Detecting Men: Masculinity and the Hollywood Detective Film

10. End of the Investigation: Case Closed

283 End of the Investigation: Case Closed The detective genre has had a long history on the big screen, appearing almost as soon as the medium was born and becoming popular in the sound era as its many characters, complicated plots, suspense, and intrigue were developed . Each decade has seen the dominance and proliferation of at least one trend in the genre: the classical sleuth and softboiled detective in the 1930s and 1940s, the noir private eye in the 1940s and into the 1950s, the procedural police detective of the late 1940s and the 1950s, the vigilante cop of the late 1960s and early 1970s, the neo-noir hero in the 1970s and 1980s, the cop-action hero in the 1980s, and the criminalist of the 1990s and 2000s. These trends have often mirrored what was popular in fiction, and later on television, but broader social, cultural, and political change have had an impact on the detective narrative and the evolution of the investigative hero. Americans escaped the Depression through the Classical Hollywood detective film, and postwar American society was critiqued by film noir; Vietnam was refought and often won, and Reaganite politics were embodied in the triumphs of the cop action hero; and today’s fears of violent crime and technology are placated by the criminalist’s use of the latter to eradicate the former. At moments over the last century when gender roles were being redefined in society, Hollywood detective films have expressed, explored, C H A P T E R T E N and often resolved masculine anxieties through highlighting sexual difference with violent heroes and dangerous women. The genre has evolved and altered in a negotiation of social attitudes and anxieties toward the law, crime, gender, and heroism—and the genre will continue to do so. I remember being asked by a noir critic in the spring of 2002 what I thought was going to happen to the detective genre now that the serial killer/criminalist narrative was over. My response was that I did not think it was over: I argued that more female and black criminalists would grace the screen before the trend finally petered out, and that the criminalist would proliferate in television shows. In 2002 Insomnia and Blood Work, with older detectives (Al Pacino and Clint Eastwood), were released, along with Murder by Numbers and High Crimes, with female detectives (Sandra Bullock and Ashley Judd partnered with Morgan Freeman); 2004 saw Twisted and Taking Lives, both featuring female detectives (Ashley Judd and Angelina Jolie) and serial killers who kill men in another twist of the conventions of the genre. And just as I thought that the trend might be coming to an end on the big screen in 2004, new serial killer films appeared, including Suspect Zero (Merhige 2004) starring Aaron Eckhart as an FBI agent hunting a serial killer (Ben Kingsley) who hunts serial killers; Hostage (Siri 2004) starring Bruce Willis as a former LAPD hostage negotiator faced with a serial killer (Ben Foster) who might kill his family; Mindhunters (Harlin 2004) starring an ensemble cast, including Val Kilmer, Christian Slater, and Jonny Lee Miller, as a group of FBI agents in training who discover that one of them is a killer; and Saw (Wan 2004) about a serial killer who plays games with his victims, getting them to kill each other to survive. The criminalist and serial killer genres seem to be going strong in the fiction of Patricia Cornwell, Jeffrey Deaver, and James Patterson, and on television, with the criminalist still dominating the police drama, including spin-offs from CSI (Miami [2002–] and NY [2004–]) and Law & Order (Special Victims Unit [1999–], Criminal Intent [2001–], and Trial by Jury [2005–]). But while the criminalist narrative is still popular in fiction and on television, the cool reception of Twisted and Taking Lives and the almost complete disregard of Suspect Zero suggests the serial killer narrative may soon disappear from the big screen. It will be interesting to see how a new series like The Inside (2005) will fare as a series centered on a female investigator (Rachel Nichols) who hunts serial killers because of a traumatic encounter when she was a child. What kind of narrative will be the next trend and what kind of detective will be the new hero? 284 DETECTING MEN We will have to wait and see. But recent political events like 9/11, the...