Popularized in 1940s and 50s film and media, a femme fatale is a villainous woman, usually one who harms men in her embodiment of her own sensuality. Yet femme fatales existed long before – she dates back to the first stories ever told about women, from cultures around the world: Eve in Christian stories, Circe in Greek Mythology, water nymphs and sirens, and Kumiho.
In the modern trope, Femme fatales are beautiful, and they know it. They use their bodies, their sexuality, their physical assets as a disguise of their ugly insides. Men cannot help but fall for them, and the femme fatale then destroys them. Femme fatales are the reason men can never trust women. They are the antithesis of the pure woman – or should I say ‘girl’ – who is innocent in her virginal state, who is beautiful but never knows it, who doesn’t own her sensuality, who doesn’t understand the power of her physicality. In popular culture, she is known as the “girl-next-door”.1
While these two watered down caricatures of women still exist in stories told today, more and more films and books are bringing nuance to these characters. Stories like Gone Girl (written by Gillian Flynn), Promising Young Woman (directed by Emerald Fennell), and Do Revenge (directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson) focus on the perspectives of the women as opposed to the men. The women are far from perfect, yet they are far from completely evil. With access to their sides of the stories, we as the audience can understand why they do the things they do. Gone Girl’s Amy, sick of society’s expectations of women and her own husband Nick’s expectations of her, creates an elaborate narrative of her own death, blaming her husband in the process. While I would never commend the actions she takes, the ability to hear her feelings of being trapped in her life and her anger building up inside makes her complex and understandable.
In a revenge plot to avenge her late best friend, Cassie in Promising Young Woman attends bars and clubs, pretending to be blackout drunk. Almost in opposition to the traditional siren, Cassie uses vulnerability and inhibition of her own body to lure men in. Once they take her home and begin to ignore her muddled “nos”, she traps them by revealing her soberness. As the ultimate act of revenge, Cassie begins targeting the men and women who were involved in the sexual assault against her best friend, from the onlooking bystanders, the peers who would not believe it happened, the board of administration who would not punish the assaulter, and the man himself who committed the act. As her scheming becomes more and more wild and dangerous, we watch as revenge becomes Cassie’s only form of consciousness.
Do Revenge centers around two high school girls, popular girl Drea and new student Eleanor, who find an unlikely friendship as they “do each other’s revenge” by getting back at each other’s exes. Do Revenge takes a new spin on the classic female revenge film by centering the plot around two women plotting together, finding love and support from each other through their acts of malice.
While popular culture is finding new ways to give voice to the femme fatale, the majority of women represented is overwhelming white. Aside from Do Revenge, which stars Brazilian-American actress Camila Mendes, each of the other main characters are white. How come only white women are allowed to be flawed yet still understandable characters on screen? How come there is only one type of femme fatale who is allowed a redemption arc?
The Asian woman (in popular American culture), specifically, has been reduced to caricature types: “exotic lotus flowers…dragon ladies…temptresses…the Asian prostitute.”2 The Dragon Lady is a seductive, villainous, cold, prickly woman who uses her body and temptation to succeed. The Lotus Blossom exists in opposition to the Dragon Lady, similarly to the “girl-next-door” vs the femme fatale. The Lotus Blossom is pure, kind, and docile. She is hardworking and her beauty comes from her innocence. While there is more representation now (due to more Asian people in writing rooms and directorial positions) which shows fully formed Asian characters, the history of these stereotypes still exist in media today, and oftentimes it is difficult to separate Asian characters from their caricatures.
In my project, I aim to challenge the tropes women are placed into. I aim to show the complexity of what it means to be a woman, specifically an Asian woman. How can women escape these boxes? How can anger and revenge be used side by side vulnerability and kindness? Can this story be a redemption arc for the “femme fatale,” for the “Dragon Lady,” for Kumiho, for bitches, and for everyone in between? By creating an angry “revenge” piece full of women with Asian heritage, I am pushing back against the perceptions of how Asian women should “behave”. We are both the Lotus Blossom (girl-next-door) and the Dragon Lady (femme fatale). Or we could be neither.
- “The Femme Fatale Trope, Explained,” The Take, April 7, 2020, video, https://the-take.com/watch/the-femme-fatale-trope-explained.
- Alisa Chang and Nancy Wang, “A Sociologist’s View on the Hyper-Sexualization of Asian Women in American Society,” NPR Public Radio, March 19, 2021, https://www.npr.org/2021/03/19/979340013/a-sociologists-view-on-the-hyper-sexualization-of-asian-women-in-american-societ