Femme Fatale in Early Silent Cinema and Classic Film Noir

Introduction

The quintessential ideal of the femme fatale was a woman who was mysterious, manipulative, and desperate with a male protagonist that in following the dangerous, yet desirable wishes of these women, would submit themselves as victims that evolved from a twisted form of love. The femme fatale grew out of earlier literature and other genres of artistic composition. Although the prototypical representation for the femme fatale dates back much earlier than the beginning of the 20^th century, spanning backwards in time many centuries (Thorpe), research and examination for this paper takes place during later early silent cinema circa 1910-1919 and classic film noir 1940-1959.

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The paradigm of the femme fatale made its appearance by way of American cultural ideology at the time of their appearance in film, and two movies, A Fool There Was, and, Mildred Pierce, provide evidence for psychological disorder due to the progressive, ideological reforms that were fought for during these time periods, whether through mental illness, or personality disturbances. The embodiment of the components evident in the character makeup of the femme fatale characters in these films manifests themselves onscreen and showcases the intense fear that men had of a liberated and independent woman, and results in the repudiation of patriarchal oppression by the infringement of the boundaries for what was considered proper behavior for a woman by being independent, smart, and/or having menacing actions.

Women and the 1910’s

The women that were a product of World War I did not have a good life, initially. At the beginning of the war, women were viewed as second class citizens, a view that had been held of women for many years prior. Women were the recipients of restrictions on most of their basic rights, such as not being allowed to vote, and because of this there was an infringement upon their right of choice, as they had no say in what leaders would be chosen to represent their country. Additionally, a division of socioeconomic classes was evidenced, as lower class women were employed in areas of education, nursing, shop clerks, seamstresses, secretaries, and most of all, domestic servants. On the other hand, women of upper class stature were mostly confined to their homes as domestic tradeswomen taking care of the children and looking after the home, in what most would term, the cult of domesticity. Also, upper class women would participate within the realm of charitable work, and be an overseer to a household of servants since employment that took place outside of the domesticated way of life that these women were used to was still reserved predominately for upper class men.

With the arrival of World War I, opportunities became available for women to work outside of the home by giving them the chance to take over the jobs of men who were engaged in the war, which up to this point was something that women were not allowed to do. The Journal of Magazine and New Media Research published an article in Spring 1999 titled, “Destructive Women and Little Men: Masculinity, the New Woman, and Power in 1910’s Popular Media,” that outlines the decade of the 1910’s by making an argument about the Progressive-era women’s reform work that was taking place at that time and how the women’s suffrage movement was in its final chapter. Carolyn Kitch from Northwestern University acknowledges that there was an expansive effort underway at that time to give women more opportunities for social, political, and economic growth. Upon evaluation of the research conducted there is evidence verifying Kitch’s claim of these opportunities for social, political, and economic growth slightly prior to, and during the period of World War I, leading into the period of classic film noir. Women in the workplace during the war gave women a vehicle upon which to showcase their talents, and this in turn brought them to the forefront of social reforms such as the right to vote, working outside of the home, and demand for better working conditions, wages, and higher education. Women of the 1910’s started to see their lives change because of industrialization and technological change, and this fabricated a scenario where there was a resistance to reform, a situation that occurred where women were trying to break away from their traditional roles as domestic engineers but were met with opposition from all levels of society, including other women, who believed that women should remain in their traditional roles as wives and mothers.

Although the Victorian era was finished around 15 years before World War I, the “passive, innocent Victorian ideal of the fragile, pious, domestic, and sexual innocent” (Sharot, 73) woman and her role in the domestic sphere had not changed. During this period of progressive reform there was a radical change in the image of the woman as the female body was starting to become freed from the 19^th century constraints of dress that had kept a woman shackled to her domestic roles within the household. This reform fostered a rebellion against the traditional forms of dress: long dresses, long skirts, and long hair. This level of independence among women started showing up in cinema, too, because at that time the entertainment industry started to revere the female body and it became one of its primary attractions. Women during the decade of the 1910’s were taking control of their lives, destinies, fortunes, and even their sexualities. The combination between the liberation of the female and the potential erotic components of cinema in the 1910’s gave rise to a new kind of woman, The Vamp.

