No Such Thing As Happy Endings

No Such Thing As Happy Endings

The Noir is such a nuisance of a genre. First of all, there is a crime being committed, the person committing the crime expects not to get caught. Even the detective just wants to put someone behind bars. Noir also has these lovely looking female characters, known as femme fatales, but I call them hussies. They are typically a beautiful white lady trying to seduce someone and sometimes they are the causes of some of these “perfect crimes”. Being a white woman in this time was an all access pass to do whatever you wanted without consequence. Femme fatales are a key aspect to noir because they are a danger to themselves or others. They serve as a way to make or break a case. By make or break, I mean break. To put the icing on this delightful noir cake, there is the overarching theme that reoccurs impending doom. Ultimately, no matter what happens, something or someone is going to mess us. The crime is solved, someone dies, someone goes to jail, and kinds of other shit that can bring doom to someone’s life. Between the crimes, femme fatales, and impending doom being so common, there is no such thing as a happy ending in my noir experience. So what’s my point? Noir always finds a way to disappoint.

If I may, we can start with the film, The Killing. It is has this “down to the detail” plot with a narrator who doesn’t let you miss anything. The plan is to commit the perfect robbery, and they do this at the horse race track since those tracks have tons of cash on sight. Johnny Cash, the leader of the operation, George, the gullible kiss-ass, Nikki, who has a dying wife, and a few other characters are the pieces to this puzzle. Then there is Fay, the wife, girlfriend, or just his boo. She does not fulfil the requirements of being a femme fatale, but  Sherri is. I personally don't like her because she cheated on George with some guy named Val. Sherri and Val are a good reason why the plan didn't work. Cash is the crime committer in this situation, everyone everyone else is just helping distract the general crowd. George had told Sherri about the plan, and she told Val so that he can rob them after the shenanigans. Our lovely femme fatale Sherri now causes danger to herself and others. How? She interfered with the scheme, so Cash was unable to deliver the money to any of them. Along with that, George finally came to the realization that Sherri was sleeping with someone else (Val) and he straight shot her. She deserved it. I didn't like her anyway. Now you would think that since Cash still has all the money, he would be set, right. Wrong. The entire time he is trying to get this money together, he is not really thinking as much as he is trying to meet deadlines. The money started off in a bag that screams “I HAVE STOLEN MONEY IN THIS!” He hears it, so he goes to buy a suitcase, but the lock wouldn't work to secure the case, and guess what he does. He continues to use the case. Let’s pause for a second here. I brought up this idea of impending doom briefly. Of all the endings within noir films, this was in my top 2 Saddest Moments in Noir board. Here’s what happened. Cash put the money in the suitcase. It’s not secure. He has to get on the plan though with his lady Fay, and he wants to take the suitcase on board. Unfortunately the case is too big to go on the plan so he has to check it in. About 10 minutes of pleading and begging went by and Cash was still unable to convince the clerks to let him take this big ass suitcase on the plane. He finally lets them take it to the back, you know where they take the other bigger bags.When they took the bag from Cash, my heart raced as I was certain things would go left. Everything was going fairly smooth but the musical score implied something is going to happen, which made me nervous.  Well it does. A random dog hops its little self all on the runway and knocks over the bags. When that suitcase hit the ground, all the money came flying out. There were hundreds everywhere. My heart broke for him. That in itself was traumatizing. The airplane people figured out it was all stolen money and they locked him up. If that's not impending doom I don't know what is.

The Killing  was a great example of how noir disappoints me. It is more about the idea of impending doom because society teaches us at young ages about happy endings. I grew up watching Disney. Snow White, Cinderella and a lot of other princess got happy endings, so that is what I believed all movies encompassed. However, the thing noir does is provide a realistic view of life. Basically stating, if you commit a crime, you will get arrested or if you join a mob, you will get killed. That’s how that works. Noir is definitely a disappoint because we crave the idea of happy endings. We want to devour the lives of this fictional characters so that we as real people can have the illusions that our lives don’t suck.

