Neptune Noir: Unauthorized Investigations into Veronica Mars Read online

  Because more recently, voiceover narration for anything but comedy has become increasingly feminine.

  And here's why... .

  Girl Talk

  Yes, okay, so voiceovers really became popular in film noir. That's because the filmmakers were trying desperately to capture the cynical first-person viewpoints of the great hard-boiled detectives like Dashiell Hammett's Continental Op (his later and more famous Sam Spade was written in third person) and Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe. I'm going to talk a bit more about these guys later, but what you most need to know about them for now is this:

  The hard-boiled detective is one of two distinctly American fictional archetypes.

  Oh sure, the British arguably popularized detectives first-Sherlock Holmes, for example. But as Raymond Chandler himself points out in "The Simple Art of Murder," neither Holmes nor the other British detectives (think Miss Marple) were exactly action heroes: "The English may not always be the best writers in the world, but they are incomparably the best dull writers" (56). The British generally wrote about armchair detectives solving cozy mysteries. British detectives were generally middle- or upper-class, rarely had to rub elbows with the criminals, and certainly tried to avoid violence themselves. Violence is so terribly boorish, after all. In contrast, American mystery writers like Dashiell Hammett "took murder out of the Venetian vase and dropped it into the alley" (Chandler, "Simple" 58).

  The American hard-boiled detective, in contrast to the British, was tough, poor, urban, gritty, rebellious, and adamantly independent. Basically? American. We're a country that came into existence through rebellion and guerilla fighting. A country of rugged individualism. A country where what you can do is (allegedly) more important than who you are or how much money you have or what class you're born into. We proudly count among our heroes the not-particularly polished frontiersmen Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone, and create tall tales about Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill.

  In case you hadn't noticed, we Americans aren't known for our fine manners or passivity. And the brilliant writing of Hammett, Chandler, and Mickey Spillane captures that. Its not just famous for its use of first person-Mark Twain and Edgar Allan Poe did excellent first-person as well. Where hard-boiled detective first-person goes the extra mile is that in almost every sentence, the reader is submerged into a world of action and, sometimes, justice-even if that justice comes not from a jury but from the business end of a bullet. A struggling schmuck may need to work for the haves, but in true democratic fashion, he speaks to them with the same frankness that he does his friends, the have- nots. It's a world of brawls, not fisticuffs. Not British.

  So-in an attempt to capture this tough-guy American voice, filmnoir incorporated the now-famous voiceovers about a detective sitting in his empty office, hung over, until the aforementioned femme fatale with great gams walks in.

  It worked. For a while.

  Back during Grampa's time.

  Why did this technique fall out of esteem to the point that the Aflac duck now uses it to sell insurance? Here's my theory-and don't worry, I'll get back to Veronica as soon as possible. The increasing unpopularity of voiceovers probably had something to do with the second distinctly American fictional archetype: the cowboy.

  Yes, I know-the cowboy as we know him is actually based on Mexican heritage, the word buckaroo coming from vaquero and the word lariat coming from la riata. But it's American pop culture that combined these details with the independent woodsman character of James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales and ended up with an archetype that filled countless dime novels, chapter plays, and radio shows about The Lone Ranger. The TV cowboy, a rule-follower who generally did believe in law and order, hit his stride in the fifties and sixties-about the time that the hardboiled detective was falling out of popularity. In fact, in the 1958-59 TV season, four of the top-fiverated TV shows were Westerns: Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, Have Gun Will Travel, and The Rifleman ("October").

  This is notable because, with only a few exceptions, cowboys weren't a talkative lot. Cowboys were defined by how little they talked. In fact, Jane Tompkins's essay "Women and the Language of Men" (from West of Everything: The Inner Life of Westerns) makes a pretty good argument that Western stories distrust language. A cowboy's manhood is determined by his taciturnity, and it is women, not men, who "shatter into words" in a crunch: "When Joey asks Shane if he knows how to use a rifle, Shane answers, and we can barely hear him, `Little bit"' (42, 31).

  In case you hadn't heard of the definitive Western Shane, the Alan Ladd movie based on the Jack Schaefer novel, Shane is very, very good with all forms of guns. But the tougher a cowboy is, the more he leans toward understatement.

