Femme Fatale

De la « femme enfant » (André Breton) et la « femme nature » (Xavière Gauthier), à travers la muse et la « séductrice perfide » (Alain Jouffroy) jusqu’à un type de femme étrange et angoissante, les surréalistes font toujours montre de leur fascination pour la femme et le corps féminin. Un genre en particulier de ces différentes images féminines  est au centre de leurs préoccupations : la femme hystérique. Prise entre fascination et appréhension, André Breton & Cie. ne semblent capables à échapper ce type de femme étrange qui se présente effrayant mais également sensuel.
        L’hystérie s’inscrit dans la recherche surréaliste d’un dépassement des limites qu’imposa une société détestée. Elle est un langage expressif du corps et les postures qui se manifestent pendant une crise sont libératrices. La femme hystérique devient donc, pour les surréalistes, un médium universel, permettant de libérer l’individu de carcans et de mécanismes d’oppression issus d’une bourgeoisie autoritaire. Mais en même temps, étant donné la rage psychique qui se déchaine pendant une crise, la femme hystérique devient terrifiante. Elle se transforme en symbole d’angoisse, car elle nous présente notre « soi intérieur » (Hélène Vanel) – complètement hors de notre contrôle. 
          Aucun exemple de ce genre de représentation surréaliste n’est aussi marquant que la performance intitulée Acte manqué, la caricature théâtrale d’une crise d’hystérie mise en scène pour l’Exposition internationale du surréalisme à la galerie des Beaux-arts de Georges Wildenstein en 1938. Hélène Vanel, une danseuse française, donna l’impression d’une « sorcière hirsute, cassante, cassée, spectre en charpie » . En faisant entendre des râles hystériques, elle se fraya un chemin entre des spectateurs, sauta sur un lit et s’y roula et se contorsionna « […] comme un tourbillon dans un mouvement inouï qui entraina toute l’assistance dans un délire démentiel […] » . En oscillation perpétuelle entre souffrance et extase, entre agression et gestes sexuels, Vanel, l’hystérique, éveille simultanément le désir et l’angoisse. Comme femme fatale surréaliste (belle mais dangereuse, sensuelle mais effrayante), elle incarne le portrait, d’un corps chargé d’une rage psychique – un rage qui ne se laisse plus contenir, qui devient dangereux, une rage qui peut faire « tomber une civilisation » (Don LaCoss).
        Une confrontation à la société, une enquête de la liberté, mais également symbole d’angoisse, ce spectacle agresso-sexuel semble prédestiné pour un colloque qui cherche à étudier les origines de la « femme fatale » et ses métamorphoses diverses. Je propose donc une étude détaillée de Vanel dans l’Acte manqué – en tant qu’hystérique, en tant que femme fatale selon l’image surréaliste.

Début des années cinquante, à Paris, le strip-tease s'acclimate comme le stade le plus aboutit de ce qui est autorisé à la scène en termes d'érotisme. Le succès rencontré par cet art du spectacle vivant est tel qu'à partir des années soixante d'autres arts se définissent par rapport à lui, le cinéma, par exemple, avec Agnès Laurent dans Mademoiselle Strip-tease (P. Foucaud, 1957), Nadia Gray dans La dolce vita (F. Fellini, 1960), Nico dans Strip-tease (J. Poitrenaud, 1963), Jane Birkin dans Comment réussir quand on est con et pleurnichard (M. Audiard, 1974), Romy Schneider dans L'important c'est d'aimer (1975), etc. À partir de documents d'archives privées (photographies de presse, revues anciennes, etc.), nous nous intéresserons à l'arsenal élaboré de situations, de postures, de mouvements et de gestes par les étoiles du strip-tease des années soixante, notamment Dodo d'Hambourg, Lili Niagara et Rita Renoir, dont s'inspire la femme fatale. Nous mettrons spécialement en évidence comment Rita Renoir incarnait une représentation subversive de la femme fatale, depuis ses noirs cérémonials du Crazy Horse, à ses scènes porno-satanistes du théâtre expérimental.

