This week, in Literature of California, we are wrapping up our literary and film noir experience. In many ways, we see 1930's and 1940's detective fiction and film noir serve as inspiration to this day in all aspects of pop culture, from film and television to music videos and video games.
The comic above is from the fantastic Calvin and Hobbes and features a recurring character, Tracer Bullet, that Calvin habitually uses as escapism fiction when he has gotten into trouble. In just a few frames, we can see Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Patterson utilizes many of the tropes associated with hard-boiled fiction and noir.
Both genres have also been used to great satirical effect. Below are two clips from Steve Martin's early 1980's film Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, in which Martin actually wove original film noir scenes into his parody film about a hard-boiled detective.
Hard-boiled detective novels and film noir are not just for adults, either. Below are clips from the Disney film Who Framed Roger Rabbit and an old Muppets cartoon, both of which use the two genres for inspiration.
For this week's blog post, I want you to write a short paragraph about why you think hard-boiled detective fiction and film noir are still so influential in pop culture today. What about both genres still speaks to modern audiences? What stylistic choices, both in the literature and in film, make it so compelling to honor and make fun of, artistically? Finally, pick two or three tropes that your film group is planning on including in the noir film you are creating.
