"Very attractive girl." "What would you say if I told you
she was the spider woman?" The Femme Fatale is bold, beautiful,
and bad to the bone. "I'm a bad girl Nicolas." Most associated with classic film noir
of the 1940s and 50s, She earns her name -
French for "fatal woman"- because she traditionally
brings about the destruction of the man (or men) in her story. "You aren't too smart, are you? I like that in a man." Comparing the many mesmerizing iterations
of the onscreen femme fatale, we can identify some patterns
that define her: She's magnetic, seductive,
even irresistible. She often makes a sensational
first impression, "Gilda, are you decent?" "Who, me?" immediately hooking the protagonist's
(and audience's) attention. "I'd hate to think of you
not, uh, being fully covered." She's a sexual being
and wields her sexuality as a tool (or a weapon)
to get what she wants. "You know I don't wear any underwear,
don't you, Nick?" She has a cynical view of the world - "Everything is bad, Michael. Everything." She wants money,
and likes material things - "You've just made me a very rich woman." A master manipulatrix,
she's hiding her true self "Help me." "You won't need much of anybody's help. You're good. Chiefly your eyes
and that throb you get in your voice when you say things like
'Be Generous Mr Spade'" -- and despite the passion she inspires,
she's emotionally very cold and distant. "That's pretty cold, ain't it, lady?" "I'm a writer. I use people for what I write.." Traditionally, she's not interested
in being a mother or leading a conventional
domestic life. At its core, the "villainy"
of the Femme Fatale often exposes our culture's
anxieties about females. "Do you trust me now?" "Less now than when I didn't
trust you before." Here's our Take
on the Femme Fatale through the ages, how she exposes which qualities in women
make society uncomfortable, and what she looks like today. "Anyone check you for
a heartbeat lately?" "You're watching
The Take. Thanks for watching and
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to get a free 30-day trial using the promo code THETAKE. Start watching something new today. Throughout her history,
the femme fatale has been a reflection
of her era's anxieties about femininity. "Oh, you idiot! How can a man be so dumb? I've wanted to laugh in your face
ever since I first met you." Early versions of this trope --
like Eve or Salome -- are cautionary tales of the risks
of unchecked female sexuality. Myth and literature are also filled
with examples of the faithless woman whose betrayal undoes her man --
like the Biblical Delilah, who weakens Samson
by having his hair cut off; or Greek mythology's Clytemnestra,
who plots with her lover to kill her husband
Agamemnon in the bathtub when he returns
from the Trojan war. The most influential
early screen femme fatale was Theda Bara's "Vamp" character
in 1915's A Fool There Was, who helped solidify
the popular conception of the seductress as
an almost supernatural bloodsucker. The heyday of
the femme fatale onscreen came in film noir
of the 1940s and 50s. "I find men very attractive." "I imagine they meet you halfway." During World War II,
many women had been called away from traditional domestic roles
to work to aid the war effort, and in the post-war era,
the femme fatale was deeply linked to male fears that women
had gained too much power and independence outside the home. As Richard Lingeman writes
in The Noir Forties, "The rise of the femme fatale
in films noir reflected male ambivalence and anxiety about
those Amazons unleashed by the war who worked at men's jobs,
had sex with whomever they wanted, and rejected home and motherhood." "You like money. You got great big dollar sign there, where most women have a heart." Certain noir movies specifically reflected
worries about women's fidelity, as returning soldiers wondered
what their sweethearts had been up to while they were fighting overseas. "Well, you haven't much faith in
the stability of women have you, Johnny?" This paranoid obsession
with female faithlessness is central to 1946's Gilda, "Sure, I'm decent" which stars Rita Hayworth
as a sexbomb who decides to make
her ex Johnny jealous by parading around
with various men. "If I'd been a ranch,
they would have named me the Bar Nothing." Johnny expresses intense
hatred for Gilda, "I hated her so, I couldn't get her
out of my mind for a minute." which centers on his belief