Essay. Melodrama in Hollywood and World Cinema Course. Convener, Prof. Laura Mulvey, School of History of Art, Film and Visual Media (MA), Birkbeck College, University of London, January 2005. Revised & edited September 2020.
Exploring the myth of the fallen woman in classic Hollywood melodrama, via Jungian framework, tracing her historical, religious and literary antecedents, delving into the archetypal realms of the dark, wild feminine projected onto the screen, and her impact on the spectator, male and female. What these femme fatales, gold-diggers, seductresses, fallen angels, and furious housewives subversively revealed was a hidden narrative current underneath the official one, women's own dispossessed femininity, debased, fragmented and demonised, yet so powerfully vibrant and creative.
Keywords: femme fatale, fallen woman, melodrama, Hollywood, animus, anima, archetypal image, Jungian analysis, collective unconscious, projection, medium, moving image, film, myth.
Published Sep 2020 at lolaonfilm.com

Almost without exception, the spider woman of classic film noir is located in relation to the central male character. It is his story that is told on screen. Consequently, scholars have tended to focus on the antihero’s experiences, disregarding female perspectives or treating them as a secondary concern. Conversely, Born to Kill disrupts these conventions, unusually situating a femme fatale (Helen Trent, played by Claire Trevor) at the center of the narrative, which is played from her perspective. This approach raises a key question: How does subjective
alignment with the fatale figure change the way the character is interpreted? The aim of this article is to set aside dominant theories of the gaze, as valuable as they have been to film noir scholarship, in order to take an alternative look at the femme fatale as she appears in Born to Kill.

The femme fatale is the icon of a boundless pleasure: with her means of seduction she becomes a craftswoman of irrepressible passions and destroys the male ego. The following contribution traces a linear path that describes the genesis, the role and the context in which the femme
fatale is born, lives and works in D’Annunzio’s works.

This thesis as a study has successfully establish how the mythical biblical femme fatale character was created, and the circumstances that came about where she was transformed into the epitome of evil. Its significance is profound because it unearths a body of qualitative evidence from religious and feminist academics, some of whom have conducted their theological studies in a hostile environment. These academics have recorded the ill founded and bestial metamorphous for more than a century. They prove that beyond doubt that the myth has be distended and distorted beyond all recognition, to be used to censure the feminine, and uphold the ideology of the patriarchal system.
Chapter one identifies the unsound foundations on which the femme fatale was built on, and how religious leaders replanted the mystery of evil, into the myth of feminine evil. Feminine criticism of the unfair interpretations was seen as an attempt to destabilise societies patriarchal infrastructure. To question it was to question the word of god. 
Chapter two provides a snapshot of the social, cultural and political environment in that time of economic upheaval; and how it was used to keep the feminine entrenched in a subordinate state, and the antithesis of the masculine role in the same era. It provides a trail of evidence to demonstrate how nineteenth century philosophers and artists created a narcissistic and perverse deformation of the character that was used as a tool of gratification and male desire, but also symbolically expressed men’s fears. Dispersing many of the manifestations of the original myths and revealing the true motives.

En estas páginas se presenta una exploración a los momentos cruciales de las mujeres fatales dentro de la historia del cine. A lo largo de este recorrido se exaltan los diferentes esquemas de representación de las fatales en el séptimo arte, los múltiples paradigmas, las contradicciones que emanan del mismo modelo narrativo, así como los casos particulares de las femmes fatales que han dado pie a notables reformulaciones de la esencia del arquetipo. Ante todo, se dialoga en torno al hecho de que, en muchas ocasiones, los personajes femeninos considerados como fatales no son en realidad malvados, sino un mero reflejo del temor masculino a la mujer rebelde e insurrecta que busca escapar de la performatividad custodiada por el patriarcado. El andar de la mujer fatal por la historia del cine se relaciona íntimamente con el miedo de los hombres a la mujer poderosa.

