Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang

This Noir parody starring Robert Downey Jr, Michelle Monaghan, and Val Kilmer follows down-on-their-luck childhood friends Harry and Harmony as they tumble headfirst into a dangerous murder investigation. This parody references a lot of previously mentioned aspects of Noir parody like failed masculinity, sexiness as comedy, and heroism in women. One unique thing that this Noir parody does, however, is insert itself into a discussion of LGBTQ people in Noir films with the character "Gay Perry."

Gay people in Noir

Much like the there are norms surrounding femme fatales and detectives, LGBTQ coded characters had norms that surrounded their depiction. In his essay "Homosexuality and Film Noir", Richard Dyer creates analyses a few examples of queer coded characters and the norms that surrounded them. The table reads as follows:

FILM........................................................CHARACTER...............................................TRAITS

Female Characters

IN A LONELY PLACE. Martha — big-boned, hair drawn back, aggressive, hard voice.

REBECCA. Mrs. Danvers — severe, hair drawn back, hard voice.

A WALK ON THE WILD SIDE. Jo — tailored suits, shortish hair, overall military precision of dress

TONY ROME. Irene — fat, shortish hair, loud voiced

FAREWELL MY LOVELY ('76). Frances Amthor — fat, shortish hair, loud voiced

Male Characters

THE MALTESE FALCON. Cairo — fastidious dress, crimped hair, perfume

STRANGERS ON A TRAIN. Bruno — fastidious dress, manicured nails

LAURA. Waldo — fastidious dress, love of art, bitchy wit

FAREWELL MY LOVELY ('45). Lindsay — fastidious dress, knowledge of clothes, jewelry, perfume

FAREWELL MY LOVELY ('76). Lindsay — same; see book.

BRUTE FORCE. Cpt. Munsey — fastidious dress, love of art, music

THE BIG SLEEP. General Sternwood — hothouse atmosphere

P.J.. Quel — gaudy clothes, fussy hairstyle (Dyer 19).

As we can see from Dyer's analysis, queer coded women were often framed with more traditionally masculine traits like loud voices and short hair. On the other hand, queer men were framed more with more traditionally feminine traits, such as knowledge of fashion and the arts. These gendered inversions were likely an attempt to frame queer people as transgressive as effeminate men and queer-coded women were nearly always villainous characters as well. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang responds to the classical framing of queer characters in Noir and flips it on its head.

Enter: Gay Perry

Perry pictured left, Harry right

To talk about Perry's character, I'll need to explain the basic plot of the movie. The film mainly follows Harry, a New York City burglar who ends up in a crime film audition while being chased by the police. His performance in the audition is so convincing that he gets flown out to LA for more rounds of auditions.

In order to prepare Harry for his upcoming auditions, Perry, a consulting private eye, enters the story in order to help give Harry something to draw on for his role. Harry becomes Perry's sidekick in his relatively relaxed sleuthing until the pair discovers a car with a dead body in the trunk.

Perry is the competent gumshoe to Harry's panicked would-be-detective. He's not the protagonist so he's not the one to ultimately save the day, but the fact that he's tougher and more skilled at sleuthing than Harry is played up repeatedly for comedic effect.

The parody's use of Perry, however, directly contrasts how classical noir traditionally portrayed queer men. While in classical Films Noir queer and gay men were portrayed as effeminate and villainous, Perry is portrayed as a mix of masculinity and femininity and heroic. In this way, Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang accepts the context of Film Noir, but decides to write a new entry into this dialogue that views queer people not as exotic threats, but rather as normal characters capable of heroism, failure, and most of all, comedy.