For many years tough guy characters ruled the hardboiled
genre, with only the occasional female writer or detective
making an appearance. Then, after over fifty years of male
dominance, hardboiled women detectives swarmed the stage.
Marcia Muller's Edward of the Iron Shoes, published in 1977,
is commonly recognized as the cornerstone of the new
movement. It was notably followed by Sue Grafton's A is for
Alibi in 1982, and the trend showed no signs of diminishing
in 1991 when Sara Paretsky introduced her first V.I.
Warshawski novel. The irony of a successful female adaptation
to a genre reputed for its misogyny has not escaped the
critics, and considerable discussion has centered around
whether the genre can effectively reflect a female viewpoint
or whether it has been too long aligned to a male
perspective. In Detective Agency, Priscilla Walton and Manina
Jones examine the genre and present their thesis that the
literature of the hardboiled female detective invokes
feminist themes.
A POSTMODERN APPROACH
For whatever reason, the authors chose a postmodern flavor of
analysis. As self-proclaimed scholars, it's possible that
they are simply falling in line with company policy, the
postmodern position being predominantly an academic one. The
postmoderns have been generous in taking the women's movement
under wing and furthering it through the concept of
marginalization and pluralism, so maybe their motivation was
gratitude or a sense of debt. Although they trot out much of
the usual postmodern terminology, it is Foucault's work that
carries the most weight. Foucault believed that those in
power usually have a story that justifies their position.
Credited with the discovery of this profound relationship, he
referred to this story as a discourse of power. Also, in
order to empower the chosen few, it is necessary to develop a
rhetoric that justifies discrimination to outsiders,
condemning them to outcast status, referred to in the
postmodern vernacular as marginalization and otherness.
THE MARGINALIZED
This marginalization neatly dovetails into the discrimination
and second class status that is a basic premise of feminism.
The hardboiled novel has a reputation for being a battle
ground between the haves and the have-nots. There are those
who are a part of the powerful elite, almost invariably
portrayed as selfish, greedy, insensitive, and manipulative,
and then there are those outside the center of power. These
decentered characters are the much-vaunted marginalized, a
prime focus of postmodern feminism. It is particularly
appealing that the traditional hardboiled detective himself
operates outside the power structure. The authors state that
the genre
"actually prescribes that a marginal figure lay claim to the
narrative's central perspective." This alienated state
parallels the marginalized condition of women and, when the
former tough guy is replaced by a female, the chances for
feminist discourse abound.
A FEMININE DISCOURSE
Walton and Jones spend the majority of the book discussing
the primary discourse of power that opposes feminism,
patriarchy, and the way it is dealt with by the hardboiled
female genre. They note how it supports sexual
discrimination, and they discuss its impact on other feminine
issues such as prostitution, racism, homophobia, domestic
abuse, and pornography. The authors observe that the
hardboiled female detective is in a prime position to witness
and deal with these important issues. In the course of their
deconstruction of patriarchy as a transcendental signifier,
they develop their own counter discourse. Consistent with
postmodern theory, their feminist discourse is constructed
with the intention of empowering some and marginalizing
others, and it is enlightening to examine the particular path
that the authors choose to take. Obviously men, especially
heterosexual white males, are saddled with the label and role
of oppressor, but beyond this there are a few
surprises.
One surprise is that quite a few females get left out in the
cold in the discourse of Walter and Jones. The first hint of
this occurs when they discuss the results of an online survey
they conducted. A question about whether readers perceived
feminist themes in female detective fiction drew several
negative responses. The authors make it clear that those who
disagree with them are either confused, suffering from "a
clear disjunction between their own perceived norms and
realities," or else stubbornly
"reluctant to confront the politics of popular
entertainment."
Women not astute enough to realize the wisdom of
the authors' particular brand of feminism are not the only
dispossessed females. Most girls are excluded, also. In an
interesting revelation, girls are described as partial and
incomplete personages. Sara Paretsky states, "A girl is not a
fully realized human being." No wonder "girl" is such a
pejorative insult to a feminist. It should be noted that some
girls are granted acceptance into the fold. Adolescent whores
are wholeheartedly embraced. Age appears to be a crucial
reason for exclusion from the chosen feminist few, and
marginalization increases as age diminishes. Without a doubt
the most severely marginalized are the unborn. Other than as
a disposable inconvenience, they are granted no presence
whatsoever. They exist in an unnegotiable state of otherness.
So strong is the sentiment on this issue, that the authors
take the opportunity to abandon any semblance of academic
objectivity and participate in some old-fashioned name
calling aimed at those who differ in view.
