Black Noir

Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song obviously had a starkly different approach to noir than the previous films we have watched. The fact that it was not based on a book led to some of these liberties, but mostly it varied in the way decent into darkness (or lack thereof) was depicted as well as the differences in main characters. In The Maltese Falcon (1946), the classic macho Sam Spade never loses or has anyone question his worth or masculinity. He starts at the top, but he descends into the darkness and moral ambiguity of noir. However, Sweetback was never at the top, or even close. He lived in the margins his whole life, first as an orphan and then as a prostitute. However, he lived as a black man in a society controlled by white people, and that is what truly marginalized him. Therefore, he never really descended into darkness, as he lived in it his whole life. Instead, the noir lies in the hopelessness of the characters. The constant shots of running and the abuse suffered by the black community as the police tried to find him show the unjust and dark place they live, where they can face beatings and torture, and no one cares.          

In Murder, My Sweet (1944), the detective Philip Marlowe has a lower economic status, so while he is not on top, he is white and that gives him advantages Sweetback does not have. Marlowe has the ability to investigate a crime he has been told to keep out of and even though he gets beaten up, he does not fear his safety that much. However, Sweetback was taken as a fake suspect to show the police were looking into a black murder. However, when the police begin to beat Mumu, he defends the one he believes will really bring about change. That makes him an actual desired suspect and now he must run from the police. While he his running for his life to Mexico, the police interrogate the community. The scene with Beetle was incredibly upsetting as the abused him, permanently deafened him, and you could see the fear in his face that he was not sure he would be allowed to walk out alive. The black community lived in the darkness and those crimes would never come to the light. Therefore the differences in the way Sweetback descended into darkness and how his character had more to worry about than the white leads of the other films led to a different type of noir, but one still impactful and marked by the grayness of morality in a changing world.

As I’ve read through Iceberg Slim’s Trick Baby, I’ve picked up on the ways in which Slim relies on the rhythms, patterns, and linguistics of the oral storytelling tradition to write his novel in a way unlike the mainstream, literary norm.

The most obvious element of this lies in Slim’s use of slang and everyday language. White Folks, our protagonist and narrator, is a white-passing black man working “the con” in the southside of 1960s Chicago. Without disrupting or slowing the narrative to define terms or thoroughly contextualize them, Slim allows White Folks to speak with a vocabulary natural to the character, flowing in such a way that the narrative moves with conversational ease. Words like flue, fluff, and the phrase Trick Baby itself are presented as commonplace words because, to this narrator, they are.

The framing device of a story within a story firmly established the novel in the oral tradition. In the prologue, Iceberg Slim himself is presented as a character serving time in prison. His new cellmate, White Folks, arrives one day and the two strike up a bond. Five days before Folks’s release, he decides to tell Slim his life story, which launches us into the narrative. So, within the world of the story itself, this story is one being told orally. The reader is then primed to approach the text with this in mind.

Pacing and the structure of the writing also lend itself to elements of the oral tradition. Characters speak expositionally, with what reads as monologues taking up pages. This style is reminiscent of a speaker taking on the voice of another, providing necessary backstory and information in a way that isn’t necessarily rooted in realistic dialogue, but efficient oral storytelling.

But what does this mean for noir? It feels unflinchingly honest, which is somewhat contradictory, given in its reliance on a storytelling form that allows for embellishment. It captures a sense of fidelity that might otherwise be missing or appear in a different form within the more straightforward, “literary” texts we’ve read previously.

Trick Baby by Iceberg Slim is similar to the other examples of the noir genre that we have read this semester but also has contrasting elements in terms of what establishes these characters on the margins of society. It is similar in its portrayal of darkness, especially in reference to black characters. Like the character of Bob in If He Hollers Let Him Go, these characters exist in a world of darkness in which they are struggling to get out of the darkness; however, for these characters and black men in general it is inescapable. In Trick Baby we see the character of White Folks trying to escape his past and his origin, which is what establishes him on the margins of society and this seems like it may lead him further into the inescapable darkness.

