In The Contemporary Femme Fatale: Gender, Genre and American Cinema, Katherine Farrimond shows how the femme fatale - primarily associated with the classic film noirs of the 1940s and 1950s – remains a remarkably resilient and malleable figure in the present, tracing her appearance across a variety of genres in contemporary US cinema. This is a well-argued, convincing study, writes Fiona Handyside, with a reading of the femme fatale that demonstrates her capacity to pose vital and complex questions about the representation of women’s agency, sexuality and desire in the current cultural landscape

Handyside, Fiona

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Book	Review:	The	Contemporary	Femme	Fatale:Gender,	Genre	and	American	Cinema	by	KatherineFarrimondIn	The	Contemporary	Femme	Fatale:	Gender,	Genre	and	American	Cinema,	Katherine	Farrimond	shows	howthe	femme	fatale	–	primarily	associated	with	the	classic	film	noirs	of	the	1940s	and	1950s	–	remains	a	remarkablyresilient	and	malleable	figure	in	the	present,	tracing	her	appearance	across	a	variety	of	genres	in	contemporary	UScinema.	This	is	a	well-argued,	convincing	study,	writes	Fiona	Handyside,	with	a	reading	of	the	femme	fatale	thatdemonstrates	her	capacity	to	pose	vital	and	complex	questions	about	the	representation	of	women’s	agency,sexuality	and	desire	in	the	current	cultural	landscape.The	Contemporary	Femme	Fatale:	Gender,	Genre	and	American	Cinema.	Katherine	Farrimond.	Routledge.2017.Find	this	book:	As	2018	emerges	as	a	watershed	year	for	the	position	of	women	incinema,	following	the	allegations	about	Harvey	Weinstein,	the#metoo	and	#timesup	campaigns	and	some	of	the	world’s	mostfamous	female	actors	discussing	endemic	problems	of	sexual	abusein	the	film	industry,	Katherine	Farrimond’s	thorough,	well-argued	andconvincing	book,	The	Contemporary	Femme	Fatale:	Gender,	Genreand	America	Cinema,	is	an	especially	important	and	significant	read.This	is	because,	as	Farrimond	makes	clear,	the	question	of	femalepower	and	victimhood	is	inextricably	linked	to	the	question	ofwoman’s	sexuality.The	lived	experiences	of	women	working	in	the	film	industry	and	thefantasies	of	American	cinema	are	not	equivalent	and	the	stakes	aredifferent.	There	is	nevertheless	a	powerful	connection	between	theway	films	repeatedly,	across	genres	from	the	erotic	thriller	to	thescience	fiction	fantasy,	imagine	women	as	using	their	sexuality	foraccess	to	power	and	personal	gain,	and	the	way	these	grubbyabuses	of	female	actors	also	imagine	female	sexuality	as	an	asset	totrade.	Farrimond	makes	clear	that	the	figure	of	the	femme	fatale	is	aremarkably	resilient	and	malleable	formulation	that	poses	questionsabout	girls,	women,	sexuality	and	power	in	an	accessible	andpopular	form,	and	through	the	very	repetitive	nature	of	her	actionsmakes	clear	‘the	limited	options	for	[female]	empowerment	andagency	in	contemporary	American	culture’	(14).The	figure	of	the	femme	fatale	is	primarily	associated	with	the	classicnoirs	of	the	1940s	and	1950s,	to	the	extent	that	their	relation	is	practically	a	tautology	–	can	one	have	a	noir	without	afemme	fatale?	Does	the	presence	of	a	femme	fatale	automatically	qualify	a	film	as	noir?	The	femme	fatale	has	beenkey	to	some	of	the	most	influential	feminist	theorising	of	cinema	and	women,	including	work	by	Laura	Mulvey	(1974),Janey	Place	(1978)	and	Mary	Ann	Doane	(1991),	as	these	critics	turned	their	attention	to	the	classic	noir	canon	andits	interest	in	the	beautiful	yet	deadly	women	whose	sexuality	is	a	trap	for	the	male	victim.	