Femme Fatales

Feature image: Franz Struck, The Sin detail via Artsy

In the art world, a female archetype that isn’t discussed enough is femme fatales. The word “femme fatale” is a French term translating to “fatal female” and “lethal woman.” Therefore, a femme fatale is beautiful, mysterious, and seductive in art and film. She is an all-around dangerous and nasty woman who lures men in with manipulation and bad intentions for hidden reasons. Interestingly, femme fatales are like sirens, witches, or vampires, but those kinds of characters are mythical creatures. Femme fatales are real women who are often involved with crime and mischief in their given time period. 

During the 1940s, the femme fatale archetype began to arise in film noir. Within the film noir genre, femme fatales appeared as a wife of a wealthy man or an escort. Regardless, the women themselves did not have power next to the man they were with. Film noir was a world and genre of its own. According to Britannica, “film noir, style of filmmaking characterized by such elements as cynical heroes, stark lighting effects, frequent use of flashbacks, intricate plots, and underlying existentialist philosophy. The genre was prevalent mostly in American crime dramas of the post-World War II era.” Film noir was a world of crime with characteristics and themes of femme fatales, chiaroscuro lighting, and excessive smoking. All three elements are featured in a film noir setting. Nevertheless, femme fatales existed well before film noir debuted in the 1940s. This article will discuss the transition of femme fatales in traditional art into film. 

Beginning with traditional art, Franz Struck, a German painter, sculptor, and professor of Fine Arts, was known for painting seductive women. Throughout his career in the late nineteenth century, he painted mythological women, who, although they weren’t labeled as femme fatales at the time, were seen using their sexuality to lure men in. This article will focus on four paintings by Struck, which feature nude women with snakes. 

Struck’s paintings  The Sensual,  1891 and The Sin,  1895, feature a nude woman coiled by a snake. Nudity and snakes are two symbolic motifs in his work: nudity symbolizes lust, and snakes are a motif of evil doing. The women are sinning. For starters, the focus in The Sensual is the woman and the snake’s body; viewers can hardly see the faces of the woman and the snake. Meanwhile, in The Sin, Struck has painted another fully exposed woman in the nude with a snake wrapped around her. However, she and the snake are looking directly at the viewer, which is different from The Sensual because the viewers can see her face.   

Next, in  The Kiss of the Sphinx,  1895, and  Judith and Holofernes,  1927, Struck paints what these nude femme fatales are capable of. Respectfully, the women are portrayed as temptresses with a killing appetite towards men. Firstly, in The Kiss of the Sphinx, a man and woman passionately kiss one another. Although the man’s face is clear as day, the woman’s face isn’t. Instead, her breasts are in full glow. Sphinxes are typically known for appearing in Egyptian art and religion, but within Struck’s painting, viewers can infer “the sphinx” is the woman. Yet, in Judith and Holofernes, Struck’s leading lady is a killer because she stands naked over a man’s body with an ax in hand. Viewers can infer she’s killed him through the chiaroscuro lighting Struck has painted around both bodies. 

As mentioned, the film noir genre skyrocketed in the film industry during the 1940s. Femme Fatales were featured as the main female character who drove the main character, typically a man, into a world of murder. As the narrative progresses, the femme fatale reveals that she has many secrets and intentions behind her seductive look. From 1944 until 1958, femme fatales were portrayed by many different actresses. 

The film  Laura  centers on a woman named Laura Hunt, who has gone missing, and three men are looking for her: a private investigator, her employer, and her fiance. Although this premise is set up like a classical murder mystery story, the director, Otto Preminger, opens the film with a portrait of Laura. Rather than focusing on who Laura was as a woman and character, the audience and her suitors are immersed in this image of her. Julie Grossman wrote, in her 2007 article Film Noir’s “Femme Fatales” Hard- Boiled Women: Moving Beyond Gender Fantasies, the male characters, “Lydecker and McPherson worry throughout the film that Laura will betray her lovers—but the film presents its concern through these men's obsessive ideation, provoked, in McPherson's case quite literally, by Laura's image.” Due to the men’s obsessive, masculine, and controlling approach to Laura, they’re blinded by who she really is. However, unlike other femme fatales, Laura is unique. She’s pursuing a career and only approaches the men for career opportunities. 

