by Kim Krizan
Another gladiator of Fatalism was Pam Grier, who emerged from the mess that was the 20th century’s eighth decade like an African-American Venus arising from the sea. Beautiful badass Pam ruled in revenge pictures such as “Coffy” and “Foxy Brown,” putting any nitwit who crossed her path in mortal danger as she indulged in a little femme fatale street justice.
And then came the emergence of the bad girl rock’n’rollers. Anita Pallenberg (who had unleashed her deep German accent in “Barbarella” when she ruled as the Black Queen) was said to be more than a little interested in the occult. Using her Fatale magic she easily penetrated that boy’s club to end all boy’s clubs: The Rolling Stones. Soon the dear girl had men dropping dead all around her from drug overdoses, drownings, and Russian roulette sessions. And Anita wasn’t once seen holding a signboard announcing her right to do so.
Appropriate Ensembles for Every Occasion
Witnessing Her Lover Being Fired So That She Can Have His Job
Slim brown skirt with pleats, big brown belt, brown and white striped
blouse with big cuffs, simple gold necklace.
(As worn by Diana Christensen, played by Faye Dunaway in “Network.”)
The Aqua Net Years (Otherwise Known as “The Eighties”)
Fortunately, every Fatale’s right to deplete a chunk of the ozone by spraying her hair into a huge mass of sticky waves was restored in the 1980s—a decade that brought back toxic cosmetics, shoulder pads, and vampire chic. This was the moment of epiphany when the Margaret Thatchers of the world finally realized that to permeate the male sphere one needed a bouffant blonde hairstyle and an agenda.
Catherine Deneuve’s coolly chic turn as a blood-thirsty vampire in “The Hunger” kicked off the decade in style and re-established the true nature of things: it’s a jungle out there. Theresa Russell took the torch and effectively slithered from one rich man to the next in “Black Widow,” quietly absconding with their wealth the way a good Fatale should. Ellen Barkin and Michelle Pfieffer got involved with cops and criminals in “Sea of Love” and “Scarface.” (Cops and criminals … One and the same, right?) And Kathleen Turner sizzled seamlessly in “Body Heat,” thrilling bad girls everywhere by getting her boyfriend to off her husband and then leaving said boyfriend holding the bag.
British Joan Collins’ delectable Alexis dominated television in the camp masterpiece “Dynasty.” Pitted against good girl Krystle in repeated pillow and pond fights, Alexis merely wanted her due from ex-husband Blake Carrington. Showing up at his big court trial to throw a spanner in the works wasn’t enough. No, Alexis was going to make that man pay—and she was going to look damn good doing it.
During the Eighties, the Fatales of Rock really got a toehold. Joan Jett dyed her hair hell-black and sang of preying on seventeen year-olds in “I Love Rock’n’Roll.” Debbie Harry bleached her hair wipe out-white and stalked her mark in “One Way or Another.” Tiny Pat Benatar used her gigantic voice to challenge her bad boyfriend to “Hit [Her] With [His] Best Shot” (the implication being that if he did so, she’s perforate him with every bullet in her gun belt). And Fatales everywhere called for a moment of respectful silence when X’s Exene Cervenka, the Lily Munster-lookalike queen of Los Angeles’ punk rock scene, sang: “I am the married kind / the kind that says ‘I do’ / forever searching for someone new.”
But one of the best examples of Eighties Fatalism was that of a young woman who barged her way into what had been the boy’s club of British punk and whipped some skinny punk ass. Siouxsie Sioux, singer in the British band Siouxsie And The Banshees, suffered no fools and had no truck with idiots, though she never communicated a need to ape men. With her silent film star eye make-up and exotic costumes she dripped gothic glamour. Siouxsie was nothing less than the punk Dietrich.
Appropriate Ensembles for Every Occasion
Appearing as a Surprise Witness for the Prosecution
Against Her Ex-Husband
Cream blazer suit with black panels along the sides and a black collar.