Yet,	as	Farrimondpersuasively	argues,	the	issues	that	the	femme	fatale	raises	for	feminist	criticism	–	such	as	how	female	sexuality	islinked	to	mystery	and	duplicity,	whether	sexuality	can	be	a	legitimate	route	to	empowerment	and	how	much	femalesexuality	expresses	authentic	desire	in	patriarchy	–	resonate	still	in	contemporary	culture.LSE Review of Books: Book Review: The Contemporary Femme Fatale: Gender, Genre and American Cinema by Katherine Farrimond Page 1 of 3		Date originally posted: 2018-05-04Permalink: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2018/05/04/book-review-the-contemporary-femme-fatale-gender-genre-and-american-cinema-by-katherine-farrimond/Blog homepage: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/Image	Credit:	(Thomas	Leuthard	CC	BY	2.0)Most	importantly,	the	femme	fatale	is	unshackled	in	the	book	from	the	smoky	confines	of	noir	as	Farrimond	tracesher	appearance	across	genres,	considering	then	not	only	contemporary	plays	on	noir	heritage	such	as	L.A.Confidential	(Hanson,	1997)	and	Shutter	Island	(Scorsese,	2010),	but	also	films	as	varied	as	erotic	thriller	BasicInstinct	(Verhoeven,	1992),	art-house	mystery	Mulholland	Drive	(Lynch,	2001),	teen	black	comedy	Pretty	Persuasion(Siega,	2005)	and	sci-fi	hit	X-Men:	The	Last	Stand	(Ratner,	2006).	This	allows	the	study	to	pinpoint	how	the	femmefatale	proves	a	remarkable	device	for	representing	key	social	anxieties.	If	classic	noir	criticism	holds	that	the	femmefatale	proved	an	effective	way	to	express	fears	about	women’s	increased	social	and	political	power	following	thegranting	of	suffrage	and	their	greater	workplace	presence	due	to	World	War	Two,	so,	implicitly	at	least,	here	we	findthe	femme	fatale	used	to	address	various	contemporary	issues.	Farrimond	outlines	how	the	figure	is	deployed	to	askquestions	about	teen	girls	torn	between	narratives	of	girl	power	and	anxieties	about	premature	sexualisation;	aboutsexual	and	gender	identity;	and	about	technological	change	and	genetic	mutation.Through	careful	close	readings,	Farrimond	demonstrates	time	and	again	a	concern	with	trying	to	match	behaviourand	identity.	Especially	interesting	here	are	the	chapters	on	bisexuality,	where	Farrimond	argues	that:	the	femme	fatale’s	fluid	and	opaque	sexuality	offers	a	revolutionary	potential	to	disrupt	current	populardiscourses	on	monosexuality,	gendered	binaries,	and	the	idea	that	what	you	currently	see	of	someone’ssexual	behaviour	offers	a	complete	map	of	their	sexual	orientation	(102).The	bisexual	woman	and	the	femme	fatale	both	complicate	the	idea	of	a	straight-forward	reading	of	women	andsexual	pleasure	(no	pun	intended).	In	the	case	of	the	bisexual	woman,	her	sexuality	refuses	to	settle	into	a	binarystructure.	While	Sara	Ahmed	(2006)	imagines	sexual	orientation	as	a	turning	toward	some	objects	and	away	fromothers,	the	bisexual	femme	fatale’s	mobility	posits	a	multiplicity	of	concurrent	orientations.	As	for	the	femme	fatale,we	cannot	necessarily	match	motives	and	desires	in	any	sustained	way.	Issues	of	knowledge,	deception	and	theunseen,	invisibility	and	disguise	hover	over	the	femme	fatale	and	queer	cinematic	representation,	allowing	Farrimonda	bracing	intervention	which	reclaims	mystery	and	duplicity	as	a	feminist	approach	to	sexuality,	not	as	a	way	ofdeciding	between	categories	(gay	or	straight?	Authentic	or	duplicitious?	Pleasure	or	power?),	but	of	disputing	thevery	notion	of	categories	themselves:In	the	instance	of	the	bisexually	active	femme	fatale,	attempting	to	define	her	as	bisexual	is	a	venture	thatthreatens	to	reproduce	the	very	assumptions	about	transparency	of	sexual	activity	that	bisexualitychallenges	[…]	the	importance	of	these	films	lies	in	their	unwillingness	to	pin	down	the	femme	fatale’ssexual	mystery	by	attributing	a	specific	sexual	identity	to	her,	and	the	way	in	which	none	of	her	actionscan	be	entirely	claimed	as	entirely	motivated	by	sexual	desire	or	as	an	example	of	the	femme	fatale’ssexual	manipulations	(124).LSE Review of Books: Book Review: The Contemporary Femme Fatale: Gender, Genre and American Cinema by Katherine Farrimond Page 2 of 3		Date originally posted: 2018-05-04Permalink: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2018/05/04/book-review-the-contemporary-femme-fatale-gender-genre-and-american-cinema-by-katherine-farrimond/Blog homepage: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/This	concern	with	categories	and	boundaries	ironically	bedevils	the	history	of	noir	criticism	itself,	as	Farrimond,quoting	Linda	Williams	(2005),	acknowledges:	noir	is	a	critical	category	that	‘invites	excesses	of	categorisation	–perhaps	critical	morphology	is	one	way	of	shoring	up	the	anxiety	of	generic	(and	gender)	diffuseness’	(4).	