Es difícil imaginar una película del denominado cine negro -es decir, casi todo el cine estadounidense de temática criminal de los 40 y 50-sin la presencia de una femme fatale. Generalmente, una dama rubia y oscura, atrevida pero probablemente frígida, tan inteligente como inescrupulosa. Que sea diestra en las armas, es irrelevante: con o sin un revolver en sus manos, es una amenaza. Es peligrosa, porque para el héroe (mejor, antihéroe), más confiado de lo que él mismo supone, es una mujer frágil e inocente. Más importante: es dueña del deseo del protagonista y lo sabe.

Bu çalışmada Geç Ortaçağ ve Fin de Siecle Viyana’sı (Yüzyıl Sonu) dönemleri içinde ölüm fikrinin ve onun görsel temsilinin geçirdiği aşamalar incelenecektir. Bu bağlamda çalışma, ölümün akılcı bir kültür içinde, Danse Macabre imgelerindeki kitlesel algılanışından, Femme Fatale imgesinin psişik katmanına kadar ne gibi paradigmatik değişimler geçirdiğini ve bu değişimlere neden olan sosyal ve zihinsel gelişimin izini sürecektir. Son bölümde Fin de Siecle Viyana’sında yaşamış ve üretmiş olan Gustav Klimt ve Egon Schiele’nin yapıtları üzerinden bu temsil geleneğinin sınırlarının ne şekilde genişlediği ve bu iki ressamın ölüm alegorilerinin modernizme geçişi sırasında oynadıkları rol ele alınacaktır.

The Shakespearean fair Ophelia has become through the centuries a
multi faceted heroine apt to embody all the victims of patriarchal domination, but
also the evil and victimized decadent lady, who would annihilate her tormentor.
Similar oxymoronic identifications were possible partly because of the vagueness that
distinguishes her character in the Shakespearean tragedy, and partly because of the
fluctuating status of adolescent girls in society. Moreover, the contemporary reception
of Ophelia has strongly been biased by the treatment of this literary myth by the
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. In the Victorian era, when issues about the condition,
the power, and the rights of women were raised with particular force, Ophelia soon
became an icon of sublime but dangerous beauty. Such an association even came to
the point that Elizabeth Siddal – poet, painter, and model of Millais’s Ophelia – was
identified with the Shakespearean heroine, by virtue of her unquenchable thirst for
knowledge, her unrequited love, her prettiness, and the torture she allegedly provoked
to Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s conscience.

Le rapprochement de deux personnages féminins issus l’un de l’œuvre de Barbey d’Aurevilly et l’autre de celle d’Octave Mirbeau nous invite à la réflexion sur le stéréotype et sa possible déconstruction. En effet, les deux héroïnes, caractérisées comme femme fatale l’une et comme femme de chambre l’autre, se transforment pendant une partie du récit : la femme fatale devient femme de chambre et vice-versa. Si la femme fatale relève d’un stéréotype bien reconnu, ce n’est pas le cas de femme de chambre qui a, pourtant, une tradition comme personnage type. La femme de chambre et la femme fatale (toutes deux toujours au féminin) ont néanmoins des éléments en commun : la métamorphose opérée entre les deux nous permet un regard nouveau sur eux-mêmes et sur le fonctionnement du stéréotype.
Mots-clés: stéréotype, Barbey d’Aurevilly, Octave Mirbeau, femme fatale, domesticité

In this paper, I will explore how the presence of these traits in most female antagonists could stem from the ideals and gender roles of Puritanism, particularly those displayed in the New England witch trials, as well as from the femme fatale characters in noir films. Women accused of witchcraft were usually older, had vulnerable positions in society, and defied the status quo, while the femme fatales are sexualized, ambitious, and independent.  Since the attitude towards unconventional females formed during New England witch trials, as well as the femme fatale, can be perceived as possible influences for the creation of these female villain tropes, women in contemporary society often face negativity when they possess these same traits, such as being ambitious, older, and childfree. Female villains, like those seen in Disney films, Once Upon a Time, and American Horror Story, often defy these gender roles by being older and without strong familial ties, as well as having ambition and independence. Therefore, like the women accused of witchcraft, the femme fatales, and female villains, modern women are seen as direct threats to patriarchal institution if they do not adhere to the routes of marriage and the nuclear family unit.