Cream slingbacks and cream envelope purse.
Piece de resistance: A huge cream picture hat
with black veil and large dark sunglasses.
(As worn by Alexis Carrington Colby,
played by Joan Collins in “Dynasty.”)
The 1990s: Grrrrrls
The post-feminist we-are-the-world ’90s was a period when ladies tried to sidle up to Fatalism by displaying their bras in public. Another dubious sight was that of grown women screaming into microphones while smeared in red lipstick and clad in torn baby doll dresses. In short, much of the decade seemed like an ill-conceived art performance piece. The femme fatale crossed her arms and rolled her eyes heavenward, but there were a few moments that made the Nineties bearable.
In the film “Basic Instinct,” Sharon Stone’s Catherine Tramell behaved like a sort of latter-day Meursault (the protagonist in Camus’ classic existential novel, The Stranger). Cat-walking over every accepted standard of behavior, thwarting all authority, laughing at the status quo, showing her nether regions the way some people might show that they’re in possession of a gun or a knife, and stomping on men’s egos as easily as a black boot smooshes bugs, Catherine thumbed her nose at the patriarchy and looked damn good doing it.
Linda Fiorentino’s Brigid/Wendy in “The Last Seduction” was another blatant ball-buster who not only twisted boys all around for her purposes, but even smashed her cigarette into grandma’s pie. In the end she had no trouble offing her husband—and all so that she could be left the hell alone.
Anna, played by Juliette Binoche in the film “Damage,” went so far as to have a raging affair with her fiancé’s Parliamentarian father, destroying the whole family in the process. Little Debbie, played by Rose McGowan in “Devil in the Flesh,” overcame her god-awful childhood by burning down the whole town, morally speaking. Seemingly upstanding Kathryn, played by Sarah Michelle Gellar in “Cruel Intentions,” was in actuality a high school vixen toying with her minions while hiding her lover in a drawer in her room. And Nikita, played by Anne Parillaud in the French film version of “La Femme Nikita,” demonstrates that challenging beginnings and a dark past are the perfect set-up for one to become a gamine assassin.
Appropriate Ensembles for Every Occasion
Deigning to Be Interrogated by the Entire Frisco Crimes Unit
White dress and jacket. Heels. Cigarette.
Special mention: no underwear.
(As worn by Catherine Tramell,
played by Sharon Stone in “Basic Instinct.”)
The Millennium: No Rapture is Good Rapture
Conveniently, the world didn’t end as the new millennium dawned. What was effectively replaced, though, was the ideal virgin who had ruled culture 100 years previously. By mid-Twentieth century, a kind of hybrid between the virgin and the whore existed in the form of Marilyn Monroe: a child-like and seemingly innocent but sexy and sexually available woman. At century’s end, Madonna, the newly-crowned crowd favorite, stomped around in S&M-wear and simulated masturbation before thousands of fans, while Britney Spears danced on stage wearing chaps and spinning around a stripper pole, thereby signaling victory for the w-h-o-r-e. (If ever an angry god was going to wipe out civilization with one strike of lightning, it was then.)
In spite of the obsession with virgins and whores (which only confuses the matter for the femme fatale is really neither and both), the Fatale forges ahead. The previous history comprises a stunning tableau, a cornucopia and continuum of dark feminine power—one to which we can all aspire. The following chapters detail her unique psychology, the secrets of her soul, and the ways and means of Fatalism.
A Few Good Femmes
A Rumination on Five Real-Life Women Who Were
and Are Universal Icons of Dangerous Feminine Power
“I don’t know
but I been told
a big-legged woman ain’t got no soul.”
—“Black Dog” by Led Zeppelin
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Scratch the surface and one finds that so many legendary femmes of Fatale persuasion were normal women who, through twists of fate, bad luck, good luck, and their own willfulness, gained reputations for treacherous, seductive power. Many of these women even began as sensitive romantics and homey hausfraus who strategically adopted the image of the lethally sexy lady to achieve an end.