  And all of this applies to Veronica Mars how?

  Because ever since the height of cowboy shows, men who talk a lot are not generally portrayed as, well, manly. On The O.C. we've got nerdy Seth, who never says in two words what he can say in twenty, versus tough-guy Ryan, who can communicate a great deal with raised eyebrows and silence. On Buffy the Vampire Slayer we had Xan- der, whose dialogue sped up the more nervous he got, and Angel, who simply... brooded.

  A man who narrates directly to the audience via voiceover is equally suspect. True, we had a few good examples of voiceover narration in the late eighties, with the movie Stand by Me and the TV show The Wonder Years. But neither of these reminiscing protagonists-Gordie Lachance, voiced by Richard Dreyfuss, or Kevin Arnold, voiced by Daniel Stern-are exactly what you'd call tough. Hard-boiled heroes like Mike Hammer and Philip Marlowe could take Gordie or Kevin pretty handily, if it came to a fight. Also, Stand by Me came out twenty years ago, and The Wonder Years ran only to '93. Pop culture has moved on and, for the most part, not in the direction of male narrators.

  Also true, voiceovers have seen a recent comeback on television, with the likes of Everybody Hates Chris, My Name is Earl, and How I Met Your Mother. But you'll notice that almost all recent examples are used for comic effect. Neither Chris, Earl, nor Ted are meant to be seen as particularly manly. No offense.

  Veronica Mars, however, is tough. And she gets away with voiceovers all the same. Why? Because she's a girl, and girls are allowed to talk. In fact, as surely as with hard-boiled detectives, it's the "voice" that distinguishes the currently popular subgenre of woman's fiction known as "Chick Lit," based loosely on a combination of Sex and the City and Bridget Jones's Diary.

  Never fear-I'm still not equating Veronica with Carrie Bradshaw or Bridget Jones, neither in her character nor her priorities. But one thing she does have in common with them-that she must have in common with them-is that second X chromosome. Maybe you noticed? Veronica's no man, manly or otherwise. And because of this, she's allowed to talk.

  For what it's worth, this same bias helps us to accept other more serious female narrators like Mary Alice Young (Brenda Strong) on Desperate Housewives and Dr. Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) on Grey's Anatomy. And how are the vocal introductions and conclusions of Mary Alice, Meredith, and the dearly departed-to-syndication Carrie Bradshaw of Sex and the City similar? Because all three of them, along with musing about medical superstitions or the universality of secrets, often talk about girl things. Veronica, for example, narrates about clothes ... and boys:

  J. Geils was right: love stinks. You can dress it up with sequins and shoulder pads but one way or another you're just gonna end up alone at the spring dance strapped into uncomfortable underwear. ("Ruskie Business," 1-15)

  She narrates about girl magazines ... and boys:

  Dear Seventeen magazine. How can I tell if the super cute boy in my class likes me? No. Scratch that. Dear Seventeen. How can I tell if the super cute boy in my class killed his own sister? ("Weapons of Class Destruction," 1-18)

  Yes, okay, and murder. She narrates about social embarrassment and (surprise!) boys:

  There are a million things Duncan could have written about me that I'd sooner impale myself on a rusty spike than have someone else read. I must get that computer back. ("An Echolls Fam
ily Christmas," 1-10)

  But more than just her romantic musings, Veronica discusses relationships. In general, women openly prioritize their relationships very highly. Veronica does, too. Her narration, as well as her actions, shows how she values her relationship with her father, like in "Drinking the Kool-Aid" (1-9): "Jake Kane could be my father. But whether he is or isn't, would I really claim him as such and deny the man who raised me?"

  Her voiceovers explore her lost relationships with her mother, with all the 09ers who turned against her, and with the late Lilly Kane. They relate her current friendship with Wallace Fennel and, later, Cindy "Mac" Mackenzie. Veronica's narration is filled with commentary that shows the priority she gives to the people in her life. As she muses in the first episode of season two, "Normal Is the Watchword" (2-1): "Senior year begins tomorrow and all appears hunky dory. Best friend? Check. Boyfriend? Check." You have to grant that in spending a decent amount of internal dialogue considering her various relationships, at least, Veronica is marginally girly.

