What is a Femme Fatale?

Femme Fatales are usually the main woman in a film, they can be identified in different film genres such as thrillers, horrors and action films. They can be described as seductive and mysterious. Femme fatale in french means dangerous woman. Their beauty can be used as an advantage and can be dangerous to others, especially men because their looks can be deceiving. 

A good example of femme fatale is Rita Hayworth who stars in the Film 'Gilda' as Gilda. The character of Gilda complicates the concept of the femme fatale, Gilda is not a bad person in the film, nor does she does anything bad like commit a murder. However, she is punished and is thought of as bad  by the men in the film. This could be the way in which she dresses and acts. She wears very revealing clothes as you can see from the image above where Gilda is displaying her leg and chest very confidently. Also in the clip of 'put the blame on mame' performance at the end she says "I'm not very good with zippers.... but maybe if I had some help" suggesting to the men in the audience that she wanted them to help her undress. This shows her vulnerability and is probably why people look down on her as a bad person.

Another example of a femme fatale is Eve from Once Upon a Time. However, Eve is the innocent character that is made vulnerable because of her looks, glamour and innocence. We can tell that Eve is the femme fatale of the iflm straight away because of her looks. Eve has glamorous eye make-up and bright red lipstick, she also wears lots of pearls and from this we can tell straight away that she's a very ravishing and sweet character.

Lauren Bacall performs "How Little We Know" in the noir themed film To Have and Have not in 1944. Her charming personality and the way in which she is glamerously dress and her glamerous hair style indicates that she is the femme fatale straight away. She is highlighted by critics as a menancing, father-fixated, unstable, and deranged, darkly alluring femme fatale. 

Lauren is clearly a strong and powerful character that has an effect on other people. There is lots of evidence for this on websites such as youtube.

Rita Hayworth's famous performance hase been cross-referenced in a number of other films as well.One of which is Jessica Rabbit's 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit' scene by which Jessica, the Disney character, performs 'Why Don't You Do It Right?' in the same style as Rita Hayworth