Occasionally, she gets to become an antihero, committing murders which are often framed as cathartic triumphs over obtrusive men (for example the throat-slitting of stalker, Desi, in Gone Girl – notably written by a woman). After all, how was he to know his innocent infidelity would have consequences?Īnd in the few cases where our femme fatale doesn’t die, the men around her do. Meanwhile, the cheating husband is afforded a happy ending. Alex’s downfall ultimately demonstrates a victory for society’s model relationship.Īs Kae Tempest writes in their poem Progress, “we’re handed the mould and told to ‘fit into this'” to choose between the two options given to women – either to be a passive, faithful, mistreated Beth, or a sexual, powerful, doomed Alex. Alex disrupts the domestic Eden of (sexless, unfaithful) marriage, and so she must die at the hands of the ‘loyal wife’ – her competitor and antithesis. She is the original ‘bunny boiler’, branded a ‘crazy bitch’, because the minute she no longer caters to a male fantasy, she is undesirable, and thus condemned.Ĭlearly, the femme fatale’s deviation from the sexual and psychological norm represents a direct threat to the heteronormative, nuclear marriage complex. Despite clearly needing medical help, her instability is villainised her suicidal tendencies are framed as manipulation. She has an affair with a married man, becomes obsessive, and tries to destroy his life. Look at Alex (Glenn Close) in Fatal Attraction. This is why the femme fatale’s eroticism is never framed as genuinely empowering instead, it is created by a man (for the most part), and destined to end in despair. In its essence, the trope derives from a fear of female sexuality, and its perceived ability to emasculate. The femme fatale is a hyper-sexualised product of the male gaze, playing on the premise that behind every powerful woman lies a black widow, ready to mate and kill. This is exactly what makes her character so dangerous, not just to the men in the fictional world she occupies, but to women in real society. In the quest for domination over men, her sex appeal is her first and most significant weapon – often her only weapon. When we think of the femme fatale, we see destruction and seduction strutting hand in hand. Despite the common assertion that this character embodies female empowerment, as opposed to the archetypal domestic, demure womanhood that defines her predecessors, I still wonder: is she really a symbol of female empowerment, or a social rejection of it?
From Basic Instinct to Sherlock’s Irene Adler, she is self-sufficient, strong, seductive. The femme fatale is a trope that has long existed in cinema emerging originally in film noir, it is still gracing the media today.
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