Of all the femme fatales known, Phyllis Dietrichson is a classic femme fatale. She’s a young, attractive, blonde woman married to an older rich man. At the beginning of  Double Indemnity, Phyllis makes a quintessential appearance by wearing nothing but a towel, and later, she’s seen sitting down in a dark room smoking a cigarette. She seduces the insurance salesman, Watler Neff, to murder her husband, Mr. Dietrichson, framing his death as an “accident,” enabling a double indemnity clause (hence the title of the film). However, Phyllis has a history of being a femme fatale and committing murder. She had previously murdered her husband’s ex-wife and three children. Michael Owens wrote, “With Double Indemnity told exclusively from the viewpoint of Walter, you have to wonder how exaggerated Phyllis’s ruthlessness is.” Phyllis’s sinister acts are revealed when she peevishly manipulates Walter to stick with their scheme plan. She tells him, “We went into this together, we’re coming out at the end together. ‘Straight down the line.’ Remember?”

As the title character, Rita Hayworth plays Gilda, a young, lustful woman married to a wealthy criminal kingpin who sings and performs at clubs. Gilda’s most iconic scene is her introduction when she's asked by her husband, “are you decent?” She responds by looking p up at the camera, flipping her hair, and saying, “Me? Sure. I’m decent.” The dramatic irony behind this introduction is that Gilda's husband, Bailn, and her boy toy, Johnny, do not own her. Julie Grossman wrote, “Johnny Farrell can't abide Gilda's verbal, psychological, and sexual power over him; he reacts so violently and cruelly to her (comparing women to insects, for example), that the movie enacts in the story the annihilating process of “putting the blame on Mame.” Johnny is attracted and frustrated with Gilda. He becomes more so when she does a striptease with her gloves and zipper during her famous scene “Put the blame on me.” Rita Hayworth’s Gilda is so remarkable that in 2001, she makes a cameo in David Lynch’s neo-noir film  Mulholland Drive. The actresses Naomi Watts and Laura Harring take after Gilda in contemporary femme fatale roles. 

Lastly, in Alfred Hitchcock’s film  Vertigo  (1958), Madeline is an idea for James Stewart’s character, Scottie. Madeline’s true identity is that of a young woman named Judy, who fulfills the true nature of a femme fatale. Interestingly, at the time of filming the part, the same actress, Kim Novak, played a double role. The film’s costume designer, Edith Head, had collaborated with Hitchcock, who had clear ideas of differentiating both personas of the femme fatale apart through costume design. According to Larry McQueen’s Notes, Hitchcock purposely wanted to “dismantle the apparently perfect woman.” To annihilate both women, they were each seen wearing different outfits: Madeleine wore a gray suit with her blonde hair in an updo, and Judy wore green and purple dresses with brown hair. The outfits clearly distinguished the personalities and styles of the femme fatale. 

The image of femme fatales has existed in traditional art and film for many years, and their image has continued to increase in cinema well into the 21st century. Today, femme fatales have been featured in the following characters, films, and television shows: Megara in Disney’s Hercules (1997), Severine in Skyfall (2012), Amy Dunne in Gone Girl (2014), Rachel Watson and Megan Hipwell in The Girl on the Train(2016), Cassie in Promising Young Woman (2020), and Georgia Miller in Netflix’s Ginny & Georgia (2021) Unlike the 1940s, these women have shifted from chain smokers who dance for men to seduce them with their image. Rather, these femme fatales now have their own secrets and do not let any man stand in their way. Agnieska Piotrowskia, the author of The killjoy and the nasty woman in Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train, wrote, “She becomes an agent who pushes events forward on her own to the point of committing violence herself.” As viewers can see, femme fatales in the 21st century have become more nasty by taking violence into their own hands due to trauma they’ve experienced in the past. So, in conclusion, the archetype of a femme fatale has successfully transitioned over the years into art and film, portraying them as dangerous, seductive, powerful, and manipulative women. 

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