White Folks is multiracial in that his mother is black and his father is white, which already establishes him on the margins of society. Similar to the character of Alice in If He Hollers Let Him Go, White Folks is unable to escape this as a part of his identity, as it has been brought up several times thus far in the book. White Folk wants to be accepted and wants to be a part of the same world as Blue: “Blue, I owe you my life. I can’t forget how you stood by me when the Goddess put me into that crazy drunken tailspin. Nothing can change that or the sincere affection I feel for you” (26). However, it is evident that no matter how much White Folks attempts to throw himself into the same world as Blue, the fact that he is white-passing and that he is possibly a “trick baby” will always set him to the margins, even in the darkness. Two prominent examples in the book so far are communicated to White Folks by Blue and Mr. Murray.  In a conversation, Blue explains to White Folks that, “Some blacks have hated you because they believed you were really white…as a white child born of a brown mother, they had to hate you” (27). White Folks will always be separate from Blue and this world that it seems he is dedicated to, but his racial identity and origin will always keep him separate. When meeting with Mr. Murray, White Folks had to strongly declare that he was not a “trick baby,” but even after this declaration, Mr. Murray said he would not believe him until he saw proof on an official document of his mother’s marriage to a white man.

Trick Baby shows us a very different character on the borders that we have not yet seen in the other works of Noir that we read this semester. In The Expendable Man, we saw the characters on the margins of society dealing more with class relations, and in If He Hollers Let Him Go, we saw the characters on the margins pertaining more to race. In Trick Baby, it is quite different as this has to do with race, but also with someone’s origins, their background, which doesn’t necessarily pertain just to race. As we are being introduced to new examples of Black Noir and Noir in general, one thing that has become clear is that anyone can exist or be pushed to the margin and be on the bounds of society for really any reason.

The term Noir itself implies a complete submersion in darkness. Black is not a color, but merely an absence of light. On the other hand, white is a conglomeration of all visible light. But we must redefine our definition of Noir to consider the gray space in between—all the moral ambiguity, questioning, and chaos.

The more we read Noir, the more convoluted my definition of the genre becomes. Noir is, at a basic level, about the divide of races—of dark and light. “You see, honey, this world is really two worlds,” Phala tells her son, Trick Baby. “The white world and the black world we’re in now” (Iceberg Slim, 59). Phala’s perspective made me question the objectivity of the Noir world; if there is truly just a white and a black world, where do the morally gray characters live?

When we began in this “white world” with Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe, a descent into darkness was easy to identify. The affluent, powerful, sharp Spade and Marlowe are society’s apex predators, and subsequently descend into the world of their prey—the world of Irish and white-passing women, gay Levantines, and black murders. But even so, Spade and Marlowe already occupy a morally gray space. Though they may physically encounter darker characters and may travel to places occupied by black, yellow, and brown bodies, morally, they remain self-serving and cryptic. Thus, if Spade and Marlowe live in this white world, it is only physically at least; or, their existence within a white world proves that moral grayness for a white person is not considered “dark.”

Bob in If He Hollers Let Him Go is perhaps the blackest character we gotten to know yet—dark brown skinned and white-loathing. He sits plainly in this “black world,” a place where morals are skewed and inverted and where darkness, suffering, and trickery hides around every corner. And yet, The Expendable Man presents a new kind of black hero: Hugh, although very obviously dark-skinned, has relatively good morals.

But what defines these “good” morals or not? How can Spade and Marlowe exist in a “white world” and descend into a “black one” when they are already morally gray? How can Hugh live in a “black world” when he is more ethical than Spade and Marlowe? If Noir tells us that black = bad and white = good, then why does is there a lack of objectivity within the morals of the characters in its stories?

After watching Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song and discussing morality in class, I begun to realize the way in which morality has been framed. In America and in Christianity, morality has been consistently enforced by the traditions of Anglo-Europeans. In this “white world” we stumble upon through Noir, it is wrong to prostitute women, wrong to kill, and wrong to be queer.

But Noir is a descent into darkness. A “black world” is already dark. I think that the contrast of the white police officers and the energetic scenes of the black characters Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song prove that within a “black world,” white morality need not apply. Sweet Sweetback’s in a sense accepts this “descent into darkness.” It asks, “Why should black people not have sex freely and for pleasure? Why should a black man not enjoy being a prostitute? Why must black people listen to the rules crafted for whites?”

In Trick Baby, White Folks is caught between two worlds. He lives in darkness because of his choice to con those around him. He has, therefore, already made the descent.

All this being said, I think that Noir is less about a moral descent into darkness and more about an interaction with the “other,” who may represent this darkness. Spade and Marlowe remain relatively morally consistent throughout the text. However, they meet members of society who symbolize darkness and corruption. This is their descent into darkness.

