“A femme fatale is neither a type nor a stereotype. She is a woman who makes use of all the means at her disposal to achieve her goals.”
– Béla Balázs, “The Visible Man or the Culture of Film”
Introduction
The femme fatale character archetype, a seductive woman who uses her sexuality to manipulate men for her personal benefit, has been present in literature and media for centuries. However, the femme fatale as a defined trope did not emerge until the beginning of the 20th century in classic noir films. In these depictions, the femme fatale acts with empowerment, self interest, and destruction, mirroring the darkness and mystery of classic noir film. With confidence in herself and her sexuality, the femme fatale has many traits that fall in alignment with feminist values. However, her choices of seeming rejection against the traditional feminine ideals imposed on her are ultimately punished by the end of the film, often ending with the femme fatale imprisoned, dead, or worse, married. Likewise, similar to the nurturing wife she attempts to contradict, her fundamental identity as a person is still based on her relationship to men. As Anne Dennon, author of the masters thesis The Emergence of the Feminist Fatale in American Film Noir puts, “while the mother appears to cater to masculine control and the femme appears to destroy it, both female types are inventions of an authoritative masculine system”(1). This is what has led to criticism of the femme fatale as a symbol for female empowerment, particularly by second wave feminists. With ideologies founded in moving women into corporate leadership positions and circumventing traditional female gender roles, the hyper feminine and sexual femme fatale whose beauty and mystique were a direct reaction to male fantasy was deemed antithetical to the foundation of the second wave of female empowerment. However, in today’s third/fourth wave of feminism, there is greater acceptance of intersectionality in a woman’s desire for both beauty, sexual intimacy, and attention, as well as her desire for independence and career success. These qualities are no longer deemed as mutually exclusive. Ultimately, is the femme fatale’s sexual confidence and intelligence empowering? Or is her traditionally tragic ending harmful to women in reinforcing stringent gender expectations?
Classical Origins
The roots of the femme fatale archetype can be traced back to the narratives like Medusa and Circe in Greek Mythology. While Medusa’s story does not conform precisely to the traditional femme fatale narratives, it does underscore the repercussions and consequences that can come with an alluring woman possessing destructive power. Medusa, a former beautiful maiden, was discovered by Athena to be having an affair with Poseidon inside the temple of Minerva. As punishment, she was cursed to become a hideous gargoyle with snakes for hair. While her story is often told with her cursed appearance being so hideous that anyone who looked at her turned to stone, another interpretation suggests that it was her blinding beauty, ultimately punishing the men who dared to gaze upon her with their death. Another more direct parallel of the femme fatale in Greek mythology is Circe in Homer’s Odyssey. Circe was a powerful and beautiful sorceress who lived on the island Aeaea. When Odysseus arrives on the island with his men, Circe is welcoming and hospitable, offering them food and shelter. However, with ulterior motives, Circe drugs their meals and then turns several of Odysseus’s men into pigs. She uses her sexuality and her magical powers to manipulate men for her own purposes, and is not above using violence and other means to get what she wants. Like the classic femme fatale, Circe represents a threat to the traditional patriarchal order, as she is a woman who refuses to be controlled by men and is willing to use her power to assert herself. However, Circe is ultimately seduced by Odysseus, ending her manipulations and enchantments on the men.
The Rise of the Femme Fatale in the Victorian Era and the Creation of Film Noir
The societal shifts during the Victorian era established a basis for the femme fatale archetype to appeal to the masses. With the rise of industrialization, immigration, urbanization, and growing middle class, the U.S was undergoing massive social and economic change. As Anne Dennon explains, “the industrial and cultural renovations of the age lent both the possibility for social advancement and the imaginative tools to project an ideal life. The intersection of these influences forms the flashpoint for the dark or grim lady, today known as the femme fatale” (1). The femme fatale, with her individualist values and ambition, reflected common goals seen in the middle class of America. Furthermore, the femme fatale’s appeal was also simply because she was exciting. Her transgressions and provocative behavior gave her readers and audience means of exploring a “forbidden second life”, allowing her audience to project themselves onto her. This appeal of the femme fatale is enduring, and has stayed with the archetype through her many iterations. However, the femme fatale’s methods of achieving her ambitions, by using men and uprooting the patriarchy she wished to gain, made her deserving of her punitive endings. Although classic film noir, and the then defined femme fatale, were not established until the 1940s to the 1950s, it was the beginning of the character and sensation around the femme fatale during the Victorian era made her rise as a popular trope in the 20th century possible.
The femme fatale and classic film noir have been largely cited as a direct reaction to post World War II fears and social tensions. The genre of film noir itself, as Michelle Mercure, author of masters thesis The “Bad Girl” Turned Feminist: The Femme Fatale and the Performance of Theory defines, is distinguished by its “element of criminality, a lack of morality, and an ambiguous plot”(2). Futhermore, there are additional characteristics such as “the use of black and white film instead of color; discontinuity of time, … strange camera angles; … a nighttime setting; … and, of course, the archetype of the femme fatale, a dangerously beautiful woman who leads men to their destruction” that help to “create an aura of uncertainty that accurately reflects the time period in which these films were produced” (2).