Below is a short list of real women who have become legendary. Let us now praise famous Fatales:
Mata Hari
The 20th Century produced some pretty fabulous fodder for the myth-factory. An enduring example was the story of Mata Hari, a real live woman who worked the femme fatale image to the hilt and rode a magic carpet ride of fame for ten years before coming to one of history’s most spectacularly glamorous ends.
Mata Hari, formerly a pretty Dutch girl named Margaretha Zelle, found herself in the dreadful predicament of living with relatives who didn’t want her around. Consequently, she did what any self-respecting eighteen-year old would do: she found herself a husband via the personals ads in her local newspaper. She married her military man and the couple was stationed in Java (then the Dutch East Indies), but what became obvious very quickly was that she had trapped herself in a rotten marriage to an abusive, philandering drunk. Though at the time divorce was almost unheard of, Margaretha left her husband and sailed for Paris where she intended to build a life for herself.
Paris, it turned out, was not the Shangri-la of opportunity for which Margaretha had hoped. While getting hungrier and more desperate as the weeks passed, she struggled to procure a means to support herself. Finally she hit upon an idea. Her time with her husband had had one benefit: it had been a wonderful education in exotic Eastern culture, something that was becoming all the rage in Europe. Perhaps she could introduce herself to Parisian society as an “Indian temple dancer” and get a job mimicking the lovely dances she saw performed in Java. Much to her nervous delight, Paris swallowed her fabricated persona hook, line, and sinker.
Margaretha gave herself the moniker Mata Hari (meaning “eye of dawn” in Malay) and, swathing herself in veils, performed Europe’s first “Oriental” dance while adding the special twist that it was also a striptease. Her genius charade took Europe by storm and her caricature of the sexy, mysterious Eastern woman became a sensation. To further flesh out her wallet, Mata Hari did what many female performers of the time did and that was to hire herself out as a high-class courtesan, in her case to fancy military men—the rock stars of their day.
When World War I rolled around, Mata Hari was a woman in her late thirties whose days as a nude dancer and courtesan were beginning to flag. Just in the nick of time, though, she received an exciting proposal: because of her vast contacts with European military men, she was offered a job spying for France. Mata Hari thought this would be a fittingly glamorous end to her career. What’s more, she hoped that after being paid big money for her spying efforts, she could retire from public life to live with her much-younger Russian boyfriend.
Strangely, it turned out that Mata Hari, so adept at pulling the wool over so many people’s eyes, was not so adept at spying and fell into the hands of the Germans who, through an elaborate set-up, led their French enemies to believe that Mata was working for Germany as a double agent. France was outraged and dragged their former golden girl into what was essentially a kangaroo court and show trial. She was blamed for the deaths of thousands of French soldiers and sentenced to death. In true femme fatale form, Mata Hari’s end was a dramatic performance. As she was paraded before a firing squad she held her head high, refused a blindfold, and blew a kiss to her killers, causing one soldier in the firing line to faint.
Mata Hari, the little Dutch girl and abused military wife, became one of history’s most famous, glamorous, and notorious Fatales, giving birth to a legend that bred countless films, books, and images. The truth of her innocence, discovered by means of a recently-discovered dossier, has only just been revealed and it unmasks the incredible ease with which society can slap the verdict of “fatale” on a seductive, rule-bending femme.
Theda Bara
Mata Hari spawned a plethora of imitators—not only copycat dancers, but also celebrities created by early Hollywood. One of the earliest and best-known was Theda Bara, a studio-born creature who was in fact a sweet Jewish girl named Theodosia Goodman who hailed from Cincinnati and had been discovered playing supporting roles in a Yiddish theater. Her first film role was minuscule, but it was condemned by the clergy (always a good sign). Drawing on the mythology constructed by Mata Hari, Hollywood publicized that “Theda” was born in the Saharan desert in the shadow of a Sphinx, the product of a French artist and Egyptian dancer. Her name was said to be an anagram for “Arab Death” and she was Hollywood’s first official “vamp” (short for “vampire”).
