Procedural Happy Valley Characters

Brigid O’Shaughnessy plays the role of femme fatale, meaning “deadly woman” in French, and she uses her femininity to manipulate Sam Spade. For example, Brigid lies to persuade Spade to keep helping her, “And the lie was in the way I said it, and not at all in what I said.” She turned away, no longer holding herself erect. “It is my own fault that you can’t believe me now.” Spade’s face reddened and he looked down at the floor, muttering: “Now you are dangerous” (Hammett 36). Spade acknowledges that she draws him in with her good looks, and that she makes him feel sympathy towards her, which is giving Brigid the upper hand towards Spade. Brigid is described as a very attractive woman in the book, and this is the other way she controls Spade like a puppet. For example, she has control over Spade by sleeping with him, “She puts her hands up to Spade’s cheeks, put her open mouth hard against his mouth, her body flat against his body” (Hammett 89). It can be inferred that after that, they end up sleeping with each other and this is a way that Brigid builds up an emotional connection to Spade, so he will be on her side and trust her more than anyone else. Ultimately, Spade ends up betraying Brigid, and tells the cops about the murders she commits. Spade admits he loves Brigid but it will not keep him from telling the cops about Brigid murdering Archer, “You

The hardboiled-detective genre shares almost the same characters and crime setting. This type of genre typically has a protagonist, whom seems to always be the detective himself. Despite dealing with the legal system and daily crime, it isn’t uncommon for them to get wrapped up in a romantic and sexual relationship with the commonly seen, femme fatale. The detectives in the film Maltese Falcon and Chinatown have similar attitudes, they fall in love with the femme fatale, and end up being a hero in some way.

Female police officers have appeared on television shows since the 1970s with shows like “Policewomen” and “Get Christie Love”. “Policewomen” paved the way for shows like “Honey West”, “NYPD Blue”, “CSI” and many more. As time went by more and more TV shows include female police officers as part of the main cast, shows like “Law and Order: Special Units Victims”, “Charles’s Angels”, “Hawaii 5-0”, etc. Policewomen on TV shows are not portrayed realistically but it is starting to change. In the earlier days, shows like “Charlie’s Angels” had detectives wear tight dress, glamorous body’s, makeup on, etc.

The Hound of the Baskervilles, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett both exemplify classic detective stories. With secrets and red herrings behind every corner, Sam Spade and Sherlock Holmes try to pinpoint a culprit and solve a case. However, their stories become more complicated when their own secrets are thrown into the mix. When it comes murder, everyone has something to hide, and anyone could be guilty of committing the crime. Even the motives and actions of the story’s “heroes” are called into question. In this paper, I will explore how everyone--from the detectives to the victims--has something to hide, and why this makes interactions and criminal cases so intriguing.

In recent years, there has been a gender shift in crime dramas on television. In the 70s, 80s, and early 90s, the viewer saw the lead characters to be heavily male dominated with a woman thrown in for mostly sex appeal. The shift from the stereotypical nuclear family, with a stay-at-home mom, has impacted many genres of television programing and exemplified in Paul Cantor’s “The Simpson: Atomistic Politics and the Nuclear Family,” when referring to the deviation from a historic ideal family “in fact [the breakdown] should be regarded as a form of liberation from an image of the family that may have been good enough for the 1950’s but is no longer valid in the 1990’s” (737). Popular television has extracted “women” from their “household”

Men get the equivalent of a free pass for the events that transpire, despite the influence of hegemonic patriarchal ideals on the way women conduct themselves. Taking things one step further, even when men are active participants in that which the female characters are condemned for, they are usually spared their fair share of the blame. In The Maltese Falcon, it is revealed that O'Shaughnessy is part of a larger plot to obtain the Maltese Falcon idol. Two male characters involved in the theft and smuggling of the falcon are Joel Cairo and Kasper Gutman, and despite the violence and mayhem that follows as a result of their actions, O'Shaughnessy is the only one arrested at the film's conclusion. The only person who is actively punished for their role in the plot is Brigid. Her performance of traditional femininity deteriorates as the audience learns more about her, and she is held responsible for everything that took place. The blame that is placed on Brigid O'Shaughnessy also ignores her specific circumstances within the male-dominated community. Her suffering may be much more systemic that we might initially believe. Jack Boozer makes reference to the influence of the American Dream on women who are often labelled femmes fatale. It is with this framework in mind that I theorize the reason for the solitary punishment of Brigid. Boozer

