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Femme fatale

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For other uses, see Femme fatale (disambiguation)
Mata Hari, exotic dancer and convicted spy, made her name synonymous with femme fatale during WWI.

A femme fatale is a stock character, usually a villainous woman, who deceptively misleads and ensnares the hapless hero and/or other males in order to gain some end they would not freely help her achieve.

The phrase is French for "deadly woman" or "fatal woman". The femme fatale will generally try to achieve her hidden purpose by using her feminine wiles (beauty, charm, sexual skill), and thus she is typically portrayed as exceptionally well-endowed with these qualities. However, in some situations, lying or coercion can be just as effective.

Although typically villainous, femmes fatales have also been known to be antiheroines in some stories, and sometimes they even repent and become heroines by the end of the tale. (See e.g. Bell, Book and Candle.) Today, the archetype is generally seen as a character who constantly crosses the line between good and evil, acting unscrupulously despite social norms and any overt allegiances she may have to the hero.

A femme fatale is thus a source of disruption: this generally arises when her actions put her in conflict with woman's traditional role as subservient to the males in her life. For this reason a modern feminist woman may regard a so-called femme fatale in movies or fiction in ways quite different than her male companions do. Consider the feminist view of the options faced by a woman who wields power that is not inherent, if she marries:

  • Her husband's love may not be honest: his true goal may be to possess that power.
  • Even if initially honest, he may change as the relationship develops. This might occur because of some character flaw in him, or through pressure from his family or friends.

A woman of power, therefore, needs to proceed carefully into romance. Since she typically surrenders much of her personal political and financial power to the marriage, she has reason to establish a fallback position. This can be done by withholding resources, perhaps by keeping a separate bank account. Tragedy can ensue, however, if she chooses to counterbalance her husband's traditional assets of wealth and powerful connections with the femme fatale's assets. Then, as happens in some film noir, she runs the risk of destroying their relationship and even her husband and herself. The extreme of this sympathetic version of the femme fatale would be a woman who was defrauded of everything by her husband, forced to survive by crime or prostitution.

But then again, sometimes a femme fatale is just a wantonly evil witch, driven to emotionally enslave her partners for her own enjoyment. A stock character, after all, doesn't have to have layer upon layer of nuance. In such a case, it's fun to see the males in the tale bring her down.

History

File:Spirit - Oct. 6, 1946.jpg
The Spirit, Oct. 6, 1946 which features one of the classic femme fatales, P'Gell.

The femme fatale has existed, in one form or another, since time out of mind in the folklore and myths of nearly all cultures. Some of the earliest examples include the Sumerian goddess Ishtar and the Biblical Delilah. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the femme fatale became ubiquitous in Western culture and can be found in the works of Oscar Wilde, Edvard Munch, and Gustav Klimt. This may have been a reaction to women's movements and the changing role of women at the time. With the introduction of film noir in the 1940s, the femme fatale flourished in pop culture. Examples include espionage thrillers, and in a number of adventure comic strips, such as The Spirit by Will Eisner, or Terry and the Pirates by Milton Caniff.

The femme fatale is sometimes portrayed as a sort of sexual vampire; her dark appetites were thought to be able to leech away the virility and independence of her lovers, leaving them shells of their former selves. On this account, in earlier American slang femmes fatales were often called "vamps", short for "vampire". A classic portrayal of a femme fatale is given in Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet in the character of Justine.

In opera and musical theater, the femme fatale is usually played by a dramatic mezzo-soprano and is sometimes the foil or the enemy of the ingenue and/or the damsel in distress.

Some argue that the figure has a male counterpart. Some examples could be Don Juan, Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights, many of the heroes in Lord Byron's books (termed the "Byronic hero"), as well as such diverse characters as Billy Budd, Count Dracula, Tadzio in Death in Venice, Georges Querelle in Jean Genet's Querelle of Brest, James Bond, and Tom Ripley in Patricia Highsmith's "Ripley" novels.

A possible name of any male "femme fatale" might be homme fatal.

Although often depicted in ancient texts as a symbol of corruption, in more recent times the femme fatale is often portrayed in fiction as a symbol of free will for women and unrestrained passion.

There has been greater attention to sexist and male-biased points of view in older fiction in recent centuries. Many women state that many of the so-called villainous women in literature are merely seeking an improved enjoyment and quality of life, personal satisfaction, or metaphysical self-actualization, which has raised questions about the view of women as subservient and unworthy of free will in the eyes of some men in history. A big point of debate is the subject of Lilith, the mythological first wife of Adam before Eve. In most texts depicting Lilith, many point out that her only real crime against Adam and God was voicing her own opinion. She is sentenced to hell, and God creates a new woman for Adam in the form of Eve.

Eve, however, is considerably more subservient to Adam than was Lilith, who showed signs of desiring more equal treatment. This text has infuriated many women for centuries, who argue that the passage is extremely male-biased. Many people (including those with religious beliefs) question the validity of such a religious statement of subservience, questioning whether or not any god would wish such an unfair fate upon all women. It has been suggested by many that religious books are heavily influenced by male values of the time, such as men's believed superiority over women.

In modern times the Femme Fatale has enjoyed a better image. Even Femme Fatales in older texts have been at times looked upon in a different, more sympathetic, light.

In modern media, the Femme Fatale archetype can actually be seen quite often. Popular examples of this character type are the movies Nikita and Moulin Rouge, to name a few, and a number of assorted media from video games to comic books. Elektra, a character from the Marvel Comics universe is arguably a femme fatale and is quite a well known character in comic circles, as is Catwoman from the various Batman stories. The female Ninja (the Kunoichi) depicted in countless media are very well known and legendary for being trained in femme-fatale techniques as well as martial-arts methods, so that they are able to use their sexuality as fluidly as their deadly assassination skills.

Nita Naldi, one of the great vamps of the silent screen.

Famous femmes fatales

Both fictional and factual are listed.

Modern Fictional characters

"Femme fatales" in Mythology

Historical figures

Films

File:LadyfromS.JPG
The femme fatale was a central character in film noir, usually tempting the male protagonist to his inevitable doom. Pictured: Rita Hayworth in The Lady from Shanghai.

Games

References

Bram Dijkstra has written two books that discuss the Femme fatale-stereotype at great length:

  • Idols of Perversity: Fantasies of Feminine Evil in Fin-De-Siecle Culture, ISBN 0195056523
  • Evil Sisters: The Threat of Female Sexuality in Twentieth-Century Culture, ISBN 0805055495

The Velvet Underground have a song off their album The Velvet Underground and Nico titled "Femme Fatale".

Senses Fail refer to a Femme Fatale in their song "Let it enfold you"

See also

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