The Vamp of Early Silent Cinema and Psychological Disorders

The Vamp character of early silent cinema provides evidence for psychological disorders that come in the form of mental illness. The radical progressive ideological reforms that women were fighting for at the time made its way into cinema and appeared, and played out, as The Vamp character, and the social ideals that she personified were disordered because vamps were feminist revolutionaries and this was delineated as mental illness. Martins mentions that the Vamp cast by Theda Bara is a symbol of equal rights activism and the suffrage movement of the 1910’s, and this was the showing of progressive ideals by a movie icon in a “conservative film industry” (95). Because the first wave of feminism was starting to take shape at that time, sexual and reproductive matters were at the forefront, but also women had this idea that they had the ability to make contributions to society at rates equal to, if not more than men.

Mental illness during the period of the 1910’s developed in women because of the lifestyle that the domestic sphere thrust upon them, as seen by oppression and societal expectations from the Victorian ideals that came before. Imprisonment of the kind related to the oppression of women is portrayed as madness because of the nature of the societal role in which she inhabits, leaving her prisoner in her own body (Sigurðardóttir, 9). This discouraged women from looking to new roles because of the lens in which they are viewed. Women who were found to be in rebellion of the proper codes of conduct were deemed ‘mad’ because the behavior was considered to be unnatural, and not very womanly, and was seen in some aspects as masculine behavior, where women, like their male counterparts, could display deviant behavior. By regulating a woman’s body, one could also regulate her mind. This sexual deviancy was seen as psychologically abnormal. As women started to become liberated, deemed demonic by the social and cultural institutions within the middle and upper classes because of the fears of social mobility that is felt will take place, they have no hope of surviving the societal boundaries upon which they crossed, and this makes these women appear as if they are ‘mad’ women.

The character of the Vamp shows similarity to Dracula movies where the vampire is a terrible monster, and Dracula himself turns women into vampiresses and by doing so, releases their sexuality and carnal desires, and once this sexuality is unleashed and embraced by women it gives them power over men. The new vampiress, resurrected from the bite of Dracula, bears a direct similarity to the Vamp character in early silent cinema. World War I, symbolically, becomes the bite of Dracula that unhinges this unleashed sexuality that is viewed as dangerous for men. One example, Theda Bara, “who played the character of Vampire” (Dirks) in the 1915 film, A Fool There Was” spoke her most famous line of all, “Kiss me my fool” (Dirks). The term the Vamp came into existence because of the predatory nature of the character, but also because the character construction was that of a sex goddess. This is evidenced in the cinematic production whenTheda Bara plays the part of a scheming vampire, a seductress famous for luring men, and using them; leaving them ruined. On a business cruise to England, a man, John Schuyler, traveling without his wife and daughter was easily fooled and targeted by the irresistible Vampire aboard the ship and became her willing victim when he becomes addicted to Theda Bara’s character in the film by allowing her to spend all his money and driving him to drug addiction which makes him lose everything. Despite the drug addiction that John Schuyler himself experiences because of the manipulative ways of Theda Bara’s vamp character in, A Fool There Was, the evidence presented illustrates vampirism, a metaphorical characterization for addiction, and provides confirmation for mental disorder, a component of psychological disturbance.

As mentioned in the previous paragraph, in the film, A Fool There Was, John Schuyler was driven to drug addiction by this vamp character that takes his money and makes him lose everything. Drug addiction is considered a mental illness by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which states:

Drug addiction is centrally responsible for the altered states of the brain in which

the addiction changes the brain so that a person no longer has needs or desires of a

non-drug addict. The addiction creates new priorities that are affiliated with the use and procurement of using the drug in question. This results in behaviors that are compulsive that do not allow the addict the ability to control impulses despite the consequences.