The Maltese Falcon, was not only a detective film, but a film that displayed many different aspects of the female and the male character in the movie. The film was more than a story, but a story that explored the ideas of the detective genre and the different characteristics of femininity and masculinity. It also brought forth subjects of sexual desires and the greediness of money. The characters and the visual motifs in the film contributed to the developing of the plot and assisted in creating a more detective and gender oriented film. In the film, The Maltese Falcon, the role of men and women are portrayed in different ways in the film to show the distinct functions of masculinity and femininity

The mystery genre of novels has always been fraught with terror, suspense, and the unknown. One category of the mystery genre is reserved for detective novels. Normally those such novels are subject to the public eye under the scrutiny of just how much of it is real or simple superstition and science fiction – just sensational writing. Sensational writing in and of itself is not supposed to be thought provoking to the reader but instead plays off the reader’s baser emotions that center around adrenaline like fear and excitement. Such sensational writing is cheap and reserved for what was considered trashy magazines back in the day, or ‘penny dreadfuls’. Penny dreadfuls to Victorian England is similar to the modern American equivalent of pulp fiction in that there was a no overarching moral but writing for the sake of entertainment, the basis of what sensational writing is reserved for. While A Study in Scarlet is still considered sensational writing, it brought not only fame to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle but respectability to detective novels – if those novels had Sherlock Holmes.

Hanne Wilhelmsen is a Scandinavian detective who is good at her job, and suffers more from a shoestring budget inside the police force more than any existential problems. She is involved in a committed relationship with another woman, but does not advertise this to the people that she works with. There is a male friend that she has who is a public prosecutor, he kind of acts as a Dr. Watson to her Holmes. She is arrogant, and also rather attractive. Besides being a cop, Wilhelmsen has worked as a lawyer, news anchor, and a journalist.

The thing that stands out to me in The Laughing Policeman is that the women seem to be portrayed as nymphomaniacs. A nymphomaniac is a woman who has an abnormal excessive and uncontrollable sexual desire. A good example of a nymphomaniac in The Laughing Policeman would be Teresa Camarão. Although this book is about a mass murder on a bus, they have to solve the Teresa Camarão case.

In Criminal Justice, there are many different detectives with many different qualities. So how do you know what it takes for a detective to be successful? What traits and qualities make a good detective? Today, two very popular detectives will be compared, Sherlock Holmes and Nancy Drew. These investigators are being “investigated” in one of their most popular novels, The Secret of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene and The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Both of these novels have very good sleuths, with many similar and contrasting qualities. Let’s follow the clues in these books to figure out the qualities of these good detectives and what qualities will take most detectives down the path of success.

Throughout the semester, we have read several different detective stories, looking into each detective’s characteristics, as well as the characteristics of supporting characters, examining how detectives are able to solve the case when nobody else can. Each detective we have read this semester has different ways to solve a crime, but there are also ways to connect these different detectives. Based on the examples of Sergeant Cuff in The Moonstone, Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles, and Father Brown in Father Brown: The Essential Tales, a successful detective must love what they do, have trust that is hard to earn by others, and they are very detailed in their searches. Without the combination of these three characteristics, detectives

The increased use of policewomen, especially in the “vast field of pre-delinquency” (Carte and Carte, 1975, p. 56).

NCIS is a crime show that has aired on CBS since 2005 (CBS.com). It follows the dynamics of a team of agents, and scientists who investigate all crimes with Navy or Marine Corps tie (CBS.com). One of only two females permanently on the team is forensic specialist Abby Sciuto (CBS.com). Although she is portrayed as strong independent woman, she is also treated mush like a child needing protection by her male teammates, as well as serving as a “sexual fantasy” for other characters (Bergamn, K.). This paper will look at the similarities and differences between the real work of forensic specialists and NCIS’ portrayal of the job through the charater Abby, and the different ways men and women are treated in the criminal justice system as a whole.

For decades, the representation of villains and police has stayed relatively similar from the past to the present. Although each role has a specific distinctive duty, characteristics are slowly becoming more developed and diverse. John Hopkin’s Murder by Decree as well as Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep displays the depiction of corruption that can be seen in the police force. Villains in the twentieth century have a more refinement feature to their character. Despite the fact that these films and stories are much more advanced in years, the character’s mentalities are very much broken-down with logic. The twenty-first century films on police and villains have changed through time. Through the evolution of police figures and an increase in