At 04:52 PM 4/27/2002 -0400, you wrote:
>Don't get me wrong. I can be as arbitrary as the next
guy. I don't think of
>Batman as "hard-boiled" because I consider comic-book
super heroes as some
>other category. It has nothing to do with his
upbringing or his speech
>pattern. I guess it's something about batmobiles and
everybody dressing up
>in masks and tights that make me view such a
character as not in the same
>category as Spade and Marlowe.
While I consider Batman hard-boiled (and noir), one of MY
defining characteristics of hard-boiled is that you could
drop this guy into a bucket-of-blood roadhouse and he'd be at
home. He wouldn't have to be a drunk, or even drink, but he
would know how to act and what not to say. That's why (in my
opinion) Matt Helm is hard-boiled and James Bond is not. Bond
is a gentleman adventurer.
For female characters, it's a little tougher to figure
out.
Ray
-- # To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the digest version. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 29 Apr 2002 EDT