Love, in and of itself, is a drug and the Vamp character compares to a physical drug that causes addiction. By the end of the movie, Schuyler is a physical wreck and loses everything. He is powerless to turn away from the vamp, even at the expense of losing his wife and daughter, much in the same way that a drug addict loses everything and cannot pull away from his fix. The attraction of a male victim to a vamp is like the attraction of the addict to his drug. Both are destructive, and the vamp can command the loyalty of those male victims under her spell, controlling any man she encounters. Once she marks her prey she will change the life of all that she consumes, leaving the male victim in the clutches thinking about nothing but her. This hold that the vamp has on her male victims can be so consuming to the male prey that it takes over their life because of their need for more. Vampirism mirrors, in its entirety, the fundamental processes involved with addiction.

This metaphor for addiction, vampirism, shows that by awakening the carnal desires and sexuality of women, which was the case during World War I when women realized their potential and what they had to offer in comparison to men, that they had power over men. Tom Pollard argues in his book, Loving Vampires: Our Undead Obsession, that the analysis of sexuality in vampire culture reveals changes to the societal dynamic and evolving issues that were currently taking place (60). These changes to the societal dynamic frightened men because the perception of women, as characterized through Theda Bara’s character of the Vamp onscreen, provides substantiated affirmation for not only a psychological disorder in the form of a mental illness, but emerging attitudes and beliefs about sexuality. In Sigurðardóttir’s essay titled, “Women and Madness in the 19^th Century: The Effects of Oppression on Women’s Mental Health”, she talks about Bram Stoker’s book, Dracula, which was published in 1897. Her interpretation was that all victims of Dracula have symptoms resembling depression, or even hysteria. Then she goes on to mention that the first victims of Dracula are male, and Jonathan Harker, the male character in the book shows symptoms of nervousness and depression, but that it was interesting how the male character, Jonathan Harker, suffers a far worse mental breakdown than the women of the story (22-23). This aligns with the ideology of the men having a fear so great that it aligns with the appearance of a hysteria which stems from the fear of a liberated and independent woman, and this fear was even greater than the fear brought about by the threat of opposing nations in World War I.

Sigmund Freud’s perspective on Dracula would be that the symptoms suffered by women were caused by the repression of sexual feelings and this was a threat to the pious and angelic woman that eluded Victorian society. In her thesis, Annelise Difilippantonio, discussed about Freud’s psychoanalytic theory on Dracula, and argued that Freud had theories about sexuality that showed the fear of expressing sexual feelings…but that psychoanalysis is central to the examination of the “unconscious and the powerful role of the sexuality in human beings, both in females and males” (4-5) Also, she goes on to say that the repression of these desires inherent in individuals cannot be brought to a conscious state because it is seen as unacceptable behavior (5). Theda Bara’s character in, A Fool There Was, was a cinematic production that showcased the unleashed sexuality that some women of the decade of the 1910’s started experiencing, which was seen as unacceptable. Theda Bara’s character was a symbol of the unrecognizability of women because of the change of image of women at that time from pious, domestic women to that of madwomen. Theda Bara as a Vamp represents the paradigm of the femme fatale because she is a danger to men because men become victim to her madness and sexuality, which was the case of John Schuyler whose whole life got destroyed because he became victim to her manipulative ways. The portrayal of the Vamp onscreen, most specifically Theda Bara’s vamp character in, A Fool There Was, has the lips of crimson which look like fresh blood, and a certain look to her clothing, which almost has this death robe appearance to it. The purity of the clothing goes along with her whole being: stained, but she is changed. As women of the 1910’s were viewed by their men as angelic in nature by displaying piety, their death was replaced by a demonic looking figure; a madwoman, which is symbolic of a female rebellion which must be silenced. This awakening of female sexuality was the moral undoing of society and was considered evil because a liberated and independent woman potentially held the key to declaring their equality with men, therefore repudiating patriarchal oppression.

Additionally, important to the argument of the archetype of the femme fatale is the feminine part of a man’s personality called the anima, which was first coined by modern psychologist, Carl Jung. The anima is the “female personification of all psychological tendencies in the male unconscious” (Jung, 177) and the anima is normally ruled by the influence of the mother. Any negative anima could result, using Carl Jung’s argument, in a man being lured to commit suicide because the anima will present itself as an insecurity or depression, and in this case this anima becomes the equivalent of a death demon. This is frequently the description given to the paradigm of these femme fatales. However, sometimes this anima can be positive because of a good experience with his mother and this will result in his anima that gets preyed upon by women leaving the man the inability to cope with his hardships as they come along in his life (Jung, 179). This binding effect of a dangerous female figure whose sexuality dooms the male, regardless of his negative or positive anima, mirrors the prototype of the femme fatale.