PROBLEMS WITH POSTMODERNISM
The authors' postmodern analysis is perhaps adequate for
exploring the thesis that the hardboiled female detective
presents a feminist twist to the hardboiled genre, but it is
a dangerous vehicle for the furtherance of the feminist cause
which appears later in the book. It is impossible to build a
solid moral platform on the murky quagmire of postmodern
deconstruction, and this is especially true when invoking
Foucault's ideas on the power of discourse. It is possible
that the two authors have made a point that the patriarchial
discourse is decentered by the female detective, but rather
than a new and better way of looking at the world, a
postmodern interpretation is inevitably open to a new
scepticism, and the deconstruction of the feminine discourse
cannot be far off. Even the casual reader can detect the
centering of the new discourse, the refusal to see the poll
responders' disenchantment with a feminist reading as
anything other than naivete, and the powerful language of
alienation in discussing the Pro-Life position.
A just and moral framework for the establishment of equal
rights and opportunity for women would be better served in
the rational light of individualism born of Kant and the
Enlightenment. Although feminism might owe a debt to
postmodernism for its recognition of the marginalization of
people outside the scope of power and influence, its
usefulness dies there. Not only does postmodernism offer no
unifying concept for common political action, but it also
actively opposes the privileging of the transcendental
signifiers of Western democracy, liberty, justice, and
equality.
CRITICISM
Although there are reviews of this book that warn about the
difficulties of mastering its scholarly approach, a close
inspection reveals that, other than the terminology, there is
very little in the text to warrant the caveat. Fields of
study often require the necessary evil of a specialized
terminology to discuss them, and this is true of literature
as well as science, religion, and philosophy. A specialized
vocabulary circumscribes important concepts and establishes a
convenient and efficient foundation for discussion. This is
not the case in Detective Agency.
The terminology simply serves to obfuscate
understanding. The authors appear to be purposely masking the
relative modesty of their study with a vocabulary meant to
lend it an aura of profundity. Thus, moments of introspection
and self-consciousness become "reflexivity," criticism of a
position becomes a "destabilization," and the pursuit of
understanding is abandoned to the "negotiation" of meaning.
Perhaps the most telling indictment of this sort of rhetoric
comes from within the ranks of feminism. In an interview in
Mother Jones, Gloria Steinem was asked about the abstruse
nature of academic feminism. She responded: "Yeah, but that's
stupid. Nobody cares about them. That's careerism. These poor
women in academia have to talk this silly language that
nobody can understand in order to be accepted, they
think."
The text is also troubled by contradictory, murky, and
ill-advised hypotheses. They stress the importance of the
professional status of the female detective, but subsequent
text correctly shifts the importance from professionalism to
power. The authors emphasize the commercial aspects of the
genre to the point of subverting content to economic success,
and yet many of the authors discussed are either outside or
got their start outside the big publishers in small presses
where economic success is measured by the doors being open
from day to day, and quitting the day job is not an
option.
The book suffers from the lack of sufficient introductory
material specifically discussing the hardboiled genre that
the female detective was born into. It is hard to see where
the female detective is taking the genre without a unified
discussion of where it is coming from. The foundational
elements of the genre are never clearly set forth, but are
only alluded to as asides, and these are often plagued by
questionable generalizations and misleading quotes. For
example, the hardboiled male detective is repeatedly
portrayed as an unemotional, one-dimensional misogynist in
the text. Although this is surely the case with some
hardboiled literature, it also presents a stereotypic image
that hints at something less than honest academic
rigor.
CONCLUSION
There are many positive aspects to Detective Agency. Walton
and Jones provide convincing parallels between the hardboiled
world and feminist theory, a world where an empowered
minority suppresses the majority, a world where social
injustice prevails. They present multiple cases of how
feminism is served by thematic explorations within the genre.
The hardboiled female detective exists in an alienated state,
opposing authority, and demonstrating independence and
courage in confronting social issues significant to the
feminist platform. Ultimately though, their work suffers from
three flaws. First, either their research into the
traditional hardboiled genre was woefully inadequate, or else
they purposely chose to misrepresent it through their own
text and multiple quotes that miss the mark. Second, they
exhibit an inability to successfully confront opposition to
their thesis. They dismiss reader resistance to hardboiled
feminism in their poll as naive, and rather than face up to
more formidable opponents like Sally Munt, they choose to
merely deflect their arguments. Third, they choose to use an
elitist academic terminology where a simple and
straightforward text would have better served the text. It is
perhaps ironic that they would choose to ignore one of the
primary precepts of the hardboiled genre, that a message
delivered in clear and simple prose is the more forceful and
convincing.
miker
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