noir films remind him of what life was like in the WWII and post- WWII era. Many of his experiences while serving in the Army in the late 1940s in Japan
provided insight into the general sentiment of the period.
14
According to Lingeman, “Those films seemed to catch the paranoia, the deception, the mendacity of the cold war. The films
served as divining rods for subterranean memories.”
15
For Lingeman, these movies evoked the mood of the period leading up to the Korean War. Although Lingeman focuses more on
the aftermath of WWII and the relation with noir films, similar dark themes are found in the early 1940s films as well. As many of the post-WWII films are reflections of subconscious
reactions like the increasing tensions between the USSR and the USA, the Red Scare, the blacklists, and the loyalty investigations, the films reveal a common theme of despair and fear
of Communism that was felt by society at large. This theme of despair and fear is also prevalent in early 1940s films, but more related to fear of Germans and uncertainty about the
future. Therefore, whether looking at pre or post WWII noir films, the psychological effects that were prevalent during the various periods reveal how movies can be a reflection of
society. After many people lived through the Great Depression and found an economic boom
during WWII, they became more materialistic. “Young people, especially young servicemen and their girls, wanted to have fun, forget the war, bury the pledges of monogamy, and enjoy
the sexual freedom that followed the relaxing of Victorian morals under the pressures of transient wartime encounters.”
16
After WWII, people were torn between relief that the war had ended and worry about what the postwar world would bring. The war was able to bring
people together to fight against a common enemy. People would pull together and had a collective purpose. After the war was over, the most pressing issue was would peace bring
14
Ibid, p.13.
15
Ibid, p.14.
16
Ibid, p.74.
prosperity or another depression. People who were optimistic only could look to the near future and were very cautious as they were still worried about Germany and Japan starting
another war or tensions increasing with the Soviet Union. Anxiety about the future is conveyed by Edward R. Murrow 1945. “Seldom, if ever, has a war ended leaving the
victors with such a sense of uncertainty and fear, with such a realization that the future is obscure.”
17
Wartime propaganda movies planted in American minds two ideas. One was the division of the world into slave and free, representing either the forces of evil or those
of righteousness. And the other was a universalized version of the idea of regeneration through war,” which united Americans in patriotic oneness, unmarred by class, race,
or other social barriers. War would bring internal and international harmony the films taught.
18
This propaganda would also aid Americans in getting ready for the cold war. This
kind of pro-America propaganda is seen in Table 2 pg.176.
Next, Dennis Broe’s Film Noir, American Workers, and Postwar Hollywood explores the lives of workers and how the work sphere has changed over the years, especially since the
end of World War II. Through an analysis of film noir, he looks at how cultural productions were affected by society and political matters. Broe considers the period after the war as one
in which people should have faced optimism but instead dealt with various pressures at home and the increased tensions with Russia overseas. In discussing noir films, Broe states, “The
form itself becomes a lament for a broken promise of a hoped-for social change after the war that was never realized.”
19
The effects of people losing their jobs after the war due to government war contracts being cancelled had a negative perception about the future among
17
Murrow, Edward R., 1945 qtd in Lingeman, Richard. The Noir Forties: The American People from Victory to Cold War. New York: Nation Books, 2012, p.62.
18
Lingeman, Richard. The Noir Forties: The American People from Victory to Cold War. New York: Nation Books, 2012, p.32.
19
Broe, Dennis. Film Noir, American Workers, and Postwar Hollywood Working in the Americas. Florida: University Press of Florida, 2010, p.1.
many Americans. “A Gallop poll showed that 62 of the public feared a serious depression in the next 10 years.”
20
Broe claims that film noir was developed after World War II due to when Americans had many hopes and dreams that were about to be realized, but then they were taken away.
Related with this, he says film noir is a longing for a desired change that did not come to fruition. At a class level, this is found in the union struggles after the war to improve worker
livelihood. The position of the union worker fighting against a big corporation is similar with a fugitive going against the law. Likewise, Lingeman claims that film noir was born at the
end of the war, and the product of several social, political, and artistic developments; however, many other sources point to its beginning much earlier.
21
Broe considers film noir to be primarily an expression of class, and particularly of postwar American class tensions and class struggle.
22
During the war, prices and wages were frozen and unions were not allowed to strike. In practice, especially after the war, strikes
were more common. The noir character can be representative of this as a counter to government regulations. Therefore, in the period during and after WWII, many social,
cultural, economic, and political factors played significant roles in societal perceptions and their portrayals through entertainment media.
2.3 Noir Production and Censorship Restrictions