The decade of the 1910’s, and World War I, forever changed the economy going forward into the future from that point because it lifted many women out of the realm of domestic service. Because of this, women were transformed and were seen by many as madwomen upon the awakening of their sexuality. This slowly led to the era of the rising middle class of the 1940’s and 1950’s and the femme fatale of classic film noir that was birthed from the independence that World War II afforded women when it came to their place in the workforce to fill the vacancies that the men left behind when they went off to fight in the war.

Women of the 1940’s and 1950’s

Like World War I before it, World War II also had women called upon by the government to fill the traditionally male jobs and roles that were available while the men went off to war. Women joined everything from nurse corps to jobs in defense. Women became a crucial part of the war effort and the workforce and because of this they reshaped the prescribed gender norms and roles that were taking place at this time in history. The job opportunities offered during World War II were targeted for fulfillment by married women that lived in the cities, and those women who had experience that came from the domestic sphere because they never worked outside of the home. The war provided women with an opportunity to learn job skills that they may have otherwise never been able to learn, and by providing women with employment, job training, and skills, women became liberated and this led to the deviation of women from traditional roles in the domestic realm. During this time, women outnumbered men in the workforce and men began to have problems with the idea of women as wage laborers because they saw it as a threat to the traditional marriage and family roles that had women as the iconic representation of piety, submissiveness, and stay at home wife and mother. Melissa A. McEuen, argues that there was a certain social stigma attached to women working and that a challenge would ensue in getting it removed (2). World War II for a lot of women during this time was about gaining strength, and as more men were leaving their homes and families to be deployed away from home to fight in the war, women gave up their roles as domestic engineer to take on traditionally male roles as wage earners.

Femme Fatale of Classic Film Noir

The women who took part in the workforce while the men went off to war were seen as placeholders and attempts were made to push these women back into the traditional roles they held prior to the war. The femme fatale of classic film noir was birthed as a result of this push back into traditional roles. In the journal article, “Female monsters: Horror, the ‘Femme Fatale’ and World War II”, Mark Jancovich contends that at the end of the war the femme fatale makes its appearance and is demonstrative of a historical reconstruction of an economy based on a division of labor in which men were the sole means of production (133). Approximately 18 years after the end of World War II, Betty Friedan, wrote the book, The Feminine Mystique, which outlined the main ideology that was associated with women, not only before the war, but after as well, due in part to media exposure at the time that pressured women into taking subordinate roles. This fit under the concept of the “feminine mystique” because cultural domesticity in women at that time was the societal ideal (20). While women’s roles were in a period of expansion, the level of domesticity within the feminine domain was influenced by American culture and media and was in the instrumental stages of collapsing under patriarchal oppression.

Jancovich contends that after World War II the patriarchal order starts to fail and in order for it to be reconstructed women have to give up the jobs they held and return to the domestic sphere (135). This caused women to fight to keep their jobs, and men, feeling threatened by their independence, started to view these women as harbingers of deviant behavior because men were always the head of the household, and the primary breadwinners. This freedom afforded to women made men feel emasculated and they became fearful of a reverse of patriarchal control. It was at this point that dissatisfaction starts to flare up in regards to the domestic roles to which these women were expected to take part in as confusion surrounding the roles of men and women starts to shape the workplace and the home.

The femme fatale in classic film noir was a representation of the bewilderment of women in society at that time in history and was a threat to the status quo. The cinematic representation of, Mildred Pierce, is a film from the 1940’s that shows us what anxieties there were for working women, in this case the protagonist (Mildred), and how she was viewed as a threat to the society in which she lived. Throughout the film Mildred constantly passes back and forth through two different worlds: domestic realm as a mother, and public sphere as a career business woman. Like many other mothers of post-World War II America, Mildred occupies both spheres. This fostered the development of psychological conditions that were showcased onscreen that surround the femme fatale of classic film noir, as she was a product of the shifting cultural ideals, and a change in the role of American women after the period of World War II. This was reflective of a large amount of frustration within women because of the label their gender carried as some kind of traditional domesticated servant within their households, in addition, there was a search for their own autonomy and self-sufficiency. At this point, there is a turning of the tides where women start challenging their place within society and there is a transformational shift that takes place that changes how women are seen in the future.

