Noir Characters

Characters in noir, differ to other genres. In noir it is often more difficult to say who is good and who is bad. 

Male protagonist:

• Male protagonists are anti-heroes rather than heroes: often anti-social loners, cynical, disillusioned, morally ambiguous, flawed or tarnished in some way by their past. They may have their own moral code but they will be out of step with society and ultimately powerless. 
  
• The heroes of noir generally share certain qualities, such as moral ambiguity, a fatalistic outlook, and alienation from society. They also exhibit an existential acceptance of random, arbitrary occurrences as being the determining factors in life. 
• Although the “hard-boiled detective” is the stereotypical noir hero, the central male characters in film noir range from drifters (Frank Chambers in Tay Garnett’s The Postman Always Rings Twice, 1946) to college professors (Prof. Richard Wanley in Lang’s The Woman in the Window, 1944). 
• The ethics that these characters espouse are often borne more of personal code than true concern for their fellow man. For example, Humphrey Bogart (the actor perhaps most associated with the genre) as private eye Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon is emotionally indifferent to the murder of his partner and avenges his death primarily because “when one of your organization gets killed, it’s bad business to let the killer get away with it.” Such compassionless pragmatism is found in the most noble, as well as the most tarnished, of noir heroes. 
• The weakest of such characters exhibit an abundance of tragic flaws, often including an uncontrollable lust for duplicitous women.

-  www.britannica.com
- Media Studies - A resource book for Year 13 Students, Chesterman, S & Winnall, A

Anti-Hero / Flawed Hero
Heroes (or anti-heroes), corrupt characters and villains included down-and-out, conflicted hard-boiled detectives or private eyes, cops, gangsters, government agents, a lone wolf, socio-paths or killers, crooks, war veterans, politicians, petty criminals, murderers, or just plain Joes. These protagonists were often morally-ambiguous low-lifes from the dark and gloomy underworld of violent crime and corruption. Distinctively, they were cynical, tarnished, obsessive (sexual or otherwise), brooding, menacing, sinister, disillusioned,frightened and insecure loners (usually men), struggling to survive - and in the end, ultimately losing.
- www.filmsite.org

Femme Fatale:

• Although the principal character is male, females are central to noir plots. This was not the case in mainstream film where female roles were most commonly defined by their relationships to men (eg: wife, mother, etc) and were supporting roles to the male protagonists. 
• Women in noir are generally either the social ideal - dutiful, reliable, trustworthy - reinforcing social ‘norms’, or they are a destructive force.
• Stereotypes of dangerous women in films were not entirely new but the femme fatale took the danger to new levels. 
• The femme fatale is defined by her sexuality which makes her irresistible and lethal to the male protagonist. She will be ‘unnatural’,  without home or family or a desire for either. In this she poses a threat to social order through her independence. 
• Noir women are often characterized as femme fatales or “spider women”; in the words of one critic, they are “comfortable in the world of cheap dives, shadowy doorways, and mysterious settings.” Well aware of their sexual attractiveness, they cunningly and ruthlessly manipulate their male counterparts to gain power or wealth; for example, by conspiring to murder her spouse. Nevertheless, the women of film noir often evoke sympathy, as they are frequently victims of emotional or physical abuse, with such victimization providing impetus for their vengeance. They are trapped in passionless or violent marriages and resort to murder as a means of escape, usually destroying their conspiring paramours in the process.

- www.britannica.com
- Media Studies - A resource book for Year 13 Students, Chesterman, S & Winnall, A


Femme Fatale
The females in film noir were either of two types (or archetypes) - dutiful, reliable, trustworthy and loving women; or femmes fatales - mysterious, duplicitous, double-crossing, gorgeous, unloving, predatory, tough-sweet, unreliable, irresponsible, manipulative and desperate women. Usually, the male protagonist in film noir wished to elude his mysterious past, and had to choose what path to take (or have the fateful choice made for him).
Invariably, the choice would be an overly ambitious one, to follow the dangerous but desirable wishes of these dames. It would be to pursue the goadings of a traitorous, self-destructive femme fatale who would lead the struggling, disillusioned, and doomed hero into committing murder or some other crime of passion coupled with twisted love.
When the major character was a detective or private eye, he would become embroiled and trapped in an increasingly-complex, convoluted case that would lead to fatalistic, suffocating evidences of corruption, irresistible love and death. The femme fatale, who had also transgressed societal norms with her independent and smart, menacing actions, would bring both of them to a downfall.
- www.filmsite.org

 
A key element of this strength is her sexual forthrightness. The femme fatale is not passive when it comes to desire. She takes action to get what - and whom - she wants with a directness and aggression previously reserved for male players. As a result she is sometimes labelled a ‘predator’, despite acting no differently from accepted male norms.
The true femme fatale forms a triangle with a married couple. She’s a ‘stray electron’, threatening the stability of their nuclear family. More than just attracting the easily duped noir protagonist, she lures him into eliminating the ‘passive spouse’.This spouse may be either his wife or her husband, but either way they are portrayed as inadequately fulfilling the marriage’s needs – for excitement, mainly. 
The femme fatale thus occupies a space of transgression, of crossing over into illicit desires and actions.
The femme fatale is a key element in noir’s crossing over to the dark side of human nature. She arose as a response to threatened male authority but the needs of the thriller to excite audiences made her so exotic and intriguing (if not necessarily attractive) that she’s still compelling today.
- www.bighousefilm.com/noir_intro.htm

 Sometimes the dangerous woman is simply a sexual predator who tempts and weakens a male protagonist; sometimes she actually imitates male aggression and appropriates male power. Constrained by the Hays Code, Hollywood tended to package the femme fatale narrative in ways that ensured the defeat of the independent female, but such was the power of the image of the sexual, aggressive, strong woman that she in many ways, in the minds of audiences, resisted this formulaic reassertion of male control.

- The Development of Post-war Literary and Cinematic Noir, Lee Horsley