Femme Fatales
All right, well I'm trying to head off one of those hopeless pits of despair, so I've been watching random stuff on Netflix that's been in my queue forever.
I just watched Brick. Now a.) Joseph Gordon-Levitt is amazing and I feel like he just keeps getting better, but b.) I adore femme fatales.
And this isn't Tumblr so I can actually say why.
The thing with femme fatales, yeah, they're conniving, back-stabbing, heinous bitches who always are out to screw over men. But the thing is they do. They take any power that they can from the patriarchal system (i.e. the one we live in) and they twist everything around until it works in their favor. They're subtle, they're sly, they often whip out emotions as weapons against men, they play that they're sweet or innocent or coy, and it works. The men fall for it every time. I mean, I suppose as a cultural trope, that just perpetuates the "you can't trust women" mentality men like to play up so much. But, for me? A femme fatale is a woman who knows what she wants and she's completely independent. She's a powerful figure, and it's a liberation to watch one work. I don't even care that they're "evil," femme fatales are women who are in control. If they have to be framed as evil to exist in the stories of American culture, then fine--they're evil.
Nobody ever said we couldn't root for the antagonist and no one ever said she couldn't win.
I just watched Brick. Now a.) Joseph Gordon-Levitt is amazing and I feel like he just keeps getting better, but b.) I adore femme fatales.
And this isn't Tumblr so I can actually say why.
The thing with femme fatales, yeah, they're conniving, back-stabbing, heinous bitches who always are out to screw over men. But the thing is they do. They take any power that they can from the patriarchal system (i.e. the one we live in) and they twist everything around until it works in their favor. They're subtle, they're sly, they often whip out emotions as weapons against men, they play that they're sweet or innocent or coy, and it works. The men fall for it every time. I mean, I suppose as a cultural trope, that just perpetuates the "you can't trust women" mentality men like to play up so much. But, for me? A femme fatale is a woman who knows what she wants and she's completely independent. She's a powerful figure, and it's a liberation to watch one work. I don't even care that they're "evil," femme fatales are women who are in control. If they have to be framed as evil to exist in the stories of American culture, then fine--they're evil.
Nobody ever said we couldn't root for the antagonist and no one ever said she couldn't win.