that she's been sleeping around (even though she's actually married
to another man at the time) The plot culminates in
Hayworth performing a striptease to "Put the Blame on Mame," ♪"So you can put the blame on Mame, boys"♪, whose lyrics tell of
a sensual woman being blamed for all of the world's major problems, and her dance confronts Johnny
with the image of harlotry he's forced on her. "Now they all know that
the mighty Johnny Farrell got taken and that he married a-" (slaps her) It's only when Johnny
is finally satisfied that Gilda isn't
promiscuous after all, that he finally stops punishing her
and admits his love. "Gilda didn't do any of those things
you've been losing sleep over. Not any of them." Thus fears of the unfaithful,
loose woman were eased. Other examples of the femme fatale
express a fear of the materialistic woman
who lusts for wealth. "Look at it. 50s and 20s,
there must be thousands here." -- likely a manifestation
of anxieties about women getting a taste for earning their own money
during the war. "Yes, and it's all mine too. I don't owe any payments on it." This character likes money
and, more often than not, is revealed to be driven
by a plot to enrich herself. "Emily, why?" "I had four million reasons why." One of the most iconic
femme fatales ever, Barbara Stanwick's Phyllis Dietrichson
in Double Indemnity, is not only taking out her husband
for life insurance money, but it's also implied
she murdered his first wife to land the guy back
when he did have some wealth. "She did it for the money." In 1945's Mildred Pierce
(a rare early example where the trope is causing the ruin
of a female protagonist), Joan Crawford's Mildred is tortured
by her femme fatale daughter, Veda -- a young woman who's been spoiled rotten. "You think new curtains are enough
to make me happy. I want more than that. I want the kind of life Monte taught me, and you won't give it to me." Veda becomes a cautionary tale of what happens when you
overindulge your children and get a young woman hooked
on a decadent lifestyle. "Money. That's what you
live for, isn't it? You'd do anything for money,
wouldn't you." Mildred Pierce also highlights
post-war discomfort with the working woman. Veda resents and looks down on her mother
for pursuing a career. "I can get away from you and
your chickens, pies and kitchens. Everything that smells of grease." And while Mildred commands viewers'
respect for her hard work, one interpretation of the film is that
it's showing all of Mildred's troubles as stemming from her decision
to become a career woman. "You look down on me because
I work for a living, don't you?" Lingeman even writes
in The Noir Forties, "Hollywood resorted to a noir plot
to sell the postwar message that women belonged in the home,
not in the factory— let alone in the boss's office
(except as his loyal secretary)." Later examples of the femme fatale
have played even more overtly on our society's continuing discomfort
with female ambition and the career woman Nicole Kidman's Suzanne Stone
in To Die For is so driven to pursue her dream job
as a TV journalist that when her husband suggests
she quit her career to start a family, "I am not selling short
what you're doing now. I mean, the weather report stuff
which you're really good at. But let's face facts. A family, that's what
I'm talking about, Suze, huh?" this triggers Suzanne's
decision to have him killed. "Larry said he would
never stand in my way, whatever happened. But the word "failure"
is not part of my vocabulary." You could also view
Breaking Bad's Lydia Rodarte-Quayle as an update to this
deadly working woman, driven by bottomless
corporate greed. "You wanna talk methylamine?" "You can't even get us a single barrel." "Who said anything about barrels? I'm talking about an ocean of the stuff." In 1950's Sunset Boulevard, Gloria Swanson's
femme fatale Norma Desmond brings out our culture's discomfort
with the aging woman. "Norma, you're a woman of 50. Now grow up." which continues to be fueled
by Hollywood's obsession with youth: "An army of beauty experts invaded
her house on Sunset Boulevard. She went through a merciless
series of treatments." Older women are expected to
gracefully fade into the background, and give way to the young,
so Norma's villainy and delusion stem in large part from her refusal
to follow this unwritten rule. "No one ever leaves a star. That's what makes one a star." Often, the femme fatale
might be contrasted with a sweet,