  Tough Talk

  Of course, the very next line in "Normal Is the Watchword" is: "Lilly's killer behind bars? Check."

  Because as surely as Veronica uses her feminine ease with words to keep her voiceovers natural, she really is far more than your average boy-happy, clothes-shopping "chick." While there's nothing wrong with being a girl, she's still not "just" a girl. She's a detective.

  Which brings us back to the neo-noir.

  The Wikipedia entry on "Hard Boiled American Crime Fiction Writing" lists several traits of the typical investigator. Included are that he's a private investigator. He's "both a loner and a tough guy" He's "certainly no family man and he does not associate with lots of friends." He's tough, hanging out at "shady all-night bars" and "shooting criminals if necessary." He's "always short of cash" and he "has an ambivalent attitude towards the police."

  Sound like any girl detectives you know? Hint: I'm not talking Nancy Drew

  This was no coincidence. Rob Thomas himself has been quoted about the voiceover: "What attracted me originally was the whole idea of noir, and having the very Raymond Chandler-esque narration weaving through it" (Wharton).

  Let's take a look at just how beautifully he succeeded in catching that hard-boiled voice for Veronica. You wanna know the moment at which I was truly sold on Veronica Mars as a series? It was in the pilot when, during a stakeout, Veronica-in voiceover-mused: "You wanna know how I lost my virginity? So do I." Until then, the episode had been good. But at that moment, it became stellar.

  Why is that? Because that line was perfect tough-guy, with just an undercurrent of young, feminine vulnerability. After all, if a "tough" character hasn't suffered, then her attitude isn't all that tough in the first place, is it? What Veronica went through is horrible. Even worse was Sheriff Lamb's dismissal of the rape. In being able to forge on after this kind of treatment-much less to hide it from her father in order to protect him-Veronica proves herself to be tough indeed. She also, you might notice, reflects that "ambivalent attitude towards the police" that Wikipedia mentioned. It's an ambivalence that, in the continuing battle between Veronica and the clearly outgunned and outclassed Lamb, provides hours of viewer entertainment.

  What I'm saying is that-girl or not-Veronica Mars's voiceovers also nail the tough detective narration, not in an over-exaggerated Flonase nasal spray satire but in its original earnestness.

  A loner? As Veronica would say, "check." She's certainly that, which is why her theme song, "We Used to Be Friends," by the Dandy Warhols, is both so poignant and so apt. Her voiceovers capture the same loneliness, as in "A Trip to the Dentist" (1-21):

  As a rule, people that hate you aren't that helpful. There were about a hundred people at Shelly's party. Ninety-eight of them would walk over my corpse for free gum.

  Tough? Again, check. In the episode "Drinking the Kool-Aid" (19), Veronica narrates of Jake Kane, whom she suspects sent threatening photos to her mother, "I'm taking this bastard down. Hard. I don't care whose father he is." She certainly mixes with the common and even criminal element, peppering her voiceovers with slang references to prostitutes, drugs, adultery, and combinations thereof: "Apparently I've pleasured the swim team while jacked up on goofballs" ("Like a Virgin," 1-8). And yes, with all her musings about how much she could rake in if she's Jake Kane's illegitimate daughter, how much she might earn from a case, and how much she dislikes cold showers, Veronica's voiceovers clarify that she's generally short on cash.

  Her narration often uses clipped sentences or ironic observations, just like the first-person delivery in works by Hammett, Chandler, and Spillane. As creator Rob Thomas admits, he prefers to keep Veronica's musings focused on "snarky commentary": "I don't want Veronica to share much with the audience in terms of her inner struggle" (Wharton). And yet, what even he may not recognize, and certainly what a lot of noir fans easily overlook, is that where Veronica truly captures the tough voice of the famous hard-boiled detectives, she is bringing on the vulnerability.

