I find that police in all of the novels and movie we have encountered are not really incompetent but rather a nuisance. They are like a thorn in the side whose only accomplishment is to further irritate and creating more paranoia within the protagonist. Not only that, some of them are depicted as kind of corny. For example, in In a Lonely Place, they accuse Dixon of murder, but Dix, being the witty, suave, cynical guy that he is completely plays the police captain and detective. What I mean by "plays them" is that he answers their questions honestly, but does it in a way that is completely condescending. We see the same thing in The Talented Mr. Ripley. Tom completely dupes the detectives in pursuit of him. They are not incompetent because they do manage to attract the attention of the protagonist, and make him change his behavior, but Tom easily shrugs them off with his trickery. This also happened in The Postman Rings Twice. He is not a cop, but it seems like the judge has Chambers cornered, but by luck and a little help he is easily able to evade him. To me, I get the feeling that the law enforcement in noir are bitches. Like when they are presented in any of the movies and stories, I kind of can already predict they won't do shit. Even though some protagonist commit some pretty heinous crimes, I still root for them against the police. They may scratch the surface of a crime, but the protagonist is easily able to out clever them. In light of all this, I found this video would describe the protagonists' attitudes towards police:
Monday, November 5, 2012
The "incompetency" of noir police
I find that police in all of the novels and movie we have encountered are not really incompetent but rather a nuisance. They are like a thorn in the side whose only accomplishment is to further irritate and creating more paranoia within the protagonist. Not only that, some of them are depicted as kind of corny. For example, in In a Lonely Place, they accuse Dixon of murder, but Dix, being the witty, suave, cynical guy that he is completely plays the police captain and detective. What I mean by "plays them" is that he answers their questions honestly, but does it in a way that is completely condescending. We see the same thing in The Talented Mr. Ripley. Tom completely dupes the detectives in pursuit of him. They are not incompetent because they do manage to attract the attention of the protagonist, and make him change his behavior, but Tom easily shrugs them off with his trickery. This also happened in The Postman Rings Twice. He is not a cop, but it seems like the judge has Chambers cornered, but by luck and a little help he is easily able to evade him. To me, I get the feeling that the law enforcement in noir are bitches. Like when they are presented in any of the movies and stories, I kind of can already predict they won't do shit. Even though some protagonist commit some pretty heinous crimes, I still root for them against the police. They may scratch the surface of a crime, but the protagonist is easily able to out clever them. In light of all this, I found this video would describe the protagonists' attitudes towards police:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Cole, I agree with the way police are portrayed in the noir films and books we have read thus far. They do seem to play a very small role, if any by the end of the plot line. We also saw the role of the police in Rendezvous as well and all we saw was this "new" cop coming in and ruining the life of Johnny and ultimately setting him off on his killing spree over the next however many years.
ReplyDeleteI agree too - but in Cotton Comes to Harlem, I see the police portrayed a little differently. They seemed a little smarter and wittier than the ones we've come across in the other novels/movies. Either way, they're not really depicted as virtuous or innocent. They have their biases, they play their games, but they do eventually end up outwitting the criminals.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to note that we seem to be describing two types of cops: those that are incompetent/a nuisance, or those that don't work as normal cops do. At no point are we describing police as they were meant to be thought of, which is helpful and strong. We see incompetent police all over "In A Lonely Place," as we've said before. We also see abnormal cops in "Cotton Comes to Harlem," where Coffin Ed and Gravedigger break a felon out of prison in order to find their guy.
ReplyDeleteThis definitely seems to be a noir characteristic, but probably not one a very favorable one. It would be interesting to see if noir is even possible with a straight cop. My guess is no; that would be in the detective genre almost immediately.