innocent female character, who represents wholesome,
"good" womanhood. By the conclusion of the story,
the male hero may end up respecting or caring more for this "good" woman,
and feeling hatred or contempt for the femme fatale
who once ensnared him. "I guess that was the first time
I ever thought about Phyllis that way. Dead, I mean. And how it would be if she were dead." At the heart of
the femme fatale depictions is a fear of female sexuality. "Sex always made you stupid,
ready to believe anything." In the 1992 erotic thriller
Basic Instinct, Sharon Stone's Catherine Tramell
takes the pure sexuality of the femme fatale
to a deadly extreme. "He falls for the wrong woman. "What happens?" "She kills him." It's significant that the character
is often promiscuous. "My advice is to sleep with
as many people as possible." She's aware of the power
of her sexuality and not afraid to use it. "I'm crazy about you baby." "I'm crazy about you Walter." And crucially (in most examples)
she rejects being a mother and building a traditional family home. "Do you regret it, not having children?" "Do you ever regret having them?" Arguably, this is the
character's original "sin" and the fundamental reason
she's so villainized -- her will to be sexual
without this leading to motherhood. "Go find yourself
a nice little cow-girl, make nice little cow-babies
and leave me alone." Virginia M. Allen writes
that a woman not bearing
a man's child is quote, "an extreme form of
destruction of the male: deprivation of his
posterity, his immortality." "Look at me. I hate the little beast. I wish it would die." and that the Femme fatale
herself comes out of the "fear and desire experienced
by men confronted with women who deny the right of men
to control female sexuality." "Maybe you shouldn't dress like that." "This is a blouse and a skirt. I don't know what you're talking about." "You shouldn't wear that body." The femme fatale's drive to destroy men
is often made incredibly literal. "You're killing people?" "No. I'm killing boys." The femme fatale is frequently
trying to kill her husband. "Sometimes you wish he was dead." "Perhaps I do." "Then you wish it was an accident,
and you had that policy for $50,000. - Is that it?" "Perhaps that too." But she also tends to destroy
the hero from the inside-- by awakening something dark
and dangerous within the protagonist. "And I went to prison,
and I met parts of myself lurking inside of me
that I didn't even know were in there." "That means they pay
double on certain accidents. The kind that almost never happen." "I see." "We're hitting it for the limit, baby." Fritz Lang's 1944 noir
Woman in the Window ends with revealing
its plot has all been its male protagonist's dream,
getting at how the femme fatale is in large part a presence
in the man's subconscious. "I thought you might be missing me." "You know I am but I can't
trust you anymore." There are generally two endings
for the classic femme fatale: 1) She's redeemed, or revealed to
not really have been bad, and thus not
a femme fatale deep down. "I'm not bad, I'm just
drawn that way." -- so she's allowed
to get a happy ending. But more often,
we get Ending Number 2: She's revealed to be
rotten to the core, "I'm rotten to the heart. I used you, just as you said." and usually she must be punished,
generally with death or with jail. "This time your daughter
pays for her own mistake." Though this comeuppance for sins was
mandated by the Hays Code in the classic noir era, examples of the femme fatale
escaping consequences remained few and far between,
until the 90s on. Thus, whether it's through
destroying her or through revealing her
to be secretly decent, in most classic examples
(and many to this day) the threat of the femme fatale
is finally eliminated. "You know for a smart girl
you make a lot of mistakes. You're gonna need a good lawyer." And thus, male anxieties are purged. "That means if you're a good girl,
you'll be out in 20 years. I'll be waiting for you. If they hang you,
I'll always remember you." One of the enduring
questions about the femme fatale is whether this trope is
misogynistic or feminist. She's the picture of female power
and sexual liberation -but for this, she's vilified
and taken down by her story. "You do hate me,
don't you, Johnny?" "I don't think you have
any idea how much." The best answer to
this debate is, really, that the Femme Fatale can be
