Joaquim da Silva Fontes, Significação e Estabilidade do Género no ...

of The Big Combo, and the homosexual relationship between Mingo and Fante, which is no
less explicitly intertwined with the violence they inflict than Bart and Annie Laurie’s
attraction to each other is in Gun Crazy (films by Joseph H. Lewis – see Part IV). Some
other protagonists like the acid-tongued columnist Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb) in
Laura or Johnny’s aggressive behaviour in Gilda seem symptomatic of pain over
compounded rejections; or the psychotic Bruno (Robert Walker) in Strangers on a Train,
with his forceful and insinuating homoerotic undertones (expressed in his crude (Freudian)
hatred for his father and overprotection by his mother).
Figure 38. The Maltese Falcon
In trying to escape the censors’ scissors, intimations of homosexuality were created
either by the use of symbolic tools (especially weapons like revolvers and guns as a
reference to the male organ) or by using cinematographic techniques (such as close-ups,
slow motion and lighting) reflecting glances and gestures which stand for desires and
subtexts that cannot be expressed in words. Any discussion of film noir has implicitly to
acknowledge the function of sexuality as an intrinsic driving force in its narrative patterns.
Some critics go so far as to argue that there would be no film noir without aggressive
sexual provocation, which leads these dramas to their destructive ends. I would also add
that even when film noir is overtly demonising of both women or homosexuals, it
nevertheless still paved the way for psychoanalytic and “deconstructive critical discourse”
that have laid bare the strategy of scapegoating which underpins popular cultural forms.
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