Feminism in the Crime Film Genre

8 Pages 2073 Words

the doorbell rings and the rival gang drops of Tom’s gun riddled body.

The other women who appear in the movie are portrayed as fast women who are sexual object to be enjoyed by Tom, until he gets tired of them and then throws them away. In one famous movie seen, Tom doesn’t appreciate what his mistress moll Kitty (played by Mae Clarke) said to him, so he wickedly squeezes half of a grapefruit into her face. She is left there belittled, too afraid to stick up for herself.

With the 1960’s, came confusion in the dominant culture about women’s roles in the cinema. Women were now being portrayed as powerful, unpredictable, and possessing a mysterious sexual power, which they used to elude male control. The 1960’s also brought with it his tensions that resulted the escalating war in Vietnam, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, black ghettos going up in flames, the women’s liberation movement, the youth anti-war rebellion and free love theme, and the Civil Rights movement. It was safe to say that the American public had violence on its mind and the movie industry capitalized on the public’s apprehensions. Director Arthur Penn used Bonnie & Clyde as his medium to imprint the rebellious tone of the 1960’s and the uncertainty of the dominant values and norms of society.

When we’re first introduced to the character of Bonnie Parker (played by Faye Dunaway), the camera focuses on her as she is admiring her naked body in the mirror. She then falls back on her bed and the camera views her from the outside of her...