Taylor Swift es la superestrella del momento, en 2006 sacó su primer sencillo y LP (long play). La artista sigue vigente en la actualidad. Ella alcanzó el pico de su carrera entre el 2014-2015, posterior al lanzamiento de su álbum, 1989. Fue el primer proyecto que constituía 100% de música pop, sin elementos del country. Blank Space es el segundo sencillo del álbum. Taylor Swift recopiló algunas frases a través de los años, que eventualmente inspiraron la canción. Ella escribió una sátira de la perspectiva que usaron los medios para describir y entrometerse en su vida amorosa; creando este personaje femenino, que se asemeja al arquetipo de la femme fatale.

Appreciated today only for the style of the early-and mid-1960s Hollywood studio product, the crime comedy film featured strong female roles that paralleled the collapse of the traditional female roles in the era's spy films. Influenced by Hitchcock's sexualized women and Audrey Hepburn's independent 1950s gamines, the female "caper" character of the 1960s signals a dislocation of women's roles brought on by a world caught between hedonism and political avowal. In this short-lived subgenre, larcenous-minded men are thwarted, mostly to their own advantage, in their attempt to force female accomplices and love interests into prescribed social behavior and appearance. The lack of an overt counterculture in these films has branded them "establishment" products, supposedly rife with the social and gender role conservatism they actually challenge and destabilize.

This article argues that the fi gure of the femme fatale, associated by feminist fi lm critics with the epistemological drive of causal and patriarchal narrative, attains a progressive potential when portrayed through the complex narrative temporalities of David Lynch's Blue Velvet, Lost Highway, and Mulholland Drive.

The dichotomy of Eros and Thanatos, love and death, is one that has been explored by psychologists, philosophers, and artists throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In particular, Norwegian painter Edvard Munch explored this subject matter in the Love series conceived for his Frieze of Life exhibition, which was organized into Seeds of Love, Flowering and Passing of Love, Life Anxiety, and Death. 1 The series depicted the collective human condition. The paintings in this series tell a progressive narrative of one falling in love, the anxieties of being in a relationship, and the inevitable feeling of loss after the affair is finished. It is evident from this series and Munch's other paintings of women that he held a pessimistic outlook on life, particularly about finding romance in life. Due to his many personal tragedies, Munch developed psychological and emotional issues early in life, which he expressed in his statement that, "Illness, madness, and death are the dark angels who watched over my cradle and have accompanied me throughout my life." 2 The works that Munch produced were largely

