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| “The thugs left their truck behind! This should lead us right to them,” the chase was on and things were beginning to heat up. “All we have to do is get the license, find the place they rented the truck from, and track them down.” “Hello? The name of the moving agency is right on the side of the truck, so is the address. Do you have any concept of reality?” After some detective work we found ourselves at the thieves’ hideout: A-1 Trucking and Movers. “Obviously a false cover,” I told her as we headed for the door. The whole way there she’d been going on like she thought I cared. It was all about the same stuff. Hero roles are consistently played by male characters; exclusively so in detective stories. Even in the twenty-first century gender inequality was prevalent as ever: American women still make 30% less than men, in 225 years of American history there have been only two female Supreme Court Justices and never once a woman president. 1940’s detective film noir was full of hurtful stereotyping of men and women. A woman detective character did away with the use of females as sex objects and love interests. On the rare occasion that a woman actually manages to play the role of hero, she ends up riding into battle wearing next to nothing. She herself didn’t even get a name in this farce of a detective story. She may have been right about some of the things she had to say, but we were getting close to solving the case. I’d have plenty of time to reflect on her political convictions after I got paid; for the time being, however, I was preoccupied with getting the job done. The door was open so I let myself in. Obviously the thugs that had tried to rob me earlier that morning weren’t too concerned with getting out of town because there they were, loading more boxes (undoubtedly full of stolen goods) into another truck. “If you gentlemen don’t mind, I’d like to have a word with you both,” I said, approaching them. I could tell by the looks of dread and apprehension on their faces that they new they were caught “Lenny, it’s that psycho that tried to kill us!” one of them shouted. Not wanting any trouble I reached into my coat to once again enlist the assistance and reasoning skills of my personal sidearm. But my hand grasped only an empty holster – my weapon was missing! I turned around and there she was, with the gun. She must have gotten it from me during one of her speeches when I wasn’t paying attention. “So it was you all along,” I sneered as the thugs made for the door. “I should have guessed as much. You were rubbing it in my face all along, you had plenty of reason to be cocky.” She was still in denial. “Jeez, can’t you even be arrested without employing a worn-out stereotype? I go from the beautiful client to the double-crossing femme fatale. I’m supposed to be here to get rid of the preconceived notions present in detective stories, not to fall right into them.” “You know,” I said, looking up the barrel of my own pistol, “you don’t realize your own biggest contradiction.” “What are you talking about?” |
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