At 10:02 PM 05/08/2003 -0400, you wrote:
>But here's
>something that is not "crap" about the classic crime
novels of the 30s:
>Male protagonists prefer a world where women do not
influence their
>moral choices or restrain their subversive sense of
justice.
A certain amount of that is circumstantial, don't you think?
Most of the books of the 30's were written by and about men
who were searching for and developing their own codes of
behaviour, having found societal codes inadequate in the face
of 20th Century war and violence. They resisted any external
influence on their sacred codes, not just that of
women.
Having said that, the femme fatale is a fixture of the genre
and in literature in general. She is a specific threat to
male power not through direct confrontation but through
seduction and manipulation. That may have more to do with
method than gender, though certainly they are linked. I may
stand corrected, but I don't think there were a lot of gay
protagonists in the genre between the wars either. So we
don't have a pop culture basis for comparison.
Of course, the genre has broadened considerably since
then.
Best Kerry
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