Dilek ÇETİNDAŞ " Phaedra kompleksi, üvey oğluna âşık bir kadının hikâyesidir, tutku ve ümitsizlik arasında sıkışan bir ruhun hazin klasiği; vahşi doğa ile insan doğasının karşıt tutkularının kıyasıya savaşının, aşk ve nefretin türlü hallerinin, erkekçe sadakat, kadınca sadakatsizlik arasında gidiş gelişlerin, utanç duygusunun kızıl tülünün sahneye akışıdır " (Ç. Dürüşken). Giriş Aristo'nun Poetika adlı eseri ile literatürde kuralları bütünüyle oturmaya başlayan trajedi, doğduğu dönemden sonra, on yedinci yüzyılda ikinci altın çağını yaşarken; on dokuzuncu yüzyılda ciddi bir dönüşüme uğrar. Kuralları üzerinde yeniden düşünülen trajedi, farklı özellikler de yüklenerek yoluna devam eder. Modern dönem ile tür, daha da esner ve roman türünde de trajedinin içerik yönü kullanılmaya başlanır. Geleneksel trajedide başat bir arzu olarak kötülük, erotik olanın cazibesine ve geçmeyen korkulara işaret ederken; modern trajedi daha çok kişinin iç çatışmalarını konu edinir. Kader ve şans; özgürlük ve tabu; ruhsal arazlar ile dış baskılar; " körlük ve içgörü " , tarihsel ve millî olanla evrensel olan; değişebilir olanla zorunlu olan; meydan okuma ile eylemsizlik çatışmaları ise trajedinin bünyesinde daima vardır (Eagleton: 2012). Azamet, güç veya nüfuz sahibi kişilerin yaşadığı iç çelişkiler, ihtiraslar, nevrotik arzular, ibret verici sonlar, trajedi türünün konusunu oluşturur. Trajedi, büyük kötülükleri işlediği için karanlık mitoloji yorumlarıyla da yakından ilişkilidir. Kayıplar, değer yitimleri, pişmanlıklar trajedideki bu karanlık yönü daha da pekiştirir. Günahın çekiciliği, günah karşısında vicdanın yaptığı konuşmalar ve kişinin kendisiyle savaşı, trajedinin ana eksenidir. Tür içerisinde de kader kavrayışının ötesinde, tanrıların kötü ruhlu kişilerin hayatları üzerinde nasıl bir intikam eli oldukları, bozulan dengeyi tanrısal ceza yöntemi ile ve olağanüstü aracılarla yeniden nasıl kurdukları sergilenir. Bu nedenle trajedi, kolektif hafızada yaşayan mitlerin kullanılması vasıtasıyla intikamcı tanrılar çağına geri dönüşü sağladığı için, okuyucular/izleyiciler üzerinde ibret duygusu uyandırır ve arketiplerin çağrısını kuvvetlendirir. Bilindik bir anlatının, kolektif hafızadaki tekrarı, " tanıklık hissini " artırdığı için, bireyde arınma duygusu da gerçekleştiren (Erkek: 2001) trajedi türü, kişiyi yaratılışı ve kendi varlığı üzerinde daha çok düşünmeye sevk etmesi noktasında da psikanaliz incelemelerine önemli veriler sunar. Phaedra Miti'ne Trajedinin İç Derinliğinden Bakmak: Seneca'ya ait olan ve işlenen bir günahın karşısında " tanrıların aldığı korkunç intikam " ın (Neville: 1887) gösterildiği trajik bir anlatı ve son dizgesine sahip olan Phaedra miti, aslında " gösterişli dilleri ve katliamları, iğrenç, kanlı, kaotik ve sınırsız zulüm yetisini açığa vuran kadınlar ve erkekler dünyası öngörüleriyle bir alt-mimetik trajedi " örneği oluşturur. Bu tür trajedilerde, bir olaydan çok, tepki esastır. Bununla birlikte, şiddet, yabanıllık veya gizli erotik arzuların aurası açığa vurulduğunda, anlatıda melodramatik yön de görünür (Eagleton: 2012). Dolayısıyla Phaedra mitini işleyen her türlü eser, doğrudan katartik etkinin ve bir bakıma da melodramların sınırları içerisindedir. Phaedra'nın mitolojideki öyküsü, kısaca şöyle özetlenebilir: Phaedra, Kral Minos ile Pasiphae'nin kızı, Ariadne'nin kız kardeşidir. Erkek kardeşi Deukalion, ebedî barışı sağlamak için Phaedra'yı Atinalı Theseus ile evlendirir. Theseus, aslında Amazon kızı Antiope ile evlidir. Bu nedenle Phaedra'nın düğün töreni, Amazonların kuvvetli bir saldırısı ve düğün gecesi Antiope'nin öldürülmesi ile bölünür. Her şeye rağmen evlenen ikilinin Akamas ve Demophon isimli iki çocuğu olur. Theseus'un Antiope ile olan evliliğinden de bir erkek çocuğu dünyaya gelmiştir. Erkek çocukların hayat hakkı bulunmadığı Amazon dünyasında, Hippolytos, babasının koruması ile hayatta kalmayı başarır. Phaedra, üvey oğluna karşı dizginlenemez bir aşk duymaya başlar, ancak kadınlardan nefret eden üvey oğlundan bir türlü beklediği yakınlık ve karşılığı alamaz. Kocasının, dostu Pirithous ile birlikte, Persephone'yi kaçırmak için yeraltı dünyasına inmesi ve ardından Theseus'un bir daha yeryüzüne dönemeyeceği konusundaki inancın dilden dile yayılması, Phaedra'nın cesaretini artırır ve sütannesi vasıtasıyla delikanlıya açılma imkânı bulur. Reddedilen ve hakarete uğrayan Phaedra'nın sütannesi, bir kurnazlık ile hem Phaedra'yı üvey oğlunun elinde ölmekten kurtarır hem de Theseus'un olacakları oğlundan duyma ihtimaline karşı, kendilerini kurtaracak bir hamle gerçekleştirir. Etraftaki kadınlara, Hippolytos'un Phaedra'ya zorla sahip olmak istediği yalanı söylenir. Phaedra'nın üvey oğlu tarafından yolunmuş saçları ve Hippolytos'un Phaedra'nın ayakları dibinde bırakıp kaçtığı kılıcı da bu girişimin delili olarak gösterilir. Theseus, sanılanın aksine olarak ülkesine ve sarayına döndüğünde, karısını kahrolmuş vaziyette görür ve ne olduğunu anlatmasını ister. Phaedra'nın anlattıklarına ve gösterdiği kanıtlara inanan Theseus, oğlunun karısına dair arzu beslediği iftirası karşısında, Hippolytos aleyhine büyük bir öfke ve intikam duygusu ile dolar. Theseus, aslında gerçek babası olan Tanrı Poseidon'dan üç dilek isteme hakkına sahiptir. Bu haklarından birini oğlunun ölümünü istemek için kullanır. Tanrısına yalvararak, o sırada kaçak durumda olan oğlunu kahretmesini ister. Hippolytos, deniz kıyısından uzayan bir uçurum yolunda atlarının çektiği arabası ile ilerlemekte iken, denizlerin hâkimi Poseidon'un emri yetişir. Hippolytos, canavara dönüşen dalgaların, atlarını ürkütmesi sonucu yere düşer. Ancak cesedi paramparça olana dek, atlarının ayakları altında sürüklenir. Phaedra hem vicdan azabına hem de

