{"id":21333,"date":"2011-03-02T00:04:58","date_gmt":"2011-03-02T05:04:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fryeblog.blog.lib.mcmaster.ca\/?p=21333"},"modified":"2011-03-02T00:04:58","modified_gmt":"2011-03-02T05:04:58","slug":"femmes-fatales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2011\/03\/02\/femmes-fatales\/","title":{"rendered":"Femmes Fatales"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=WGFer3-Aguw\">httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=WGFer3-Aguw<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Lana Turner in <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Postman_Always_Rings_Twice_(film)\" target=\"_blank\">The Postman Always Rings Twice<\/a><em>, 1946<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>&#8220;It was a blonde. \u00a0A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window.&#8221; Raymond Chandler, <\/em>Farewell, My Lovely<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Kevin Nance has an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.obit-mag.com\/articles\/cherchez-la-femme-fatale\" target=\"_blank\">article<\/a> on the apparent disappearance of the <em>femme fatale <\/em>from the movies. \u00a0An excerpt:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>She\u2019s in trouble, she says, and needs his help. He hesitates a second while his brain tries to work. Whatever her problem is \u2014 something about her husband working her over, the sick bastard \u2014 she can take care of herself, from the looks of her. But hello, the looks of her: those long legs, those tremulous lips, those wounded eyes. This dame isn\u2019t in trouble, she is trouble, his brain shouts \u2014 but those eyes, those eyes. He\u2019s way past listening to his brain. The only sound he can hear is her voice, whispering that she needs him, wants him, can\u2019t live without him. And if his brain turns out to be right, if she ends up dragging him down into depravity, madness and murder, well, tough. If there was ever a thing worth going straight to hell for, she\u2019s it.<\/p>\n<p>Or was. In the restless middle of the 20th century, the femme fatale, the dark queen of film noir, jolted the silver screen with an electric sexuality and lethal cunning it had never seen before. She smoldered, she coveted, she hated, she schemed and, above all, she manipulated the men in her life \u2014 alternately offering and withholding the promise of love and a mind-blowing screw, playing the poor saps like puppets as the moment required. Along the way, she provided a group of gifted, intrepid Hollywood actresses a chance to shine in a way few of their rivals ever did or could, which is to say darkly: Barbara Stanwyck in\u00a0<em>Double Indemnity<\/em> (1944), Lana Turner in\u00a0<em>The Postman Always Rings Twice<\/em> (1946), Rita Hayworth in\u00a0<em>Gilda<\/em> (1946) and<em>The Lady from Shanghai<\/em> (1947), Jane Greer in\u00a0<em>Out of the Past<\/em> (1947) \u2014 unforgettable performances all, in every case a career zenith.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Frye in\u00a0<em>Words with Power<\/em>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Romantic and later poets are also preoccupied with <em>femme fatale<\/em> figures: Medusa in Shelley and Salome in Oscar Wilde and elsewhere, the latter holding the severed heard of John the Baptist, dramatize their castrating proclivities. \u00a0Keats&#8217;s <em>La Belle Dame sans Merci<\/em>, which takes its title, though not its theme, from a fairly harmless medieval poem, presents us with an inferno of damned lovers in the setting of a bleak landscape of exhausted fertility. \u00a0The dark and gigantic females in Baudelaire assimilate the figure to the vast unconsciousness of the natural environment.<\/p>\n<p>Gerard de Nerval&#8217;s poem <em>Horus<\/em> takes us back to Graves&#8217;s mythological context: the goddess Isis, finding herself in bed with an old king, flings away from him and goes to look for a younger partner.\u00a0As we should expect, the <em>femme fatale<\/em> is sometimes associated with Eve after the fall: such an association turns up in Valery&#8217;s long poem <em>Ebauche d&#8217;un serpent<\/em> (it is also one of the strands in the complex weave of <em>La jeune Parque<\/em>). Once again, it will not do to write these off as individual psychological quirks of misogyny. (CW 26, 192)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And, because it&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Lou_Reed\" target=\"_blank\">Lou Reed<\/a>&#8216;s birthday today, his &#8220;Femme Fatale&#8221; (with The Velvet Underground and Nico) after the jump.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=FjjDmX9Tkss\">httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=FjjDmX9Tkss<\/a><\/p>\n<p>(Video not embedded: click on the image and hit the YouTube link.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=WGFer3-Aguw Lana Turner in The Postman Always Rings Twice, 1946 &#8220;It was a blonde. \u00a0A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window.&#8221; Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely Kevin Nance has an article on the apparent disappearance of the femme fatale from the movies. \u00a0An excerpt: She\u2019s in trouble, she [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[8,170],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archetype","category-words-with-power"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Femmes Fatales - The Educated Imagination<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2011\/03\/02\/femmes-fatales\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Femmes Fatales - The Educated Imagination\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=WGFer3-Aguw Lana Turner in The Postman Always Rings Twice, 1946 &#8220;It was a blonde. \u00a0A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window.