Thislongstanding	critical	obsession	with	trying	to	define	noir,	its	unusual	historical	genealogy	as	a	hybrid	form	‘made	inAmerica	but	invented	by	the	French’	(Vernet,	in	Copjec,	1994),	finds	an	intriguing	resonance	in	Farrimond’s	final	twochapters	in	which	she	explores	the	science	fiction	film.	In	possibly	the	most	original	chapters	of	the	study,	for	asFarrimond	explains,	there	has	been	little	sustained	discussion	of	how	frequently	the	sci-fi	genre	deploys	the	femmefatale	trope,	Farrimond	finds	a	desire	to	explain	the	hybrid	alien-monster-woman	through	autopsy/surgery	and	apatronising	need	to	separate	the	woman’s	power	from	her	body,	so	that	power	itself	is	something	other	to	and	foreignfrom	femininity.	She	finds	the	most	feminist	promise	in	films	which	refuse	to	offer	an	origin	narrative	for	theirmonstrous	or	cyborg	femmes,	since	‘a	lack	of	origins	[…]	becomes	subversive	and	discomforting’	(154)	and	meansthat	‘powerful	female	monsters	are	not	simply	diagnosed	and	deactivated’	(162).In	this	book,	Farrimond	favours	a	hopeful	and	optimistic	reading	of	the	femme	fatale,	although	she	acknowledges	theadmixture	of	the	reactionary	and	the	progressive	we	may	well	expect	in	such	a	frequently	deployed	type.	Across	alleight	chapters,	what	emerges	is	the	energising	leakiness	of	the	figure.	Farrimond	frequently	finds	the	femme	fatale	ina	liminal	place:	caught	between	life	and	death	as	a	beautiful	corpse;	as	an	adolescent;	as	bisexual;	as	a	cyborg.Perhaps	it	is	this	very	liminality	which	makes	the	femme	fatale	such	an	engaging	and	useful	figure	for	workingthrough	complex	questions	about	the	representation	of	female	agency,	sexuality	and	desire	in	the	current	culturallandscape.	The	book	raises	important	questions	about	female	agency	and	how,	in	American	cinema,	this	is	stillabove	all	represented	by	powerful	women	who	meet	highly	normative	standards	for	female	beauty.	That	thesewomen	are	themselves	beginning	to	turn	the	spotlight	on	the	abusive	sexual	practices	which	may	well	underlinesome	of	these	representations	makes	this	book	all	the	more	timely.Dr	Fiona	Handyside	is	Senior	Lecturer	in	Film	Studies	at	the	University	of	Exeter.	She	is	the	author	of	SofiaCoppola:	A	Cinema	of	Girlhood	(I	B	Tauris,	2017)	and	Cinema	at	the	Shore:	The	Beach	in	French	Film	(Peter	Lang,2014).	She	is	the	editor	with	Kate	Taylor-Jones	of	International	Cinema	and	the	Girl:	Local	Issues,	TransnationalContexts	(Palgrave,	2016),	and	editor	of	Eric	Rohmer:	Interviews	(University	of	Mississippi	Press,	2013).Note:	This	review	gives	the	views	of	the	author,	and	not	the	position	of	the	LSE	Review	of	Books	blog,	or	of	theLondon	School	of	Economics.	LSE Review of Books: Book Review: The Contemporary Femme Fatale: Gender, Genre and American Cinema by Katherine Farrimond Page 3 of 3		Date originally posted: 2018-05-04Permalink: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2018/05/04/book-review-the-contemporary-femme-fatale-gender-genre-and-american-cinema-by-katherine-farrimond/Blog homepage: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/

Book review: the contemporary femme fatale: gender, genre and American cinema by Katherine Farrimond

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Book review: the contemporary femme fatale: gender, genre and American cinema by Katherine Farrimond

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