Gothic Noir Filmic Male Gaze: Gender Stereotyping in Margaret Atwood’s “The Freeze-Dried Groom”

Manuela López Ramírez

doi:10.46661/ambigua.5899

Autori

Manuela López Ramírez INDEPEDENT SCHOLAR

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.46661/ambigua.5899

Parole chiave:

femme fatale, femme attrapée, male patriarchal gaze, gender stereotyping, Gothic film noir, private eye

Abstract

Stereotyping has been crucial in artistic representations, especially cinema, in the construction of gender paradigms. Males and females have been portrayed by means of simplified unrealistic clichés with the purpose of controlling and constraining them into patriarchal roles and conventions, promoting societal normative ideologies. Noir women are projections of male anxieties about female sexuality and female independence. In “The Freeze-Dried Groom,” Atwood unveils gender stereotyping through a typically film noir male gaze in three of its stock characters: the femme attrapée, the “detective” and the femme fatale. Hence, Atwood depicts a femme fatale to reflect not just on this character in film noir, but also on female identity, gender dynamics and feminism. She exposes and questions the marriage-family institution, and the patriarchal society as a whole.

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