This dissertation will explore the centrality of Laura Mulvey's 'male gaze' theory, and the relationship between violence and sexuality, with regard to the manifestation of the femme fatale characters Cora Papadakis and Brigid O'Shaughnessy in the noir fiction novels The Postman Always Rings Twice and The Maltese Falcon. The femme fatales represent the threat of female sexuality, and are a product of gender power asymmetry and the 'male gaze'. The female characters Cora and Brigid have notoriously been labelled as femme fatales; fatal seductive women who pose great danger to the men who surround them.

Deconstruction theory aims to liberate the reader off the constraints of the false concrete barriers of language by milking the infinite meanings of words and phrases dry in order to achieve this sort of unconventional, resistant reading. For years, the conventional reading of Catherine Earnshaw of Wuthering Heights regarded her as a martyr, a delicate flower whose petals fell along with the pieces of her broken heart and fragmented soul. However, through a deconstructionist, resistant reading, one might regard her as a plague that invaded and destroyed the heart and soul of a lover and a husband. Hence, and in the light of resistant reading and in glory of the infinite interpretations of literature, this study aims to revisit Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights to examine Catherine Earnshaw’s character as a femme fatale through the application of the deconstructionist approach.

Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, LXXVIII, n.º 1, enero de 2001, pp. 47-56; luego reproducido en Correa Ramón, Amelina, Hacia la re-escritura del canon finisecular. Nuevos estudios sobre las direcciones del modernismo, Granada, Univ. de Granada, 2006

