Blog Entry Seven

In Pascoe’s story he uses L.A landscape as a sort of spiral of uncertainty and yet he gives us a feeling of reassurance of how the city can suck someone into it. With its dark alleys and irresistible persona. As Pascoe tells us of the change going through L.A, it seems he is trying to tell us that L.A is its own personality. But like most places, the city of angels has very demon like qualities. He says there are pockets. Pockets that represent evil and corruption, the temptation of the big city life often gets the best of us. Most places do have corruption, but the way L.A does it, it’s almost like an art, and evil art at that, but the personality it gives off thrives with the unjust. One thing that stood out to me in this short story was the way the author presents these two characters at the bar. It almost seems like I was listening to a discovery channel documentary, on how the male and female fight, sexual tension between them. And as usual it seems that the female character is a femme fatal. Always such horrible things to happen in these stories. This author used his setting to show us that when a guy likes a girl, not love and the women is sort of hot, he will do almost anything to sleep with her, even though the intension isn’t clearly stated. As we see in this short story, he didn’t really hesitate to go and help her with the action she committed. Over all the author did a very good job of showing that L.A is full of devious individuals.

                Pollack’s story to me at least it seems much more corrupt, and the explicit talking about the blowjobs was sort of but not really surprising. Considering the fact that noir is a quality of theses odd yet interesting stories. The author used this setting in way that it showed how California really behaved when the norms weren’t around. Another thing that caught my eye, as I said earlier was the sexuality, (as I am sure it did to everyone). Anyways, the use of the gambling was unique, although this sort of stuff is almost everywhere you go. But none the less L.A amplifies this. It is such an attractive thing when it comes to L.A. to me. The city of angels always knows how to have a good time.  The expensive cars makes for everything with the world like this, I am focusing on the cars because to me, it shows an explosion of self-image. Wouldn’t it be nice to roll up in a Cadillac, but I mean one of those really nice ones, the kind that, if you were really rich or a drug lord only then could you afford it. This type of behavior stands out in L.A because it was one of the first to do so. The streets of this place hold their own language. All in all the author did a nice job of telling us how the city of angels can be.

Blog entry Six

Neo noirs protagonist is always associated with corruption. In film noir the male protagonist is often a detective or an otherwise social deprived person who sort of keeps to himself. Sometimes the male heroes are featured as odd people, their personality is a bit off in some ways but goes in line with nior. Who they are creates that feeling of social alienation and these hard boiled heroes are anti social loners that are subject to corruption and only when it presents itself in the way the protagonists wants it to, as we have seen in nior movies. The environments they live and work in are dark and scary city surroundings, often red-light districts, or otherwise places where the average person wouldn’t normally be seen at. Environments, like large office buildings. They often question who they are but are good personalities for the genre. Through their large scale surroundings. The tough guy is often marked by an excellent gift of speaking with another person. They have a slick talk when engaging conversation. Even if they are not always given the strongest intellect, this is a trait from the hard boiled novels. Their worlds are dominated by crime, corruption and cruelty. The protagonist often gets tangled up in some of these activities himself and gives in to the dark side if you will. And in addition to his interest in the erotic behavior which ultimately leads him to a self-destructing world. He is often the sucker of his own demise.

            He states that social issues such as race, class and gender change, as it has overtime. Though out the genre up until the time of neo noir it didn’t really have to change much, but after world war two people began to incorporate a new style. A style that the noir genre had to adapt to. Like Abram’s said the race gender and class, changed so the idea had to be in line with the changing society. The biggest changes to me at least were the architectural changes that went about that time period so certain camera techniques and various other things were tuned up. Also as Abrams says during the 1960s the nuclear family was emerging. And as we know nuclear power is not exactly a trait of the noir genre. So to change to that suburban setting during those “nuke” times was pretty difficult as I could imagine. And back to the structure of America, the architectural environment was tight nit and close together during the classic noir times. Then during the neo noir times after the war, America expanded greatly. Industrial landscapes were a huge part of The U.S and it forced the creators to go along with the structural changes of America. The detective in neo nior is both villain and detective but as I got from his article, it both and the same man. The protagonist in neo nior it seems like it always fighting himself in a way. And is, also in classic neo nior, on the verge of corruption. Over all the neo nior protagonist is to me at least changed a little bit, but not in a major way.