  Consider Philip Marlowe's comment in Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye: "I'm supposed to be tough, but there was something about the guy that got me." Despite all his posing otherwise, the hardboiled detective has a soft side, too. Let's do a little comparison. Take this Mike Hammer line from the first-person sequence at the start of Mickey Spillane's I, The Jury:

  There was my best friend lying on the floor dead. The body. Now I could call it that. Yesterday it was Jack Williams. The dead can't speak for themselves. They can't tell what happened. How could Jack tell a jury what it was like to have his insides ripped out?

  Now compare it against Veronica's palpable loneliness for her murdered best friend, Lilly Kane, throughout season one:

  It's been a year and a half since I stood outside this door and watched my best friend's body carried away. A year and a half's worth of questions only I know and only someone in this house can answer. ("Kanes & Abel's," 1-17)

  It's not that different, is it? Not despite the sense of loss, but because of it. Because, as Raymond Chandler explains about the tough American detective, his toughness is tempered by an incredible earnestness:

  He is a relatively poor man, or he would not be a detective at all. He is a common man or he could not go among common people; he has a sense of character, or he would not know his job. He will take no man's money dishonestly and no man's insolence without a due and dispassionate revenge; he is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him. ("Simple" 59)

  And this, this is where the sitcom dream sequences and Aflac commercials get it wrong, and Veronica Mars gets it right. The merely derivative versions of hard-boiled voiceovers focus only on the tough, and not on the earnest. The narrative technique employed by Veronica focuses on both. And in doing this, a petite California blonde, who can be compared to Nancy Drew as easily as she can be contrasted against her, may just save the concept of noir and raise it into legitimacy once more.

  If anyone can do it, Veronica can.

  Rita Award-winning author EVELYN VAUGHN has published fifteen romance and adventure novels (including A.K.A. Goddess and Something Wicked) and a dozen fantasy short stories in anthologies such as Constellation of Cats, Vengeance Fantastic, and Familiars. She also teaches literature and creative writing for Tarrant County College in Texas. When neither writing nor teaching... oh, who are we kidding? She's almost always writing and teaching. And watching TV (being an addict). It helps her rest up from the writing. And the teaching.

  She loves to talk about what she writes, whether that's an attractive quality or not. Check out her Web site at www.evelynvaughn.com.

  Rffrrfnws

  Chandler, Raymond. "The Simple Art of Murder." The Atlantic Monthly, Dec. 1944, 53-59.

  Chandler, Raymond. The Long Good-bye. London: H. Hamilton, 1971. Orig. pub. 1953.

  "Hard-Boiled American Crime Fiction Writing." History of Crime Fiction. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia 12 Aug. 20
06. .

  "October 1958-April 1959." TV Ratings United States 12 Aug. 2006 .

  Spillane, Mickey. I, the Jury. Signet, 1947.

  Tompkins, Jane. "Women and the Language of Men." West of Everything: The Inner Life of Westerns. USA: Oxford University Press, 1993.

  Wharton, David Michael. "Hard-Boiled High School: Veronica Mars' Rob Thomas." Creative Screenwriting. 12 Aug. 2006 .

  Hay's the seuet to having a great father/daughter relationship on television: hire actors as talented as Enrico Colantoni and Kristen Bell. Even when the material is uninspired, they give it heart. A perfect example is the scene in "Leave It to Beaver" when Keith tells Veronica he's her biological father. I've heard from so many people how much they loved the scene, but I can promise, it's not because of the dialogue.

  I was single and childless when we shot the Veronica Mars pilot. I'm now married, and my daughter is nineteen months old. When I first wrote Keith, I decided to write him as the dad I'd hope to be. He still is that dad. We'll see how I do when Greta turns sixteen. I suspect it'll become more of a test.

  Television writers complain loudly and often about the bad notes they get from their network and studio, and I've certainly had some of those, but credit where credit's due, the network gave me a note on the pilot episode for which I'm eternally grateful. Originally, Veronica was supposed to discover that Keith was keeping postcards from her mother hidden in his safe. At the conclusion of the pilot, Veronica and Keith were going to be estranged. The network wisely said, "Her best friend is dead. She's been raped. Her mom has deserted her. She's a pariah at school. You can't take her dad away, too."