The classic film trope of the femme fatale was particularly suited to the expressive film noir genre of the 1940s-1950s, frequently featuring an enchanting and seductive woman who transgressed social norms and subverted the patriarchal establishment of marriage through duplicity and an often murderous intent. The femme fatale was a cultural source of unease, an unyoked woman constructed as a threat to the institutions of matrimony and motherhood, a reaction to social constructions that afforded women very little agency; the fatale often convinced a lover to murder an abusive, controlling husband. Such is the plot of Billy Wilder’s classic 1944 film Double Indemnity; “He keeps me on a leash so tight I can’t breathe,” declares Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck), a quintessential fatale figure. David Fincher’s 2014 film Gone Girl inverts the plot of Double Indemnity and reimagines a new incarnation of the femme fatale in the character of Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike); rather than a woman seeking a man to do her bidding, Fincher crafts a fatale all too capable of waging war against the quieter and more manipulatively insidious institution of modern patriarchy as embodied by her husband Nick (Ben Affleck). “Grown-ups suffer consequences,” Dunne declares, crafting herself as a self-conscious, self-constructed fatale while reinscribing the femme fatale as a highly relevant figure of the 21st century.

This paper explores androcentric symbolism of the heretical woman as a literary topos to justify male superiority via the biblical interpretation of John the Baptist’s beheading and the purported influence of Herodias and Salomé, wife and stepdaughter of Herod Antipas. The gospels allege that this mother and daughter manipulated Antipas to execute John, which does not align with the historicity regarding the pragmatic, political motives Antipas likely had. Nevertheless, the circumstances under which Herodias and Salomé appear in the Christian Testament have consequently framed their portrait, which church tradition has preserved as an example of sinful, deviant, and heretical behavior. This paper argues that the degree of influence these women had in the execution of John the Baptist may have been deliberately constructed to convey the “dangers” of womanly influence and unorthodox behavior.

This case study provides an analysis of extrabiblical primary source literature—including the writings of Tertullian, Justin Martyr, Josephus Flavius, Suetonius, and Bernard of Cluny—alongside the gospel narratives of Mark, Matthew, and Luke. This paper also incorporates the necessary secondary historical source material, with a special emphasis on the various perspectives from modern feminist scholars of the Bible and early Church history. Additionally, this research will briefly address this particular biblical narrative’s contribution to the femme fatale complex in art and literature and its relative feminist interpretations. Ultimately, this methodology will reveal a constructive use of Herodias, Salomé, and their alleged role in John the Baptist’s execution as a paradigm for understanding how the topos of the heretical woman developed throughout the different phases of this religious tradition, as well as within the context of Western patriarchal culture.

This essay focuses on the character of Amy Elliott Dunne in Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. Amy represents the figure of the antihero in the 21st century, but more so, she represents the femme fatale giving a more dimension to this famous figure of the noir cinema. This character’s modern representation of the antihero and the femme fatale is analyzed from the perspective of the types of femme fatales that have been written. The result of the analysis is that while Amy is indeed an antihero, the author, Gillian Flynn, has given more depth to the literary figure, giving it dimension and making it more human and with complex reasons and morality. Among the antihero figure, she best represents the femme fatale for how she uses sexuality as a weapon but because her cunning mind and tactics, she gives more dimension to the femme fatale, Amy does not only uses her sexuality as a weapon but her mind, transforming the traditional figure of the femme fatale, who was only a body to a real multi-dimensional figure. Amy takes after the femme fatales of the past but has much more character development and is clearly a match for any male antihero of the past, present and future.
This result indicates that the figure of the antihero and more specifically the femme fatale have been developed to fulfill the necessities of the 21st readership that thanks to the feminist movement ask for a female character that is not purely good.  We analyze the feminist repercussions that the novel has brought to light, creating a discussion about rape and abuse survivors which is essential to understand the repercussions that a female antihero has created.

From sorceresses to vampires, harpies to mermaids, the figure of the killer, predatory woman has always been a subject of fascination for the often male-dominated fields of arts and literature, and has been romanticized in the form of blood thirsty creatures that distorted the purity of women. A young lady of the high society using the power of her body to submit a King into executing a holy man, Salome could not be left out by writers and artists for too long. [...]