Psychological Conditions surrounding the Femme Fatale of Classic Film Noir

Psychological conditions that drive my argument deals with personality disorder, which is a deeply ingrained pattern of behavior where the person acts counterproductive to their environment where it can cause difficulty in the functioning of society (Mayo Clinic). Specific personality disorders would be those in the cluster B group because the femme fatale of classic film noir withstood various cinematic productions where this “fatal woman” who manipulates men into these dangerous or compromising situations” was created. In the Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture, Scott Snyder, affirms in his article, “Personality Disorder and the Film Noir Femme Fatale”, that film noir depicts this societal view of American culture that is in degradation, full of crime and corruption, and this leads to this view of humanity as disparaging and meaningless, but at the same time is unprincipled and has this mysterious existence. The cinematic quality that is representative of some form of character pathology in classic film noir is the femme fatale herself. Mark Jancovich agrees with this claim when he argues in his article, “Vicious Womanhood”: Genre, The Femme Fatale and Post War America”, that there was a shift that took place in these films that present these “vicious women” as the sufferers of “psychological disturbance and compulsion” (107). This eccentric woman is like a black widow spider, as her bite is fatal, and like the black widow, lures the male into dangerous situations that mostly result in harm, and sometimes death. The nature of these femme fatale women leads to the destruction of the male (prey) and challenges the integrity of his morality, if not destroying it altogether. Her behavior exemplifies these hidden symptoms of psychological conditions that present during Cluster B personality disorders.

The first Cluster B personality disorder, histrionic, is defined by the American Psychiatric Association as a personality disorder characterized by a pattern of excessive emotionality and attention-seeking, including an excessive need for approval and inappropriately seductive behavior, usually beginning in early adulthood. These individuals are lively, dramatic, vivacious, enthusiastic, and flirtatious. One example of histrionic personality disorder is evident in the movie, Mildred Pierce. In this movie, Mildred Pierce, a middle-class housewife, has a difficult relationship with her manipulative and greedy daughter, Veda and becomes a waitress but does not tell Veda because it would make her ashamed. Mildred works hard to please her ungrateful daughter who appreciates none of it. Veda constantly is the attention seeker who works hard to acquire the worship of others through her beauty, and later through her ability to sing. Veda controls the men in her life, including her mother’s lovers, with her sexuality because of her constant demands for more luxury (Cook. qtd in Jancovich, pg. 144). As the definition from the American Psychiatric Association outlines, these behaviors normally take place beginning in early adulthood, and this is when the film takes place, while Veda is 17 years old. Veda has sexual relationships with men as an attempt to seek more admiration. Veda demonstrates the lively, dramatic, seductress that comprises histrionic personality disorder.

Jancovich argues that the women in question oftentimes are a product of domesticity, in which case they are in direct opposition to women that were viewed as independent. These “women” were women that were sluggish and lazy (134). In, Mildred Pierce, Veda is a product of domesticity and is the antagonist to her own protagonist mother. Mildred, who opened her own restaurant business and, therefore, was considered independent, was viewed as a monster to those from the domestic realm, including her own daughter Veda. The femme fatale that was displayed in the cinematic productions of classic film noir have been viewed as some kind of force that exudes energy, intelligence, and power, but are able to receive strength from the sexuality that they display. American filmmakers at that time tried to depict the femme fatale as some kind of genuine, yet mildly harsh sexually overcharged women that has the potential to murder, engage in corruption, and take part in greed, just like any male actor counterpart in film. The persistent effort to push women back into their culture of domesticity resulted in a “demonization of independent working women” (Jancovich, pg 100) who would not surrender their jobs they held during the war. The femme fatale decides on the course of her own sexuality, which sets her (femme fatale) apart from the patriarchal system that previously had suppressed her.