Whether it is finding your true love, obtaining wealth, or being free within your own right, we have formed this notion in our minds that gives us this false impression that we will find happiness in everything we do. Another noir I want to discuss is the novel Devil in a Blue Dress. Devil in a Blue Dress has a African American main character. Me being African American myself, I was immediately intrigued. This would be the one time the black guy doesn't die first, because you can't kill the main character in the beginning of the story. I was thinking “finally, the person i'm rooting for isn't going to die!” What I liked about Devil in a Blue Dress is that it addressed many issue we continue to face today such as colorism, racism, mental health, sexual assault, and various other topics. A brief synopsis of the novel is as follows: The main character is  Easy, a young black man from Texas moved to California in order to build a better life for himself and own something of his own. He wants to live the white American dream. Therefore, he starts to work for a white man as a spy of sorts. They are looking for a white girl, Daphne who we just can't seem to find until halfway through the book. Where you been Daphne? Any way she is the femme fatale. Like I said earlier, white girls and their privileges let them do whatever they please. Easy’s friend Mouse comes in the picture and is basically the bad cop of the operation. He does all the killing and torturing and what not throughout the book. This guy is a lunatic. He kills Albright, the boss, and Joppy. Then he goes to sleep afterwards. Evidently, Mouse has zero conscious and understands this fact about himself. Anyway, by the end of the book we discover some new information. Daphne, the white girl, is really Ruby a black girl. She is just high yellow in complexion and can pass as white, which is what she had been doing for such a long time; she lets people think she is white because she is running from her past. She was sexually assaulted as a child, and this new identity hides that shame she felt, which is totally understandable. Also, Easy didn’t die which is amazing, and he works for himself taking on detective jobs whenever he pleases. He also owns a few houses that he rents out to make money as well. Smart man.

So why was Devil in a Blue Dress a disappointment? The issues brought up such as colorism and self identity were more so praised than critiqued. It makes sense though because during this time period of the 1940’s it was a crime to be Black. Black people were the bottom of the barrel and if you were high yellow, light skin, mullato, half caste, or any other adjective except dark, then you took yourself over to the white people and tried to convince them you were one. The idea of self hate presented itself, but it was applauded by the end of the book, and sends a message to the audience that it is bad being Black. Throughout the book, Easy was repeatedly jumped and harassed because he was Black. They beat the shit out of him in the streets, in the police station, at his house, and all types of ther places. The book also disappointed because the femme fatale was nowhere to be found until the end of the book. Ummm, where have you been Daphne? We have been looking for you. I find it amazing how a person can be a danger to themselves and others without being around for so long. That idea happened in an earlier film Laura as well. We aren’t going to get into that today though. I also didn't like Daphne because she hid her Blackness her entire life. Even though she was assaulted sexually, I truly believe she did not have to deny her entire ethnicity because of it. If anything, it should have made her a stronger person, strong minded, and if she was having mental health issues afterwards, therapy was an option. These are however my personal opinions that honestly doesn't really matter because the book has been published and the film has been made. My last critique on the disappointment of this novel is the happy ending. This is noir! Where is the life sentence or death penalty? Well, not for Easy, but for Mouse. He is just out and about living life as if he didn't kill 2 people. Even Easy had a happy ending, which was him being able to work for himself and buy houses and what not. That is not very believable with this being the 40’s in white America. There is no way these 2 Black men are parading the streets after being involved in these sorts of crimes. How are you noir with a happy ending.No entiendo.  As a noir, if the genre consistently doesn't have happy ending, this book shouldn't be any different.

These few short months I have had with noir have been one disappointment after another. These crimes are silly and drawn out. Femme fatales are being headaches. The impending doom is inescapable. With the discussion of The Killing and Devil in a Blue Dress the plots are different and realistic. The issue I have with noir is this, it tells the truth, which disappoints me. I want noir to let us think life is not a waste of time, but instead this wonderful land where crimes is okay, and definitely something I can get away with. Noir is the genre that keeps it 100 and that’s why it is a disappointment.