Bengali folktales are an extremely dynamic part of the Bengali culture, children grow up reading, listening to and watching television adaptations of the particularly important text of Bengali folklore, Thakurma'r Jhuli, which is compiled, edited and rewritten from the preexisting oral versions by Dakshinaranjan Mitra Majumdar. Thakurma'r Jhuli, in spite of being one of the most well-known and well-documented text of Bengali folklores, still has insufficient research space. In this paper tries to show that Thakurma'r Jhuli, literally 'Grandmother's Bag of Tales', can be examined under the lens of feminism, because rediscovery of folktales under current research topics such as Queer studies and Gender studies only ensures the longevity of Bengali folklores.

Este capítulo tiene como objetivo realizar una revisión de la presencia y representación de la femme fatale en la ópera, tomando en consideración los aportes de las puestas en escena al arquetipo y cómo éstas se vinculan con el clima sociopolítico en el que fueron concebidas. Para esto se recuperan tanto las fuentes primigenias de las óperas —la mitología, relatos bíblicos, novelas, dramaturgias, etc.— como el contenido de las mismas.

Capítulo 1 del libro 'Seducción y traición. Hacia una historia de la femme fatale en el cine'.

Ortega Mantecón, A. (2021). 'Hacia una definición de la femme fatale'. En Seducción y traición. Hacia una historia de la femme fatale en el cine. Toluca: Río Subterráneo.

Mémoire de maîtrise en vue de l'obtention du grade de maîtrise en Études cinématographiques, Faculté des Arts et des Sciences, Université de Montréal, Québec (Canada).
Master thesis presented in the  context of a master degree in Film Studies, at University of Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

La figura de la mujer vampiro invade los relatos y poemas del Romanticismo europeo representando la seducción de la oscuridad y del mal. La femme fatale vampírica reúne en sí
las principales características del mito de la mujer peligrosa para el hombre, desde LeFanu hasta Miller, la fémina delicada que seduce y mata por placer ha fascinado y aterrado por igual a los grandes escritores decimonónicos.

El concepto de femme fatale, la devoradora de hombres, es un icono
cultural arraigado y desarrollado en diversos periodos de la historia del cine.
En su libro Vamps:An Illustrated History of the Femme Fatale, Pam
Keesey (1997) sintetiza las citas, comentarios, fotografías publicitarias... acerca de la femme fatale a partir de las oposiciones encontradas en las
diosas madre previas al Cristianismo y las diosas demoníacas hasta las
estrellas de cine contemporáneas. Comienza su estudio histórico con un
examen de los personajes femeninos que han aparecido en la tradición
europea hasta el momento presente, incluyendo las deidades femeninas de la Europa pagana, la antigua India y la Grecia clásica. En la época victoriana, el arte y la literatura recurrió a la mitología clásica, así como a una serie de alusiones pertinentes a mujeres malvadas de las escrituras, tales como Eva, Dalila, Judith y Salomé. En todas estas historias de mujeres, sacadas tanto del Antiguo como del Nuevo Testamento, estamos ante la belleza de una mujer y su desmedida capacidad para la crueldad, contraste que, de una manera irresistible, ha atraído siempre al arte en general.
En la segunda mitad del siglo XIX surge en Europa la concepción de
un tipo específico de mujer que hoy reconocemos como la mujer fatal,
aunque tal denominación naciera con posterioridad.Los artistas representaron en sus obras hasta la saciedad esta imagen de la mujer. Al margen de los sentimientos misóginos que pudieron albergar algunos artistas -no todoscomo consecuencia del temor y alarma ante el avance y progreso del movimiento feminista, otra de las razones tiene que ver con la búsqueda intelectual de sensualidades y erotismos raros, sofisticados y extravagantes.
La aparición del mito de la mujer fatal en el arte responde a la fascinación que determinados movimientos artísticos, como el esteticismo, decadentismo o el simbolismo, sintieron por lo sofisticado, lo morboso y prohibido, frente a lo común, lo cotidiano y vulgar. Tales actitudes condujeron al protagonismo de la imagen de la mujer artificial (amante-estéril), en oposición a la mujer natural (esposa-madre).