both sexist and empowering. Though the ending of her story
usually condemns or eliminates her, in the majority of her screentime
she's portrayed as incredibly compelling. She tends to be the most iconic,
memorable character in her story. "You touch me and
you won't live 'till morning" One way of viewing this trope -- especially when we look back
on older films -- is that it allowed writers
to create strong female characters who are smarter than
everyone else around them, while also owning their
sexuality and womanhood. In order for writers to do this, this character usually
had to be reigned in, so as not to feel too
threatening to the status quo. "Now you are dangerous." The femme fatale is also often portrayed
as the victim of her society. This is seen in 1945's Detour, where the femme fatale
isn't presented as alluring. "You look just like a Phoenix girl." "Are the girls in Phoenix that bad?" This sick, down-and-out hitchhiker
has had to fight off her share of bad men, which explains her
bitter view of the world. "Listen mister, I've been around,
I know a wrong guy when I see one" In the 1974 neo-noir Chinatown, Evelyn Mulwray, who starts out
framed as the femme fatale, turns out to be not a villain at all, but a victim of
the worst abuses imaginable. Ultimately, the femme
fatale-as-victim illuminates how women like her are
trapped in her society "Housewives can get
awfully bored sometimes." Even the fact that the
villainous examples of the trope are so often trying to
get free of their husbands and achieve financial independence tells us how powerless they feel
in their starting situations. "I want to be somebody." While Phyllis is revealed
to be lying about many things, her numerous comments
about feeling stifled by her husband and
married life still ring true: "My husband never tells me anything." "He keeps me on a leash
so tight I can't breathe." "He never let's me go anywhere, He keeps me shut up,
he's always been mean to me." We can see this frustration
with feeling trapped by stifling gender expectations
driving much later femme fatales as well. "God forbid I exude
confidence and enjoy sex. Do you think I relish
the fact that I have to act like Mary Sunshine 24-7
so I can be considered a lady?" And the femme fatale's
trademark dishonesty, "I've always been a liar." "It must really be something
making stuff up all the time." "Yeah, it teaches you to lie." is encouraged by a society
that would not accept the real her. "I never told you
I was anything but what I am. You just wanted to imagine I was." So where is the femme fatale at today? Whereas in the past
the femme fatale tended to prey on men, more recent films & shows might show her
leading another woman astray. "I thought you only murdered boys." "I go both ways." In the early seasons of
Orange is the New Black, criminal Alex is
painted as a femme fatale in a lesbian relationship, tempting protagonist
Piper down a dark path. "Alex I was so freaked out when
the bag didn't show up I almost bailed." "Well it's a good thing you didn't. There's over 50 grand in that bag. Kubra would have had you killed." But while the show spends a lot of time
exploring dark influences "I don't like Alex. She put you in prison. She continues to make you suffer." it eventually sympathizes with Alex and frames Piper's relationship
with Alex as flawed yet ultimately loving. In Paul Feig's A Simple Favor, Blake Lively's femme fatale
Emily Nelson brings darkness into the life of a new female friend. Interestingly, A Simple Favor's
femme fatale is a mother, unlike the classic version
of the trope who eschews motherhood; "Mommy needs a drink." But A Simple Favor uses its update
to the trope cleverly to expose what are still taboos
and sore points for women today. "You don't need to apologize. It's a fucked-up female habit. You don't need to be
sorry for anything, ever." its femme fatale is
a working mom who is judged for prioritizing her career. "Play date! play date!" "Please don't do this,
I've got a lot of work to do Mommy already has a date
with a symphony of antidepressants." Another modern femme-fatale-mother is
Game of Thrones' Cersei Lannister, whose main redeeming
quality (we're told) is love for her children. "You love your children. It's your one redeeming quality - that and your cheekbones." but far from making her
a more generous person, this lioness' ferocious
motherly love makes her even deadlier
toward everyone else. "He poisoned my son,