Hollywood’s first real star had an extravagant image to uphold. She dyed her naturally light hair black and wore sexy bellydance-type costumes that often sported serpent images swirling around her breasts. She darkened her eyes to black-hole-of-Calcutta proportions and was photographed with snakes and skulls. She was also cast in roles of the greatest Fatales of history, including Cleopatra and Salome.
Theda Bara took a page from Mata Hari when she appeared before journalists swathed in fur and told them intoxicating stories about her supposed past lives, dissembling dreamily, “I remember crossing the Nile in barges to Karnak and Luxor as plainly as I recall crossing the Hudson Ferry to come to the studio at Fort Lee.” According to Ronald Genini’s Theda Bara: A Biography of the Silent Screen Vamp, she signed a contract with Fox that called for the following stipulations:
1. You cannot marry within three years
2. You must be heavily veiled while in public
3. You cannot take public transportation
4. You cannot appear in the theater
5. You cannot attend Turkish baths
6. You cannot pose for snapshots
7. You cannot close the curtains on the windows of your limousine
8. You can only go out at night
(Wouldn’t it be heavenly to have a monolithic movie studio looking after one’s evil image, much like a Professor Henry Higgins whispering instructions at every turn?)
The carefully constructed ruse of Theda’s evil powers was a tremendous success. She was refused service in restaurants. The public fled if they saw her on the street. People were observed kicking her publicity stills. And if she spoke to anyone’s child the parents would run for the police. From 1914 through 1926 Theda Bara was the femme fatale. She worked the image and worked it hard.
The truth? Theda Bara was a quiet and reserved actress who took direction well. After fulfilling her studio contract she retired, married a director, and became a bit of a society lady. People who knew her said she was quiet, gracious, and glamorous—but wielded an absolutely wicked sense of humor.
Anaïs Nin
A sensitive Spanish girl, Anaïs Nin was abused and abandoned by her philandering composer father who ran off with one of his rich music students. Nin’s devastated mother responded by bringing little Anaïs and her two brothers to America, though while on the boat Anaïs started composing a letter to lure her father back to his family. This letter became her diary —an idealized picture of her life over which she labored for 63 years, a series of books that eventually made her famous.
Little Anaïs grew up and tried, really tried, to be a good wife to her doting banker husband Hugh, but an existential depression had already set in. The abandonment by her father was something from which she could never quite recover and her one respite was her diary. It was the vehicle through which she kept her fantasies alive, for it encapsulated her dreams of beauty and happiness and of being loved and adored. The truth, though, was that she was doomed to a life of longing for ideal love.
When as an adult Nin finally met her father again, she was shocked to discover that he hadn’t a clue as to how he had devastated his children (ain’t that the way?) and
seemed incapable of even a shred of remorse. Anaïs realized that he was a horrible and selfish man, hardly the idealized god she’d described in her diary. And so she did what any self-respecting femme would do: she stamped his heart and abandoned him.
Then in a fascinating twist, Anaïs Nin, the once hurt child, took on her father’s persona as duplicitous seducer and creative dynamo. She had scores of lovers and finally became a bigamist, all the while chronicling her glamorous adventures in her diary. She also produced dozens of delicately beautiful prose pieces, even writing what are known as some of the first works of modern female erotica. Nin’s diaries were eventually published to universal acclaim and she became the pied piper of a throng of followers all determined to imitate her example of “proceeding from the dream.”
In recent years, as Nin’s unexpurgated diaries revealing her numerous affairs and erotic adventures have been published (per her instructions), she has been condemned by a brigade of outraged moralists, most often female and sometimes supposedly feminist—a sure sign that she’s entered the pantheon of legendary Fatales.
Marlene Dietrich