From Femme Fatal to Anti-Hero

Introduction:

To what extent did the femme fatale affect the depiction of female anti-hero? In this essay I will investigate how film noir’s female archetype, the femme fatale, influenced how women were later portrayed in film. This portrayal will be viewed in two specific lenses of the female archtype, masculine female anti-hero and the neo-femme fatale. In order to answer the question I will be using films like Double Indemnity (Wilder, 1944), Murder My Sweet (Dmytryk 1944), Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing Missouri (McDonagh 2017), and The Last Seduction (Dahl, 1994). 

In order to answer the question one needs to define the characteristics of a femme fatale. A femme fatale is a female archetype that was established during the early period of film noir. This trend of antagonistic females continued as film noir changed from simply a film movement and into a film genre. Femme fatale is a piece of figurative language that originated from France meaning fatal woman. As defined in Film and the Masquerade the femme fatale was a woman that was known for “ ‘using’ her sex or ‘using’ her body for particular gains in highly significant” ways. (Figure 1) The book goes on to further explain that this makes the femme fatale different from other male villains at the time because “it is not that a man cannot use his body in this way but that he doesn’t have to”. (Thornham 139) Some of the most prominent examples of this can be seen in films like Baby Face, Waterloo Bridge, Red Headed Woman, and The Big Sleep. All of the female antagonists all use their sexuality to help them gain an upper hand. 

While many movies were made during the early years of American film noir there are two films, Double Indemnity and Murder My Sweet, that can be looked to as the films that defined the genre as well as prime examples of a femme fatale. Both of these films are relevant and vital in defining the femme fatale because they are from the early period of film noir with both films having been released in 1944. These films have been referenced by other film noir directors and by scholars who study film noir as films that helped to establish the characteristics of genre and mostly importantly the femme fatale archetype. Double Indemnity’s femme fatale is Phyllis Dietrichson, played by Barbara Stanwyck. In the movie Phyllis is manipulative woman who attempts to get others to do as she wants. Phyllis is so controlling that at one point in the film she seduces a man inorder to get him to murder her husband. She, like many femme fatales, was motivated by financial profit. In Phyllis’ case it was for her husband's life insurance policy. Phyllis then proceeds to go after her stepdaughter to because Unbenounced to Phyllis’ husband’s life insurance policy was left to her stepdaughter rather than her. (Double Indemnity, Wilder) (See Figure 2)

In Murder My Sweet a similar manipulation and seduction in seen throughout the film. However, there is one scene in the film that showcases the femme fatales wicked nature. In the scene the femme fatale, Helen, asks the male lead to kill someone for her. In this scene she is wearing a trench coat and then proceeds to open it in order to reveal that she has nothing else on underneath the trench coat. Helen then smacks her lips, gestures to the male protagonist and kisses him. (Murder My Sweet, Dmytryk) One expert in the genre of film noir, James F. Maxfield explained that some femme fatales like Phyllis and Helen ‘have a stepdaughter who holds out the possibility of innocent love to the male protagonist to counter his sexual obsession with the older women’. (Maxfield 88) While many argue about what the true definition of a femme fatale is buried in all of those works there is a conesus in the debate. While many definition may be similar the most simple definition that is that a femme fatale is a women who typically serves as the antagonist of a film while trying to seduce and corrupt the morals of the film’s hero. (Dirk 3) (See Figure 3)

The second thing that must be defined in order to answer my question is a female anti-hero. Over the course of history not as many films have been made about the female antihero as the femme fatale considering it is a modern female archetype. Additionally, not nearly as much research has been done in this area compared to of the femme fatale and as a result much is left up to interpretation. However, more modern movies have a focus on the female anti-hero. One such film is I, Tonya. This film took the story of Tonya Harding, a villian according to the context in which her story was told, and made Tonya the protagonist of the film rather than an antagonist. This was accomplished by plating with Tonya’s sense of femininity and masculinity. By showing Tonya’s more masculine traits like swearing, cursing and drinking, the filmmakers were able to make it so that she no longer needed to use her sexuality as a means to get what she wanted. 

Another film that attempts to do this is Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing Missouri. In this movie the female anti-hero, Mildred Hayes, played by Frances McDormand, is a woman who swears, drinks, and constantly gets into fights with the police all in the name of catching her daughter’s killer. She ends up attacking the police’s reputation by buying three billboards and filling them with things to discredit the police department in her small town. The second film takes a less chivalrous approach than Three Billboards. (Three Billboard Outside of Ebbing Missouri, McDonagh) In The Last Seduction, Bridget Gregory, played by Linda Fiorentino, steals money from her husband and then moves to a small town. Here she entraps another man as a plot to get him to kill her husband, a plan that ultimately does not work. Some may say that this neo-noir is no more different than the ones that came before it. This film differs from the other neo-noir’s because the audience finds themselves slowly beginning to hope that Bridget gets away with her murder plot despite its immoral qualities. However different these films are they both depict the female anti-hero. This is because the audience finds themselves routing for character to get away with whatever illegal or immoral thing they are doing. Not conforming to what a traditional hero would do and being the protagonist of the film is what makes a female character an anti-hero. (The Last Seduction, Dahl) 

There is, however, a mark between the female anti-hero and the femme fatale. This character is Bonnie from the movie Bonnie and Clyde (Penn, 1967). In this film both Bonnie and Clyde become the protagonists of the story rather than the antagonist. Bonnie still uses her femininity to her advantage, seducing some men to get what she wants along the way. While she does not do this all of the time she is also capable of shooting and fighting just as Clyde did. Being able to use both of these traits is what signifies Bonnie as the midpoint between the two female archetypes, blurring the lines between both femme fatale and female archetype in her own character. 