Hugh, Bob, Sweet Back, and Trick Baby already live in a dark, “black world” in some sense. This world must not be defined by white morals, because it is in a completely different planet. So, when white people from a “white world” meet others from a “black world,” it is no wonder they treat them like aliens.

I think Noir is about this encounter—it is about the intermingling of the two worlds and the subsequent trouble that results. Perhaps Noir is wrongfully named; it is not primarily about blackness, it is about a clash of black and white. Noir is about the gray space in-between.

In the Expendable Man by Dorothy B. Hughes, our main love interest, Ellen, represents the antithesis of the femme fatale archetype. Instead of a ‘deadly woman’ who seduces the main character and leads them onto a path of darkness, Ellen is an untouchable beauty that Hugh is captivated by. It is through her aid and connections that Hugh is ultimately able to be freed from becoming the “expendable man”. Ellen is without a doubt a benevolent and key figure in this text. But, how does her identity as a privileged black woman complicate her place in this noir novel? When Hugh first sees Ellen, she is wearing a “honey-colored sheath… of some dull clinging material the exact color of her flesh… Instead of the inevitable mink stole, Ellen carried a matching scarf, fully twelve feet long, lined in lynx” (Hughes 48). This initial description of Ellen tells the reader two important things. First, Ellen is wealthy enough to wear the newest fashions and own a lynx-lined scarf. And secondly, the color of her dress is the color of her skin. In other texts we have read, the clothing women wore signaled something about the role they would play in the text. In Farewell, My Lovely, our femme fatale wears all white, contrasting the idea of purity and innocence that stems from our conception of the color white. Unlike in Farewell, Ellen’s appearance signals her beauty and desirability, but also her transparency around the reality of her race. Ellen is white passing based on Hugh’s descriptions, and with her wealth she is shielded from facing any real repercussions of that fact. Ellen says in a conversation with Hugh, she calls herself a “dark diplomat”, in recognition of her race, but she, “somehow I don’t mind invisibility. I’d rather no one saw me as I walk down the street, or pretended they couldn’t see me, than to have people nudging and pointing as if I were a freak. Even within its limitations, I like to live my life without comment” (153). Ellen’s perspective on invisibility as something that is good, contrasts our conception of the color black as darkness and evil. Ellen lives free within the confines of her blackness, and as an antithesis of a femme fatale in this genre, this space she exists in is radical.  

(post 6)

The uncertainty of race at the beginning of The Expendable Man places the issue of class at the forefront of the reader’s mind. This novel is more clearly noir than the previous novel we read, If He Hollers Let Him Go, because of its initial tone of ambiguity, especially in regards to race. It is not until page 24 when Hugh describes how he and Iris would look to people in town as “a strangely assorted couple” that their races are specifically mentioned.  Although I had suspected that the main character would be a black man, Hugh’s reasoned approach to the situations in front of him, paired with a sense of dread at the possible consequences of his actions, give off a sense of unease characteristic of the noir genre. In the first pages Hughes notes the dangers of picking up strangers from the sides of the road, mentions Hugh’s “automatic anxiety reaction that a person might step in front of the car” , “a chill of apprehension”, all phrases that invoke fear into the reader. (Hughes 4). Even after the gravitas of the situation is revealed, Hugh’s social connections allow him to face his investigation with courage.  In chapter 2 it is revealed that Hugh is from an upper middle class family with high standing in society. It is as if Hugh can forget his race, and has to remind himself that he is seen by his color before his class. For example when he is being interrogated by the police, he says that he pays his traffic tickets through the Auto club, “and realized at once that he’d done it again. Not for using the service but taking for granted the use…. Such conveniences were for white people; Negroes shuffled in line before a judge”(93). He is not outright afraid of racial violence, but the existence of his race creates a feeling of unease within the first events of the story. This class privilege gives Hugh a freedom from the stresses that Bob expressed in If He Hollers Let Him Go. Bob had an incessant desire to obtain and maintain his material wealth, and recognized others through their material signifiers. However, Hugh simply makes use of his resources without calling to attention the clothes he is wearing or the car he drives, unless it is based on how someone else sees him. Dorothy B. Hughes may be placing class at the forefront to say that when you have access to material wealth, the wealth that Bob was constantly striving for, race is more of a looming fear rather than a direct threat. This fear could at any moment, disrupt Hugh’s life, but with his access to resources, he can hide from its presence in a way that Bob could not.

