by Miguel Alejandro Marquez, Staff Writer

At the very center of every noir film is a protagonist who needs to fight his inner demons in order to get the bad guys. He smokes cigarettes, finds the truth in alleyways, and uses fistacuffs to get it out of people. The turn of the 20th century saw the emergence of a new type of hero: the anti-hero. The anti-hero, being the staple of true postmodern cinema, needed an equal counterpart in the mystery genre. Thus, the emergence of the bumbling, idiotic, yet good spirited protagonist: the soft-boiled detective. The soft-boiled detective is a derivative of the well known “hard-boiled” detective genre, and their gritty protagonists. 

What is soft-boiled? Soft-boiled is safe. Soft-boiled dime novels are fun. Soft-boiled crime fiction is what was on street corners peddled to children. They’re pulp tales with twists, turns and have Perry Mason make the defendant confess. Hard-boiled is mean spirited. Hard-boiled is Orson Welles being shot in The Third Man. Hard-boiled is what was sold to the greatest generation, after the height of the war. We’re not the greatest generation. We need a new class of heroes. A new class of fiction. A type of character that is idiotic, but idiotic with purpose. Flawed, but susceptible to change. 

These Elmore Leonard inspired characters had to encompass their respected era with a certain form of panache. The detectives replaced the typical cigarette with the blunt, and sneered at the very idea of a hard day’s work. To contrast this with his counterpart, the soft boiled detective still has the same level of desire of getting the MacGuffin, but lacks the very means of realizing what his true potential is. He can be lazy, rude, a beatnik, or just a downright stoner. This neo-noir parody is first put in the lowest point he can be, usually caused by his own doing or by the world around him. He is, at the very beginning of the film, trying to redeem himself in his eyes, and in the eyes of others. The finale has the neo-noir hero have his outlook of the world be either justified or railed against. 

The soft-boiled detective is an archetype who is the polar opposite of the hard-boiled detective; a man who fights, drinks and lies his way to get justice. This is a person who is outside the realms of normalcy. He fights, but is clumsy. He drinks and is never sober. He lies, but everyone sees through his bullshit. The soft-boiled detective is given quests that throw him into the chaos of the outside world, and comes to find his purpose in the madness. He’s bohemian. The hard boiled detective has the same components of the soft boiled, but is different. Yes, the hard-boiled detective drank and smoked, but he didn’t go into complete depravity. The soft-boiled detective does. He’s Horatio Alger and the city streets are his subject.. He is simply, for the lack of better words, a loser.

He is someone who can barely pay his rent, afford decent clothes, and solves cases by overcoming his self-inflicted problems. He is on the outskirts of civilization, looking into the matters of those who look down at him. The bourgeoisie usually serve as the antagonists. Forces that work in shadow that either hire, or try to get rid of, or tries to sleep with, the protagonist. The illusion of the antagonist’s power is broken once the detective has solved the last piece of the puzzle. Everything in the universe is random, that includes our civilization and actions of those who “control” it. The antagonists are not those who have a billion contingency plans and have a billion dollars. They are lawyers, businessmen, and sometimes, just upper class people. You don’t need to be a congressman to be evil, and this subgenre reflects that. 

The introduction of American New Wave cinema was the introduction of the new type of hero. Humphrey Bogart was replaced with Harrison Ford. Robert Mitchum with Jack Nicholson, and Sterling Hayden with Jeff Bridges. The concrete jungle of Brooklyn, and the smog filled air of Los Angeles became the new playground for characters who would use unusual means to get what they wanted. And on top of all the challenges that generally consist of being a protagonist, the soft-boiled detective doesn’t know how to fight them. The hard-boiled detective still has to face the same level of opponents as the neo-noir heroes: Thugs, goons in bars, and hired guns. But, there are few of these killers within the soft-boiled world. The antagonist in Chinatown is an old man. Jack Nicholson has to solve the water crisis, going through the same bit of trouble Bogart went to in Maltese Falcon, but he fails. He realizes in the end that his actions, and the actions of everyone in Los Angeles are insignificant in stopping the secret elite. Jack realizes that he can’t do anything, he has to let things be, to let go of the problem. He lost. Forget it Jack, it’s Chinatown. 

But not all is lost. Yes, this protagonist is morally grey, but he still has his shining moments. He does, at times, succeed. The same can be said about us americans. 

Jeff Bridges’s “The Dude” is the true reflection of America. The Dude is calm in the face of danger, he doesn’t let the pressures of the world control him. Sam in Under the Silver Lake is a reflection of millennials, a generation obsessed with pop culture, with the threats of the real world looming over. But Sam still has the same mindset as both “The Dude”, and with another hippie, Doc Sportello in Inherent Vice. All three are optimistic about the future, regardless of what’s done to them and done to those around them. All three have different ways of coping with the outside world. Ways of dealing with “the man”. Sam has his soft-boiled-ness directed towards pop culture, using it as a way of fleeing his crumbling world, Doc has his marijuana and his misadventure, and The Dude has both what Doc has, and bowling. All three have their own ways of dealing with their problems, but still have the same thread of letting things go. Their ways of coping are ways of dealing with the pain. With their mediocrity. Or maybe it’s just their way of achieving peace, even though their actions and mindsets are frowned upon. Who's to say. 

But what do these characters say about America? What does this say about our nation’s mental state? The resonance of this type of character will persist in our postmodern world. The existence of such a character shows that authors, screenplay writers, and film directors, are self aware. We, the movie viewing audience, need a protagonist that has the same level of bravado that we do. Not all of us will circle the globe, meet stunning models, and most of us will not catch the bad guy. Modernity and its appeal to fantasy has been diminished with post-modernism’s desire of brutal sincerity. We, the members of the 21st century, are not perfect people. We are constantly told on a daily basis that our lives are a part of a larger fabric, thus possibly resulting in our ever going problems. Sometimes, we feel less important than we actually are. These characters are a reflection of ourselves, imperfect people trying to do jobs that may result in absolutely nothing. It’s a harsh reality in fiction, but also a caution to the audience to live better, to be better. That’s the end result of all great art, not to have us find villains in alleyways, but to find the antagonists in our lives, and have us combat them with our own strengths.