This topic is worthy of investigation for two main reasons. The first begins that the femme fatale archetype, despite being heavily studied, is a quintessential part of a genre that helped make female characters more three dimensional. The second reason is that the female anti-hero is an area that has rarely been studied. A majority of people can only think of men when they hear the word anti-hero mostly because throughout cinematic history male anti-heroes were the only ones. However, in the modern era of cinema there women have now more easily taken the position of an anti-hero. This is primarily due to the fact that historically women have been confined to roles as mostly antagonists rather than a ‘less popular” role, that of the female anti-hero role. This topic is significant because when a femme fatale or an anti-hero is brought up they are rarely thought of together. Combining the two will shed a new light on the changes of the roles women have played and are playing now in cinema. Representation for a variety of different groups in cinema can also have negative effects on impressionable viewers that see only one version of themselves on the big screen. The changing roles of women from femme fatale to female anti-hero showcase how women's image changed throughout cinema. 

Early Women in Cinema

To get to the female anti-heroes of the present the female archetype had to go through many changes. Getting to a place where women were more than just a damsel in distress but could actually be the villain, such as a femme fatale was even a struggle. Women in early cinema were not typically the primary focus of the film. Many took secondary or supporting roles in the film. These roles were mostly ones in which the woman was either an object of a man’s affection or a “damsel in distress”. (Rich, 397) These roles were rarely ever leading roles with most of them giving little depth to the female character. Many of these tropes of women in early cinema came from horror and drama. In the horror films before the 1940's movies such as Dracula and Frankenstein, had a small representation of women and male centered stories. In Dracula and Frankenstein women were used more as a plot device to move the story along than an actual character an audience member could relate to. The most famous pre-1940’s drama film that embodies how women were depicted in cinema is Gone with the Wind. In this film the leading man spends the film going after a woman who can not seem to return his affection and only once he moves on only then does the woman say she cares for him. The most triumphant moment in the film is when the man tells her “well frankly my dear I don’t give a damn”. This triumph, while satisfying for the viewer, simultaneously questions the filmmakers intention behind this narrative. In this male centered film the audience is given no explanation as to woman’s motivation. Drama and horror film such as these, whie they did not help push the female artype forward it did open the door for femme fatale, and the later female antihero, to become a possibility as the roles of women in film began to change.

Post 1940’s Film Noir

During the 1940’s film noir really began to take off with many of the early film noir films setting the genre’s components of the femme fatale archetype. Two of the films that helped define the femme fatale are Double Indemnity and Murder My Sweet. Both films are from the early period of the film noir era and have been referenced by film scholars as being the example of the “gaze of the male protagonist” on how the femme fatale is portrayed in the film. (Maxfield, 27) Without the use of color in film noir it may be hard to see but most of the femme fatales are blonde white women who are typically older than the female protagonist. This woman is meant to seduce the male lead and guide him to the side of evil. Femme fatales are characters who destroy both the lives and morals of the characters around her. In these two films, Double Indemnity and Murder My Sweet, the femme fatale has a stepdaughter who juxtaposes this idea of an evil female woman by being the embodiment of all that is pure and good in the world. These pure and good characters crossed paths with the hero and ultimately became a love interest, pitting both women against one another, fighting for the attention of the man. 

Two other films that show a femme fatale in action are Something Loose in the Heart and The Big Sleep have femme fatales who also follow these rules. While it is easy enough to point out films that have this narrative style to them with this specific archetype there is still something to be said about the establishment of this trope within the genre. The same characteristics used over and over again, seeming to develop a rule that had for a long time remained, unbroken.

The Female Anti-Hero

While by definition the concept of a female anti-hero is not difficult to comprehend it becomes difficult finding an example of one. While modern media is full of female antiheroes they are quite often not labeled as such. Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing Missouri and The Last Seduction are examples of films in which a female anti-hero is the protagonist of the story. While Three Billboards is a more typical anti-hero story but with a woman instead of a man and The Last Seduction is a neo-noir they both take characteristics previously used in film noir for antagonists and give them to the protagonist. These films have female centered stories that portray women doing this like, swearing, vandalizing property, seducing men and destroying morals, things that would have made them femme fatales in an earlier time period. Yet, the audience finds themselves rooting for these characters to get away with breaking the rules, whether they are explicit or implied. In turn these women end up breaking the rules about the woman they are supposed to be according to the previously stated ‘male gaze’ of the film. 

