Blog Post #8, Baby

In your mind, are there any heroes in Double Indemity? If so, who?

According to Google, a hero is:

1. a person, typically a man, who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities.
2. the chief male character in a book, play, or movie, who is typically identified with good qualities, and with whom the reader is expected to sympathize.
3. (in mythology and folklore) a person of superhuman qualities and often semidivine origin, in particular one of those whose exploits and dealings with the gods were the subject of ancient Greek myths and legends

Now, I think it's safe to say that we don't have anyone from definition 3. There is a stunning lack of cosmic interference in the Film Noir genre.

However, there definitely are heroes according to definition 1 and 2. I would argue that Barton Keyes is a hero because of definition 1. He is brave, which is seen at the very end of the movie when he confronts Neff after listening to Neff admit to two murders. His job requires him to realize when someone has committed insurance fraud and then deny them money and it's reasonable to assume that people aren't exactly happy when they are denied of money and accused of a serious crime. He's also high up in the company, which would qualify as an achievement. And, he's very noble at the end when he waits to call the ambulance while Neff tries to escape. He knows his friend isn't getting far, so he listens to his friend's request.

In a way, Neff is a hero according to definition 2. He's definitely the chief male character and he is who the reader is supposed to sympathize with. The only part that makes him more of an anti-hero is the 'good qualities' part. A venn diagram of 'good qualities' and murders doesn't have much overlap. I would say that Neff could have been considered good up until he kills Dietrichson. 

Another important factor to look at is the time period. Google has this awesome feature where you can see word usage and how it has changed over time. Here's the graph for the word 'hero' from 1900 to 2008:

Double Indemnity came out in 1944, which is one of the lower points on the graph. It's really interesting to see the way that World War I and World War II seem to affect these graphs. There's a spike before the war and after the war. We can see that the lowest point for WWI is right as the Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1919, however the lowest point for WWII seems to be 1940 right after it began. It's also pretty weird that our usage in the 2000s is actually lower than what it was during the World War.