Where Have You Gone "Phyllis Dietrichson"?

Speaking of the differences between men and women...

If you're familiar with this blog at all, you'll know that the Sage is a big fan of the movies, old movies at least.  (There's just something about the ability of a black-and-white film to communicate seriousness, even if it's a comedy like His Girl Friday.)  Anyway, let me recommend to you this near perfect piece about the Femme Fatale on the Silver Screen, what she is, what she represents, why she's with us no more, etc.

Because my mind is sometimes preoccupied with such things, I anticipated many of the writer's observations and conclusions. (That might also explain why I liked the piece.)  Significant among them was that contemporary feminism is largely responsible for the death of the femme fatale. 

It's true, as the writer points out, there's more than a little misogyny in the characterization of the typical femme fatale.  But then, there's more than a little man-hating in much of feminism.

Ironically, contemporary feminism rests almost fundamentally on the image of woman as victim.  In film, lately anyway, the omni-presence of these ridiculously hard-bitten, karate-chopping, gun-slinging female heroes actually serves to reinforce the point: Women, as women, are so essentially victims, that their only escape is to fantasize about themselves as men.

The femme fatale is almost always portrayed, at first, as a victim.  That is how she attracts the attention of the male in the movie.  (That and her long luscious legs and...oh, sorry, where was I?)  But her victimhood is a pose.  It's the way she lures the man in to do whatever it is she wants done, usually some form of dirty work, murder even.

What contemporary feminists don't like about the portrayal is precisely that the femme fatale is no victim at all.  Not only that she is no victim, but also, this is important, that she succeeds as a woman.  There is absolutely no equality of the sexes here, and no femme fatale would want it any other way.  It is the precisely the differences between men and women, highlighted and exaggerated in film, that matter the most.  It is the differences that put her in complete control.

Feminist scolds to the contrary, my experience has taught me that most women still admire, at least secretly, the femme fatale, both on the screen and in real life as well.  When they witness any woman confident enough of her sex appeal to quite deliberately put it to work, it may make them roll their eyes, it may even tick'em off if they think they are more deserving of the object of that work, but they both understand and admire it nonetheless, and only wish they were similarly sure of themselves.

    
*"Phyllis Dietrichson", you'll learn if you read the article, is the name of the character played by Barbara Stanwyck in the film noir classic, Double Indemnity.  Fred MacMurray as "Walter Neff" is her helpless-in- her-grasp lover.