(Post 5)

In Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon, the detective is the epitome of both the male persona and the mythic hero; yet what lies beneath these constructed identities is the opposite of what readers perceive. Iceberg Slim’s Trick Baby follows a similar cyclical journey toward securing the hero’s booty (both a sense of masculinity and identity as a black man). Both protagonists, Sam Spade and Johnny O’Brien (or White Folks), are constantly reminded of the femme fatale as their source of castration anxiety; they operate on the fringes of society yet maintain a stringent moral code that thumbs its nose at the anarchy and post-modernism of the mid-twentieth century.

The term “dame” is linguistically linked to “danger” and “domination” (Nesbitt). Both White Folks and Spade refer to the femme fatales they are surrounded by as “dames.” In The Maltese Falcon, the “legendary falcon” (Hammett 199) symbolizes the unattainable desire that men experience through the mystery of women. Yet this desire remains intact is the quest for the maltese falcon fails; it is for this reason that Gutman’s desire is reawakened as he decides to pursue the prized bird in Constantinople (197). In this way the oedipal child–Freud’s controversial concept of a child’s feelings of desire for their opposite-sex parent and jealousy for their same-sex parent–is linked to sexual fantasies and the primal scene. Spade demonstrates a moral ambiguity towards the three femme fatales that raise questions about his true sexual nature. 

Through the use of ambiguous bon mots such as “precious” and “angel,” Spade appears to overcompensate for a lacking sense of masculinity. Effie Perine, his secretary, is capable of luring Spade into any of her desires through her girl-ish mannerisms and appearance. Nevertheless, she is clever; her last name resembles “peregrine,” a North American bird that has highly-developed predatory skills (Nesbitt). Spade desires Iva Archer, the wife of his long-time partner, as long as she represents the castrating bitch. She is the forbidden fruit that Eve tempted Adam with; she is the prostitute who Spade feels he can dominate completely. Freud’s idea of male-object choice comes into play as Spade feels a Machiavellian cunning at cuckolding Miles by sexually penetrating his wife. Yet Spade brutally pushes Iva to the side once Miles is murdered as she becomes a dangerous and meddlesome component. Brigid O’Shaughnessy is a dangerous mix of the two extremes: she is both the castrating bitch and the mythical angel. Spade frequently uses the bon mot of “angel” to refer to Brigid; this reflects his desire appear to worship her as opposed to ravishing her. Nevertheless, his innermost desire appears to be the opposite.

White Folks frequently refers to his mother Phala’s angel face (Slim 39). He describes her as unnaturally beautiful, yet her horrific gang rape transforms her from a mythical angel to a castrating bitch in his eyes. Upon visiting her at a mental facility, Phala attempts to literally castrate White Folks after he gently kisses her on the mouth. She presents a threat to his growing sense of masculinity and self-righteousness he gains from taking advantage of people’s vices. Midge serves as his unattainable “play sister” who he both worships and reviles for her queerness. After witnessing Midge make love to Celeste, White Folks tempts a married woman on that he encounters on the street to try the same sexual positions that the lesbians used. He playfully guesses that her name is Angel, yet he desires her because she is the forbidden fruit that he should not taste.

The English language inherently has implicit biases. Putting race aside, white is associated with purity, honesty, cleanliness, and peace. However, black has associations with darkness, fear, and discomfort. When these words are introduced to describe anything, there are automatic connotations, including when speaking about race. In The Expendable Man by Dorothy Hughes, she intentionally excludes any descriptions of race when introducing characters. Hughes is playing with the language allowing the reader to determine for themselves who is good and who is bad without having the preconceived perceptions. However, it does not take long for the main character, Hugh Densmore’s identity and all its implications to be exposed. Not only does the reader find out that Hugh is black but automatically that he is one he is considered a murderer. His established and respected reputation that was created at the start of the book by his upper class status and occupation of a doctor is completely diminished. The class distinctions that were at the forefront at the beginning of the story become irrelevant and immediately Hugh casted out to the margins where he has to be cognizant of every move he makes. By the end of the story, Hugh’s upper class distinction does prevail over his racial status as he is able to make the proper connections to escape the murder allegations. Furthermore, his race actually is beneficial to him when his love interest, Ellen, chooses him over another man because he is black. Yet, regardless of how the story prevails in the end, it is especially interesting the tactics Hughes uses to avoid these language barriers and misunderstandings that are present in the English language.