Snyder argues:

There was this cultural ideation concerning the femme fatale in classic film noir that allowed women to break away from the traditional power structures of the ruling patriarchal authority. The vision of a woman that wraps her finger around the trigger of a pistol erases the idea of the genetic predilection that women were a product of cultural repression.

For the femme fatale, she becomes every man’s most mistrusted fantasy, and exemplifies histrionic personality disorder.

The second personality construct of the disordered femme fatale of classic film noir is that of narcissism. With narcissism there is likely to be a need for an increased level of sexual coercion that is brought on by the femme fatale’s own cognitive distortions that emanate from her need to preserve her self-esteem and keep the perception of herself in high regard. Normally, with narcissism there is an excessive need for self-admiration, and a deep lack of empathy. In the case of Veda in Mildred Pierce, the deep lack of empathy shows its face in the scene where Veda feigns pregnancy to funnel money from her soon to be ex-husband: the son of Mrs. Forrester, in an attempt to get away from her mother (Mildred) and shows no shame for doing so.

With the femme fatale, the narcissism can also be demonstrated by the appearance of mirrors throughout the film, whether the mirror is used for her own gaze, or as a means to showcase a double identity. The woman becomes totally self absorbed into her own self. Femme fatale women are often in scenes that use some type of involvement with mirrors. This may personify the deviousness, as well as, the cunning nature of these women, where “nothing and no one is what it seems” (Snyder). In film noir, mirrors are a technique that is prevalent in cinema that show the visual caricature of this idea of the self indulged narcissist. In, Mildred Pierce, there is a mirror that was used in the film and it was a crucial part of the narrative for moving Mildred back and forth, as mentioned earlier in this paper, through the domestic and public sphere. This mirror gives evidence for narcissistic behavior throughout the film. Veda is the shadow that illustrates Mildred’s dark double. Veda is the femme fatale of the story who is a deadly woman that hinders Mildred’s ability to be a good mother. Veda preys on everyone who is close to her for her own selfish gains and , although she sees her mother working outside of the domestic realm as evil, she has no problems in spending all of the money her mother earns. Veda steals her mother’s husband and then murders him. Mildred and Veda are so intertwined with each other that it takes the detectives at the end of the film to separate the two. This separation is “foreshadowed by the pierced mirror” (Mancini, 24) in the beach house that was hit by the bullet of Veda when she shot and killed Monty.

Mildred herself, although mild mannered and hard working in the restaurant business, also displays narcissistic behavior, but unlike her daughter Veda, hides it extremely well. Mildred, too, in her own way is just as manipulative and exploitative. In an article, “The Ultimate Femme Fatale? Narcissism Predicts Serious and Aggressive Sexually Coercive Behavior in Females”, Blinkhorn et al quote Morf and Rhodewalt, 2001 as saying that when it comes to narcissism that women can sometimes use more indirect and discreet ways of fulfilling their narcissistic goals (220). That becomes evident during an argument that took place between Mildred and Veda in the film when Veda insists that her mother has no right to criticize her for trying to get what she wants because she (Veda) argued that her mother Mildred really is not that much different than she is because, “Father, Monty, Wally…you take what you need”. There is some truth to Veda’s claims because Mildred does not care at all for Wally and uses him to do her legal bidding, and Monty does not appear to garner her interest even though she is fascinated by him. Mildred uses Monty to fulfill her sexual needs and to chauffer the younger Veda around, but later to lure her back home. Snyder argues that the femme fatale have wishes and receive those wishes by becoming the growth on the side of men who are rich, but also those they believe to be powerful. These women marry to achieve financial freedom or social advancement but in the process they manipulate the very desire that men hold for them (161). Despite her drive to be successful, as well as, the inner strength that she carries within her, Mildred does not have no real ingredients for self-respect, rather she ascribes to a form of desperate narcissism that wants to be privy to an ideal, yet glamorous life, even if it is for her parasitic, unappreciative daughter.

Conclusion

The paradigmatic representation of the femme fatale c