World War II affected nearly everyone in their day to day lives. Post war, the basis of society and security itself was questioned. Specifically, the large movement of women into the workforce during the war, and then out of it again after left gender roles to be more ambiguous than they had been previously. This is echoed in the dual nature of the femme fatale, with her beautiful outward appearance, but immoral goals and desires. The femme fatale is quite literally putting on a show for the men around her. With heavy emphasis on her outward appearance, as Mercure describes, the femme fatale typically has “a cigarette, long, sexy legs that often dominate the frame, thick, luscious lips, gorgeous, wavy hair that frames her face perfectly, and an attire that is often very flashy: fur shawls and coats, long gloves that extend to the elbows, evening gowns that shimmer and sparkle, clothing that reveals legs, cleavage, arms, back, and/or shoulders, and a sexy pair of high heels”(2). Although she has desire for her own personhood and autonomy, the femme fatale sees this masquerade as the only means to achieve her independence, thereby supporting the patriarchal structure she wishes to escape. However, her performance and act also serve to empower her. In Gilda 1946, Gilda played by Rita Hayworth performs a striptease for male subject Johnny, singing while slowly taking her long, silky gloves off and throwing them into the audience. This performance, instead of being the traditional male fantasy for Johnny, is unpleasant and confusing for him. In this way, Gilda reverses the direction of the patriarchal norms, using her traditionally objectified appearance to control and undermine masculine power. This understanding of weaponized female sexuality supports the idea that the femme fatale as an archetype became widespread in film noir as a manifestation of fears in men about the shifting power dynamics of the time. As Virginia Allen writes in her novel The Femme Fatale: Erotic Icon, the femme fatale “was produced by men who felt threatened by the escape of some actual women from male dominance”. Furthermore, with the femme fatale’s traditionally tragic ending, she embodies a cautionary tale of women’s liberation gone too far. However, this perspective on the purpose of the femme fatale as only a realization of misogynistic ideals of the time in ultimately limited, as it overly focuses on male perceptions of her and fails to consider the other functions of the character within the film’s narratives. Like the character herself, the femme fatale as a narrative device is multi faceted. As Miranda Sherwin in her article Deconstructing the Male: Masochism, Female Spectatorship, and the Femme Fatale in Fatal Attraction, Body of Evidence, and Basic Instinct notes, “on the one hand, [the femme fatale] is insane, violent, predatory, and finally, dead. On the other hand, she controls the film’s action until the end” (3). The femme fatale has been long understood as marketed and developed for male audiences, however, the femme fatale’s traits and her relationships seem to be more in alignment with traditionally female viewer preferences. As mentioned earlier, a large part of the femme fatale’s appeal came from audience’s projections onto her as a means of escapism from oppressive societal norms. As Allen further writes, the femme fatale “offered one of the few role models for women in the nineteenth century that combined freedom with fascination and erotic intrigue. By imitating the femme fatale, women could imagine that they acquired more than her attractions, her freedom, her her sexual independence, and considerable enjoyment” (4). This idea remains highly relevant to her popularity with women in the 1940’s and 1950’s, where the femme fatale could be understood outside of her male perceptions as an empowering icon for women. During World War II with the majority of men off fighting, there was a large increase in female spectatorship at movie theaters. Ultimately, for studios to keep themselves relevant in the market, there had to be some appeal for women viewers in film noir. This is why these more radicals ideals of weaponized feminity and women achieving their own justice over men were significantly more prevalent at the time. Even in these movies with the femme fatale receiving her punitive ending, her plays over men through her manipulations are seen as genuine displays of power.
In the 1947 movie Out of the Past, protagonist detective Jeff Bailey played by Robert Mitchum falls in love with femme fatale Kathie Moffat played by Jane Greer who he had been hired to find by her gangster ex boyfriend Whit Sterling played by Kirk Douglas after she supposedly shot and stole $40,000 dollars from him. After a series double crossings and betrayal, Jeff ultimately tries to turn Kathie into the police. Kathie shoots Jeff dead and then is shot dead by the police. Even though she dies, we the viewers understand that her violent actions were taken out of desperation to escape from her relationships with men, not solely malicious goals. The audience is not left with stronger resolve for social norms of marriage and the housewife after the sinful femme has been served justice, rather, the femme fatale’s hurtful actions are seen ultimately as a survival reaction to her harsh situation. John and Stephanie Blaser in their article “No place for women: The family in film noir”, conclude that “it is the image of the powerful, fearless, and independent femme fatale that sticks in our minds when these movies end, perhaps because” even her death “ she—unlike powerful women in other Hollywood films of the ‘30s and ‘40s—remains true to her destructive nature and refuses to be converted or captured”(5)
The Femme Fatale Now
While in traditional film noir, the femme fatale’s promiscuity was ultimately punished, modern day femme fatales with their self and sexual empowerment are instead generally celebrated. As Anne Dennon puts, “this incremental narrative change [in how the femme fatale is perceived] shows the femme emerging as not only an acceptable model for female social behavior, but a dominant ideal in the postfeminist age, one paradoxically supported by the very system it purports to dismantle” (1). The quintiessential modern femme fatale is Amy Dunne in the novel and film franchise Gone Girl. Like the femme fatales of the Victorian era, Amy seeks to improve her life, however, her choices and reactions are to the new, modern, patriarchy. As Becca Rondfield writes in her article “Gone Girl’s Feminist Update of the Old-Fashioned Femme Fatale”, “Modern patriarchy is evasive, shifty, slimily manipulative, and it requires a different sort of resistance. The classic femme fatale engaged men on the terms that they had set for her, adopting the persona they demanded of her, using her beauty to rig a game of male making. But Amy Dunne opts out of this game altogether”(6).
