A femme fatale ( FEM fə-TA(H)L, French: [fam fatal]; lit. 'fatal woman'), sometimes called a maneater, Mata Hari, or vamp, is a stock character: a mysterious, beautiful, and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers, often leading them into compromising, deadly traps. She is an archetype of literature and art. Her ability to enchant, entice and hypnotize her victims with a spell was seen in the earliest stories as verging on supernatural; hence, the femme fatale is often described as having a power akin to an enchantress, seductress, or witch, having power over men. Femmes fatales, typically villainous, or at least morally ambiguous, always evoke a sense of mystification, and unease.
The term "femme fatale" originates from the French phrase femme fatale, which means 'deadly woman' or 'lethal woman'. A femme fatale tries to achieve her hidden purpose by using feminine wiles such as beauty, charm, or sexual allure. In many cases, her attitude towards sexuality is lackadaisical, intriguing, or frivolous. In some cases, she uses lies or coercion rather than charm. She may also make use of some subduing weapon such as sleeping gas, a modern analog of magical powers in older tales. She may also be (or imply that she is) a victim, caught in a situation from which she cannot escape.
The synonym "vamp" (a clipping of "vampire") dates from at least 1911.
Early 20th-century American films dubbed the femme fatale character a vamp, in reference to The Vampire, Philip Burne-Jones's 1897 painting, and Rudyard Kipling's later 1897 poem of the same name, as well as to the 1909 play and 1915 film A Fool There Was.
Female mobsters (including Italian-American Mafia or Russian Mafia women) have been portrayed as femmes fatales in films noir. Femmes fatales are a recurring element in James Bond films.
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History
Ancient archetypes
The femme fatale archetype exists in the culture, folklore and myths of many cultures. Ancient mythical or legendary examples include Inanna, Lilith, Circe, Medea, Clytemnestra, Lesbia, Tamamo no Mae, and Visha Kanyas. Historical examples from classical times include Cleopatra and Messalina, as well as the biblical figures Delilah, Jezebel, and Salome. An example from Chinese literature and traditional history is Daji.
Early Western culture to the 19th century
The femme fatale was a common figure in the European Middle Ages, often portraying the dangers of unbridled female sexuality. The pre-medieval inherited biblical figure of Eve offers an example, as does the wicked, seductive enchantress typified in Morgan le Fay. The Queen of the Night in Mozart's The Magic Flute shows her more muted presence during the Age of Enlightenment.
The femme fatale flourished in the Romantic period in the works of John Keats, notably "La Belle Dame sans Merci" and "Lamia". Along with them, there rose the gothic novel The Monk by Matthew Gregory Lewis, featuring Matilda, a very powerful femme fatale. This led to her appearing in the work of Edgar Allan Poe, and as the vampire, notably in Carmilla and Brides of Dracula. The Monk was greatly admired by the Marquis de Sade, for whom the femme fatale symbolised not evil, but all the best qualities of women; his novel Juliette is perhaps the earliest wherein the femme fatale triumphs.Pre-Raphaelite painters frequently used the classic personifications of the femme fatale as a subject.
In the Western culture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the femme fatale became a more fashionable trope, and she is found in the paintings of the artists Edvard Munch, Gustav Klimt, Franz von Stuck, and Gustave Moreau. The 1884 novel À rebours by Joris-Karl Huysmans includes these fevered imaginings about an image of Salome in a Moreau painting:
No longer was she merely the dancing-girl who extorts a cry of lust and concupiscence from an old man by the lascivious contortions of her body; who breaks the will, masters the mind of a King by the spectacle of her quivering bosoms, heaving belly and tossing thighs; she was now revealed in a sense as the symbolic incarnation of world-old Vice, the goddess of immortal Hysteria, the Curse of Beauty supreme above all other beauties by the cataleptic spasm that stirs her flesh and steels her muscles, – a monstrous Beast of the Apocalypse, indifferent, irresponsible, insensible, poisoning.
In 1891, Oscar Wilde wrote the play Salome, in which Salome manipulates her lust-crazed stepfather, King Herod, with her enticing Dance of the Seven Veils (Wilde's invention) to agree to her imperious demand: "bring me the head of John the Baptist". Later, Salome was the subject of an opera by Strauss, and was popularized on stage, screen, and peep show booths in countless incarnations.
20th-century genres
Mrs Patrick Campbell, George Bernard Shaw's "second famed platonic love affair", (she published some of his letters) and Philip Burne-Jones's lover and subject of his 1897 painting, The Vampire, inspired Burne-Jones's cousin Rudyard Kipling to write his poem "The Vampire", in the year Dracula was published. The poem, which began: "A fool there was ...", inspired Porter Emerson Browne to write the play, A Fool There Was.
The poem was adapted to become a 1909 Broadway production. This was followed by The 1913 film The Vampire by Robert Vignola, containing a "vamp" dance. Protagonist Alice Hollister was publicised as "the original vampire". The 1915 film, A Fool There Was, starring Theda Bara, as "The Vamp" followed. The short poem may have been used in the publicity for the 1915 film. 1910s American slang for femme fatale was vamp, for vampire.
Another icon of the time was Margaretha Geertruida Zelle. While working as an exotic dancer, she took the stage name Mata Hari. She was accused of German espionage during World War I and was put to death by a French firing squad. After her death she became the subject of many sensational films and books, including, but not limited to: Mata Hari (1927), Dishonored (1931), Up the Front (1972).
Femmes fatales appear widely in detective fiction, especially in its 'hard-boiled' sub-genre, which largely originated with the crime stories of Dashiell Hammett in the 1920s. A tone that carried through to the 1930's in which one fictional French-Canadian villainess, Marie de Sabrevois, gave a contemporary edge to "one of America's most Popular historical novelists", Kenneth Roberts, set during the American Revolution.
A Jazz Age vamp (also known as a "baby vamp") was defined by F. Scott Fitzgerald in reference to one of his "careless" flapper characters, as a siren - 'a picker up and thrower away of men, an unscrupulous and fundamentally unmoved toyer with affections.' Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich were considered femme fatales in the late 1920s and early 1930s. A vamp, "was exotic, luxurious, and escapist, epitomizing the excess of the Roaring Twenties."
Film villainesses of this vamp variety often appeared foreign, mostly of Eastern European or Asian ancestry. They were a contrast to the wholesome, and virginal personas of actresses such as Lillian Gish and Mary Pickford. Notable silent-cinema vamps include Theda Bara and Anna May Wong.
Use in criminal trials
The term has been used by the media in connection with highly publicised criminal trials, such as the trials of Amanda Knox and Jodi Arias. Arias received the nickname "La Tueuse au visage d'ange" ("The Angel-Faced Killer") from the French media during her high-profile 2013 trial.