your king. Take him!" Science Fiction takes on
the femme fatale follow on the tradition of
the temptress being "othered." Under the Skin follows
an alien posing as a human woman to pick up
men and kill them. "Do you want a lift?" "Eh why not?" Blade Runner and Ex Machina
explore femme fatale types who are actually
man-made artificial humans. "Did you program her
to flirt with me?" While Blade Runner's Rachael looks
the part of the 40s femme fatale, she has human-like feelings
for protagonist Deckard. But Ex Machina's Ava --
just like Phyllis Dietrichson -- only apes those feelings
to manipulate a man into helping her
get what she wants. "I'd like us to go on a date." In the superhero genre, Catwoman is an example
where the femme fatale's sexuality is so heightened she's an animal,
again not quite human. "As I was saying, I'm a woman and
can't be taken for granted. Life's a bitch, now so am I." Horror offers its versions
of the trope, too -- like Jennifer's Body,
where Megan Fox's Jennifer becomes a literal man-eater. "And now, I'm eating your boyfriend." And Most recently, the femme fatale can also be used
to represent current social issues. "Social thriller" femme fatale
Rose in Get Out represents the sins of
the white-female racist. "Get him grandpa" And in Promising Young Woman, Cassie fashions herself
as a femme fatale punishing men for
their wrongs against women. "I go to a club, I act like
I'm too drunk to stand, and a nice guy asks if I'm okay." In classic noir, the femme fatale
isn't the protagonist -- she's seen through the point of view
of a hero whose life she derails. Marvel series Jessica Jones
is a modern spin on a noir, where the femme fatale also
gets to be the sam spade-like PI hero. "A lot of booze for
a small woman." "I don't get asked on
a lot of second dates." With classic noir dame looks, Jessica is tragic,
self-destructive and witty "Would you put day drinking
under experience or special skills?" and like a number of past femme fatales
she's been badly victimized. She's even a superhero,
exaggerating the exceptional strength of the old-school femme fatale. But this is her story,
interested in her psychology and not how she influences
someone else. "My greatest weakness? Occasionally, I give a damn." Gone Girl also lets its
protagonist-femme fatale Amy tell her story and explain
why her man deserves to be destroyed. "And my lazy, lying,
cheating, oblivious husband... Will go to prison for my murder." the movie chillingly implies that
these femme fatale dynamics play into universal gender roles
and the hatred that married people feel
for each other over time. "And then all we did
was resent each other, and try to control each other. And cause each other pain." "That's marriage." While Gone Girl sympathizes
with its protagonist's grievances, at the same time the story
doesn't vindicate her manipulative
and murderous actions. And many of this trope's
best examples demonstrate that this fearsome lady
remains most potent when she's not declawed,
defanged, tamed. "You know, there oughta be
a law against dames with claws!" The black widow's danger and poison
are important parts of why we continue to be mesmerized, confused and challenged
by this spider woman. "I'm poison, Swede,
to myself and everybody around me!" The femme fatale illuminates the link that poets have long
observed between sex and death. "How could I have known that murder
could sometimes smell like honeysuckle?" You could even read some femme fatales
as an embodiment of death itself. "Somebody has to die." "Why?" "Somebody always does." Post WWII noir movies
were grappling with the mass death and destruction
the world had just experienced, and at times the femme fatale
in these movies seems to personify that darkness
still hovering over the world. "Don't you see you've only me
to make deals with now." "Well, build my gallows high, baby." By suddenly entering
an apparently normal life and filling it with
the shadows of mortality, the femme fatale shocks us awake. "Nobody's pulling out...
it's straight down the line for both of us, remember?" She forces us to face the basic,
deeper truths of our existence, and reminds us that-- underneath the artificial, everyday
concerns we distract ourselves with -- there lurks an abyss
we could fall into at any moment. "Maybe I'll live so long
that I'll forget her. Maybe I'll die trying." If you're new here, be sure to
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