Gone Girl 2014 follows Amy played by Rosamund Pike and Nick played by Ben Affleck in their struggling marriage after losing their jobs post recession. On the morning of their fifth anniversary, Nick comes home to find that Amy is missing. Following is a mystery where Nick, revealed to have perpetuated rounds of abuse and planned to divorce Amy, is the primary suspect for Amy’s disappearance. However, it is later revealed that it was Amy herself who framed Nick for her murder. Attempting to escape her jaded life, Amy cuts her hair and goes on the run. However, after being trapped by her obsessive ex boyfriend Desi played by Neil Patrick Harris, Amy kills him and returns to Nick. Amy’s actions are a reflection of modern patriarchy’s expectations of women – they do not want a doting wife, rather, they want a passive partner, someone who is a submissive reflection of themselves, stripped of her own identity. As Amy defines herself in her iconic monologue, “there are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain”. Rather than just rejecting the housewife identity put forth by classic femme fatales, Amy dismisses any idea of a singular, true identity. She gives into the performance of herself, positing the power of the multiplicity of identity. Although the femme fatale and Amy herself are singular characters, their multifaceted public identities demand that she be understood with nuance and cannot be dismissed as wholly villainous or wholly innocent.
The femme fatale is neither entirely empowering or harmful for women. To reduce the femme fatale to a binary would be dismissive of the complexities surrounding each iteration of her character. While it is true that some manifestations of the femme fatale reinforce old-fashioned ideals of strict dominance and submission, others subvert these norms, providing a more empowering depiction of women. Criticisms that the femme fatale is a wholly negative representation of women are not necessarily beneficial, however, the femme fatale’s focus on women’s sole form of power relying on their appearance and ability to seduce men is both dated and limiting. This portrayal does not serve to empower women on their own merits, but instead reinforces the notion that women are only valuable in relation to men. While the idea of a woman taking power from men for her own empowerment is in alignment with today’s feminist values, the femme fatale archetype does not take this idea far enough. Therefore, it is more accurate to describe the femme fatale as a proto-feminist figure. She embodies the idea of a woman taking power for herself and subverting traditional gender roles, yet her portrayal is limited by the patriarchal constraints of the societies in which she was created. While her character has evolved over time, the femme fatale archetype remains limited in her complex representation of women’s agency, one that invites nuanced discussion rather than simplistic condemnation or celebration.
[Cover Image] Too Late For Tears (1949)
[1] Dennon, Anne. “The Emergence of the Feminist Fatale in American Film Noir.” Central Washington University. May 2017. Accessed May 6, 2023. https://digitalcommons.cwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1646&context=etd.
[2] Mercure, Michelle. “The ‘Bad Girl’ Turned Feminist: The Femme Fatale and the Performance of Theory.” Bridgewater State University. 2010. Accessed May 6, 2023. https://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1163&context=undergrad_rev.
[3]Sherwin, Miranda. “Deconstructing the Male: Masochism, Female Spectatorship, and the Femme Fatale in Fatal Attraction, Body of Evidence, and Basic Instinct“. Journal of Popular Film and Television. 2008. Accessed May 6, 2023. 35:4, 174-182, DOI: 10.3200/JPFT.35.4.174-182
[4] Allen, Virginia M. The Femme Fatale: Erotic Icon. 2nd ed. Albany, NY: Whitston, 2001.
[5] Barnes-Smith, Danielle L. “Fatal Woman, Revisited: Understanding Female Stereotypes in Film Noir Film Noir.” University of Montana. 2015. Accessed May 6, 2023. https://scholarworks.umt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1044&context=utpp.
[6] Rothfield, Becca. “Gone Girl’s Feminist Update of the Old-Fashioned Femme Fatale.” The New Republic. October 8, 2014. Accessed May 6, 2023. https://newrepublic.com/article/119743/gone-girl-has-offered-feminism-new-hero.
[7] In defense of the femme fatale, Mina Le, Youtube, 2021.
[8] Jimenez, Sierra. “The femme fatale: an empowering badass or an extension of the male gaze?” The California Aggie. 2021. Accessed May 6, 2023. https://theaggie.org/2022/02/10/the-femme-fatale-an-empowering-badass-or-an-extension-of-the-male-gaze/.
[9] O’Neal, Daryn. “Is the Femme Fatale Truly Empowering?” The Wrangler. September 3, 2021. Accessed May 6, 2023. https://www.thewrangleronline.com/41934/opinion/is-the-femme-fatale-truly-empowering/.
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