Film Noir - Sex & Censorship

Films featuring corruption, death, and sex defined the classic film noir era of the 1940s and 1950s. It seems strange to think that the genre of film known as film noir would thrive during a period in film history that was heavily censored. The classic films in the film noir genre were forced to illustrate the corruption, violence, and sex through different and creative ways. The films had to use certain ways of implying a sexual relationship as opposed to playing it out blatantly on the screen like most films of the present day. Using innovative and creative ways to imply sexual relationships between characters in the films, the film noir filmmakers during the classic film noir era successfully produced dark and racy films despite being censored by the government.

Films in the classic noir era had a lot to do with sex, but hardly ever showed any sexual interactions on the screen. The censors were one of the main reasons why much of the sexual interaction was absent from the finished product. However, the films were able to work around the censors and imply sexual activity in more subtle ways. As Naremore writes: "if we did not already have the evidence of the films themselves, the censorship reports of the period reveal that classic noir was almost obsessed with sexual perversity...Breen Office censors were especially concerned about [homosexual] characters, just as they were about realistic depictions of heterosexual passion

Another aspect of sex that the makers of noir films had to work at portraying was homosexuality. Homosexuality was a taboo topic in American culture during the classic noir era. Unlike present day where homosexuality has slowly filtered itself into the mainstream, portraying a homosexual character during the classic era in a blatant and obvious way was not considered appropriate by the norms of American society. However, film noir was a genre of film that seemed to have hints of homosexuality from its characters, although the filmmakers never came out and directly announced it.

By using editing, camera tricks, symbolism, and subtle hints, makers of noir films during the 1940s and 1950s were able to work around the heavy censorship they had to endure and produce movies that contained sexuality. The censors may have done a favor to the film noir genre by making the filmmakers create unique ways to illustrate what they wanted their movie to show. This unique way of manipulating the audience makes the genre of film noir intriguing. Unlike the films of the present day, sexuality was not something easily portrayed on the big screen. The creativity of the filmmakers during the classic noir era is just an example of why film noir has become such an interesting and groundbreaking genre of film.