&#8221; Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely Kevin Nance has an article on the apparent disappearance of the femme fatale from the movies. \u00a0An excerpt: She\u2019s in trouble, she [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2011\/03\/02\/femmes-fatales\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Educated Imagination\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-03-02T05:04:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Michael Happy\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Michael Happy\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2011\/03\/02\/femmes-fatales\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2011\/03\/02\/femmes-fatales\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Michael Happy\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/#\/schema\/person\/666be62a4e8014df67296baeeaf4db95\"},\"headline\":\"Femmes Fatales\",\"datePublished\":\"2011-03-02T05:04:58+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2011\/03\/02\/femmes-fatales\/\"},\"wordCount\":583,\"commentCount\":0,\"articleSection\":[\"Archetype\",\"Words with Power\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2011\/03\/02\/femmes-fatales\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2011\/03\/02\/femmes-fatales\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2011\/03\/02\/femmes-fatales\/\",\"name\":\"Femmes Fatales - The Educated Imagination\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-03-02T05:04:58+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/#\/schema\/person\/666be62a4e8014df67296baeeaf4db95\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2011\/03\/02\/femmes-fatales\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2011\/03\/02\/femmes-fatales\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2011\/03\/02\/femmes-fatales\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Femmes Fatales\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/\",\"name\":\"The Educated Imagination\",\"description\":\"A Website Dedicated to Northrop Frye\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/#\/schema\/person\/666be62a4e8014df67296baeeaf4db95\",\"name\":\"Michael Happy\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fe523aceeb39b65793575d0523e67cb779a13050efa89e2284a05c0d0a141aa9?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fe523aceeb39b65793575d0523e67cb779a13050efa89e2284a05c0d0a141aa9?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fe523aceeb39b65793575d0523e67cb779a13050efa89e2284a05c0d0a141aa9?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Michael Happy\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/author\/michaelhappy\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Femmes Fatales - The Educated Imagination","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2011\/03\/02\/femmes-fatales\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Femmes Fatales - The Educated Imagination","og_description":"httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=WGFer3-Aguw Lana Turner in The Postman Always Rings Twice, 1946 &#8220;It was a blonde. \u00a0A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window.&#8221; Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely Kevin Nance has an article on the apparent disappearance of the femme fatale from the movies. \u00a0An excerpt: She\u2019s in trouble, she [&hellip;]","og_url":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2011\/03\/02\/femmes-fatales\/","og_site_name":"The Educated Imagination","article_published_time":"2011-03-02T05:04:58+00:00","author":"Michael Happy","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Michael Happy","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2011\/03\/02\/femmes-fatales\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2011\/03\/02\/femmes-fatales\/"},"author":{"name":"Michael Happy","@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/#\/schema\/person\/666be62a4e8014df67296baeeaf4db95"},"headline":"Femmes Fatales","datePublished":"2011-03-02T05:04:58+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2011\/03\/02\/femmes-fatales\/"},"wordCount":583,"commentCount":0,"articleSection":["Archetype","Words with Power"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2011\/03\/02\/femmes-fatales\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2011\/03\/02\/femmes-fatales\/","url":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2011\/03\/02\/femmes-fatales\/","name":"Femmes Fatales - The Educated Imagination","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-03-02T05:04:58+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/#\/schema\/person\/666be62a4e8014df67296baeeaf4db95"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2011\/03\/02\/femmes-fatales\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2011\/03\/02\/femmes-fatales\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2011\/03\/02\/femmes-fatales\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Femmes Fatales"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/","name":"The Educated Imagination","description":"A Website Dedicated to Northrop Frye","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/#\/schema\/person\/666be62a4e8014df67296baeeaf4db95","name":"Michael Happy","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fe523aceeb39b65793575d0523e67cb779a13050efa89e2284a05c0d0a141aa9?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fe523aceeb39b65793575d0523e67cb779a13050efa89e2284a05c0d0a141aa9?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fe523aceeb39b65793575d0523e67cb779a13050efa89e2284a05c0d0a141aa9?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Michael Happy"},"url":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/author\/michaelhappy\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21333\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}