It is important to note here some of the characteristics of Mildred Hayes are very masculine. These masculine characteristics such as her large stature, her baggy apparel, and her manner of speech all contribute to her overall character type. Having these masculine archetypes makes Mildred appear more maciline on the outside, giving her more freedom and leeway as a woman with very masculine traits. 

From Antagonist to Protagonist 

A line can be drawn directly between the film noir movies of the 1940’s to these modern anti-hero films. In Three Billboards the protagonist, Mildred Hayes, is a woman aveging the rape and murder of her daghter. While doing so she follows the same standars some of the same standars set by the femme fatals. Mildred is an older blonde white woman who, while does not seduce a man, destroys morals by challenging the ones set by her.

 In doing the things that she is not supposed to do, like breaking the law like a femme fatal would, and destorying morals Mildred is also directly chaollneging the definiton of a woman set by the the femme fatal’s standards. While the femme fatal’s step-dagugter was meant to juxdapose the female lead by being pure in Three Billboards the one was pure was done wrong. Mildred’s daughter was a pure and innocent young woman who was raped and murdered. Mildred is on the side of the pure and innocent person in the film but she does things in a way that seems wrong to the average person, making her antihero who somewhat fits the conventions of a femme fetal. (See Figure 4)

In The Last Seduction the lead female lead, Bridget Gregory, runs away from her husband with his money and his hiding in a small town. In this small town she meets a man, seduces him and convinces him to kill her husband. From the beginning of the film we know this woman, Bridget, is not a good person. She steals, gets others to kill for her, and yet the filmmakers convince the audience that she is the hero we should be rooting for. She fits the exact definiton of a femme fetal: a female antagonist who seduces a man. The film makers make the audience route for her because we know why she does what she does. Throughout the film, if one listens carefully to the phone calls between Bridget and her friend who is a lawyer we know that she has suffered previous abuse. As a result of that abuse she has developed trust issues. This is what seperates Bridget from other femme fetals: the audience understands her motivation. (See Figure 5)

In film noir the audeinec did not understand the femme fetals motivatios. The filmmakers portrayed their greed as the reason for killing or jealousy of their pure and innocent step daughter. However, the film makers never truly explored the why behing the femme fetal acts in the manner that she does. The femme fetal could be greedy because of an unhealthy obession with money she was raised with as a child or they could be jealous of purity because the femme fatal had lost theirs at such ab early age. These could be possible motivations for the femme fatal but the audience will never get to know these stories because they are not stories being told by these film makers. The story of Phyllis is never explored in Double Indemnity and neither is Helen’s background in Murder My Sweet. While one does get to learn about the tension between the rest of Helen’s family and herself the audience is left unsure of this if the stories she told about her husband are true or false because of how easily she lies. Neither of these women are ever seen being emotionally vulnerable and are simply portrayed as cold-hearted-angry women.

By contrast female anti-hero film take these same concepts of the femme fetal, possibly seducing a man and opposing those arond her by making her human. The rules of what a femme fatal were thrown out the window. Whether they filmmakers knew it or not they were recycling a female archetype that had been used so many years ago and making it their own. In these stories the female anti heroes have a depth a realness to them. Someone could be a Mildred with a loved one taken too soon or Bridget with trust issues. Unlike the femme fatal, th film makers here took the femme fatal and gave her a story, a human like realness that many can relate to. The female antihero is the story of the femme fatal but this time it is simply not through the ‘male gaze’ but rather the female view point.

When discussing the male gaze it may be hard to see but for most cinema everything is viewed through the perspective of men, so it is inevitable that women are going to be portrayed in whichever way men saw them. However, as time the modern femme fatal morfted into the modern female antihero because of a larger number of representation of women in the film industry. This made it possible so that even when films like the ones above are directed by men it is easier to more dynamic women. 

This all affects the conversion of femme fatal to the female antihero because characteristics that used to be seen as bad in a femme fatal were now that of the protagonist. This is clearly seen in The Last Seduction as the audience ends up rooting for a protagonist despite all of her negative characteristics. A similar occurrence is also present in Three Billboards, except with the addition of male characteristics being grafted on to the female anti-hero. The male gaze shifted here from objectifying women to seeing positive chracteristics of the male sex on to women, creating an intertwinded femme fatal and female anti-hero.

Bibliography

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Dahl, John. The Last Seduction. 1994.

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Dixon, Wheeler. American Cinema of the 1940’s: Theme and Variation. Rutgers University Press, 2006.

Dmytryk, Edward. Murder, My Sweet. RKO Radio Pictures, Inc., 1944.

Green, Alfred E., director. Baby Face. Warner Bros., 1933.

Hawks, Howard, director. The Big Sleep. Warner Bros., 1946.

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McDonagh, Martin. Three Billboard Outside of Ebbing Missouri. Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, 2017

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