In 1992, the world was introduced to the scariest monster yet: a fully actualized sexual woman. Boy oh boy was the backlash swift. In this episode of The Stories We Tell, we look at Basic Instinct, the Film Noir sex thriller that set the debate over 3rd wave feminism on fire and nearly scorched the career of Sharon Stone for her portrayal of Catherine Tramell. The performance was so good in fact that people couldn't separate her from her character. Not unlike Jaws, her filmic incarnation gave the world justification to demonize her in the form of slut-shaming. But also, not unlike Jaws, Catherine Tramell isn't real. She's the sum of Nick Curan's fantasies and projections of a woman. Therein lies the rub in Film Noir. The only thing that matters, the only thing that's real, is the opinion of the most unreliable of sources: the male protagonist.
Thus, the stories we tell ourselves about this hugely popular genre is that our anxieties, fears, tensions, and worst nightmares have a brith place: women. In Basic Instinct, our protagonist faces that fear quite literally head on, and we look at what that story says about us, about men, and about the very stories we tell ourselves about the order of the world.
For this episode, I called on the help of TV comedy writer Doni Muransky. She took on the brave task of analyzing a lesser known scene in the film, and the conversation that ensued revealed how modern day incarnations of these tensions function. We also laugh a lot, which helps to keep from crying. You can find Doni on Twitter and IG @donatellasays.
References:
Film Noir: The Dark Side of the Screen by Foster Hirsch (1938)
Film Noir Reader by Alain Silver and James Ursini (2004)
Dead Blondes and Bad Moms: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power by Jude Ellison Sady Doyle (you will find the book under Sady Doyle) (2019)
Books and Edited Collections by Professor Shelley Stamp:
Lois Weber in Early Hollywood (University of California Press, 2015)
Movie-Struck Girls: Women and Motion Picture Culture after the Nickelodeon (Princeton University Press, 2000).
"Women and the Silent Screen." A special issue of Film History 18, no. 2 (2006), co-edited with Amelie Hastie.
American Cinema's Transitional Era: Audiences, Institutions, Practices, co-edited with Charlie Keil (University of California Press, 2004).
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