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’My proportions are, if anything, too heroic’ – dangerous appetites and the homme fatal in Vera Caspary’s Laura (1943)
Author(s)
Date Issued
2022
Conference
Citation
Davies, F. M. R. (1 Jul 2022). ’My proportions are, if anything, too heroic’ – dangerous appetites and the homme fatal in Vera Caspary’s Laura (1943). Captivating Criminality 8, University of Bamberg.
Type
Conference Paper
Abstract
As Richard Dyer asserts in his seminal study, ‘Queer Noir’ (2001), homosexual men figure
prominently in film noir. Yet, the spectre of ‘queer men’ figure much more broadly in the wider
traditions of noir and hard-boiled crime fiction. These ‘deadly sissies and mincing menaces’ are
in fact located within a much broader category of men who, like the femme fatale, display nonconventional models of masculinity that pose a threat to the detective as a figure of normative
masculinity. These men are ambiguous, uncertain, and thoroughly queer—though the
elements that queer the individual can change. Conceptualizing these men in this framework
offers a true counter to the femme fatale not apparent in previous scholarship which conflates
deviant masculinities with dangerous men through ‘wanting both big money and a dangerous
dame’ (Wager 20), and ultimately dismissing the political significance of sexual difference.
In this paper, I will be analysing the intersections of fatness and masculinity in Vera Caspary’s pioneering novel, Laura (1943), and how the infamous antagonist, Waldo Lydecker, can be interpreted as a homme fatal. I will explore what Forth describes as ‘the historical […] perceptions of fat males as weak, impulsive, and perverse’ (387), pushing this analysis further by arguing that Waldo Lydecker is coded homme fatal, after undergoing a process of queering—exploring the developing connections between fatness and femininity. I will explore Lydecker’s assertion that ‘the lame, the halt, and the blind, have more malice in their souls’ (30) as an integral component in the composition of the homme fatal—that men who are ‘less’ prove to be infinitely more dangerous to the stability of social hierarchies, just as the excess that characterizes the femme fatale dooms her to a fate of ‘textual eradication’ (Doanne 2).
In this paper, I will be analysing the intersections of fatness and masculinity in Vera Caspary’s pioneering novel, Laura (1943), and how the infamous antagonist, Waldo Lydecker, can be interpreted as a homme fatal. I will explore what Forth describes as ‘the historical […] perceptions of fat males as weak, impulsive, and perverse’ (387), pushing this analysis further by arguing that Waldo Lydecker is coded homme fatal, after undergoing a process of queering—exploring the developing connections between fatness and femininity. I will explore Lydecker’s assertion that ‘the lame, the halt, and the blind, have more malice in their souls’ (30) as an integral component in the composition of the homme fatal—that men who are ‘less’ prove to be infinitely more dangerous to the stability of social hierarchies, just as the excess that characterizes the femme fatale dooms her to a fate of ‘textual eradication’ (Doanne 2).
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