RARA-AVIS: Re: Super Heroes, Comics, and Noir

From: JIM DOHERTY (jimdohertyjr@yahoo.com)
Date: 25 Jul 2008

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    Steve,

    Re your comment below:

    "Don't subscribe to that one either and find it very narrow and restrictive. ..If noir is always noir regardless of the medium what are you gonna say about western noir and for example would you use the same criteria than the ones for novels in the case of The Wild Bunch or The Proposition to take two of the 'noir' or 'noirrish' or 'dark'...whatever. ..westerns."

    Noir was coined to describe a particular kind of CRIME fiction. Westerns, even those dealing with crime, are, with some exceptions, recognized as a separate, distinct literary genre. The examples you mention might have a lot in common with noir crime fiction, but there not noir because they're not mysteries.

    If "noir" truly means something different depending on the medium (NOT the genre), then it's the only term in all of mystery fiction that DOES mean something different.

    A police procedural is a police procedural whether it's a novel, a movie, a TV show, a radio show, or a stage play (or, for that matter, a comic book or strip).

    A hard-boiled private eye story is a hard-boiled private eye story whether it's a novel, a movie, a TV show, a radio show, or a stage play (or, for that matter, a comic book or strip).

    A cozy, or, to use my preferred term, a traditional mystery, is a cozy (or traditional mystery) whether it's a novel, a movie, a TV show, a radio show, or a stage play (or, for that matter, a comic book or strip).

    A spy story is a spy story whether it's a novel, a movie, a TV show, a radio show, or a stage play (or, for that matter, a comic book or strip).

    Etc., etc. etc.

    But, for reasons that continue to elude me, some of you insist on drawing distinctions between literary noir and film noir (and presumbably, TV noir, radio noir, stage noir, and comic noir).

    Is it because you're less concerned with what noir really is than you are with what you want it to be?

    JIM DOHERTY

          

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