As we approach the second half of the semester, I want to take an intentional look at the language used surrounding race and if the use of black and white automatically introduces stereotypes for the remainder of the story before the plot occurs

What makes a man expendable? Why can we write off other humans so easily? How has this society turned into one so self-preserving that we cannot extend basic decency to another person?

In one of my classes, we talked about the craze surrounding helping children in impoverished countries, and how often the tag line would be something to the effect of “one million children,” as if the trauma and abuse suffered means less if it isn’t an outrageous number. One child forced into prostitution in Thailand is too many, but why do people only care if it is so large a number you can take out personal choice and personality?

Fred Othy murdered an innocent girl after taking advantage of her and lying to her, then had no problem letting someone else take the punishment, so obviously he isn’t a good person. There is a lack of guilt and shame that makes him able to look someone in the eyes and destroy their lives. However, Hughes makes an interesting case that it could be easier for Othy to pin it on a black man. Venner wanted Hugh to be the culprit because it made him fit nicely into the preconceived notions he had of black men. It was so easy for Othy to get away with, that he himself might believe Hugh deserves it. The deep racism makes Hugh less human in his eyes so Othy believes why should he not pin his crimes on Hugh. The law wants it to be him, Othy does too, so it just makes sense

Even today we see these repercussions of destructive stereotypes and the injustice in legal systems around the world. Preconceived ideas of what people are capable of lead to innocent people going to jail for decades. Society needs to move past stereotypes and generalizations. Problems for an individual are still problems, we don’t need to wait until one million people are affected before we try to fix it.

As I read Hugh’s story and compared his emotions to those of Spade and Marlowe, I began to question what causes guilt. Is guilt an internal recognition of a mistake and a subsequent regret? Or is it something impressed upon us when others assume our fault? Or, does it lie somewhere in the middle?

Examining Spade and Marlowe’s stories makes me believe that guilt comes from within. Sam Spade laughs breezily in the face of accusations, making sly comments and quips. He is positive of his innocence, even if the audience is not completely sure, and so he is able to separate himself from the guilt the detectives attempt to place on him. Similarly, Marlowe—despite being a clear suspect due to his location at the time of Mariott’s murder—harbors no sense of shame for his unfortunate circumstances. Both Spade and Marlowe are able to rationalize their situations and argue the coincidence of their position with dark crime.

Before reading The Expendable Man, I viewed Spade and Marlowe’s self-assuredness as admirable, rational qualities. But upon analyzing Hugh’s paranoia and conscripted guilt, I began to view their aplomb as less of something to respect and more of a benefit of their privilege.

Who gets to bask in their innocence, and who does not?

Hugh is not able to disassociate himself with the guilt that is so forced upon him because he is reminded of it everywhere he turns. Venner lurks in shadows, Marshal Hackaberry calls him up whenever he sees fit, and Fred Othy attempt to frame him. He cannot escape this innocent guilt not only because outside forces coerce him, but because these forces begin to seep into his skin, consuming his consciousness as well. The external guilt even gaslights Hugh into believing he might’ve done something wrong, even telling Ellen he wished he would’ve done things differently. This heavy feeling weighs him down even after the true murderer was found, so much so that Hugh [wondered] if he would ever be cleansed of his innocent guilt,” even as he made his way back to the protection of his home (243).

Unlike Spade and Marlowe, Hugh cannot simply write his guilt off. He cannot laugh in the face of authoritarian accusations like Spade. He cannot justify his unfortunate circumstance of being at the wrong place at the wrong time like Marlowe.

But is Bob’s guilt inescapable simply because he is not the confident, dynamic, sharp man that Spade and Marlowe are? Or does this separation of guilt come from something more than personality; does it come from skin color? Does “innocent guilt” only exist for the Black, the dark, and can the “pure” whites escape it?

I believe both of these influences play a role in disregarding innocent guilt. Because Spade and Marlowe are white men, they have been given the privilege to fortify their qualities of confidence and sophistication, which therefore allows them to avoid any unjustified innocent guilt. But because Hugh is a Black man who is systematically oppressed and immediately pinned as the first suspect, he cannot escape the guilt that others force upon them. Hugh cannot have faith in the justice and legal system as Ellen assure him to, because those systems have perpetually proven themselves to be against men like Hugh. And so, despite his innocence, Hugh must submit to this guilt.