“We are both rotten.”
“Only you are a little more rotten.”
This exchange corresponds to one of the interactions between the characters played by Fred MacMurray y Barbara Stanwyck in the film Perditionwith a script Billy Wilder y Raymond Chandler. The literary and cinematic world is full of archetypal figures and Stanwyck’s character, Phyllis Dietrichson, is one of the most used when talking about one of them: the femme fatale.
The femme fatale She defines herself as a beautiful, seductive and cunning woman, aware of her physical attributes as an instrument to get everything she wants from men. The classic image is that of an elegant woman, who moves in settings of opulence, since that is where she will find her victims. Just like Phyllis Dietrichson does.
As we see, cinema has created characters and narratives around this archetype, endowed with a dangerous and fearsome sensuality, which drags men to the point of losing their minds, and even leading to crime. Not in vain, in Perdition MacMurray’s character, at Stanwyck’s behest, ends up committing a crime.
This archetype also presents a woman who aspires to hold power, who is not satisfied with what she destroys and achieves, and who sets out to control what surrounds her through seduction and deception. So, the femme fatale could be considered a female demon. This brings us to Judeo-Mesopotamian Lilithone of its most emblematic icons.
The story of Lilith
Female submission has been a Christian requirement. As a consequence, in the teachings of religion, women’s behavior would revolve around obedience to their husbands. This demand is imposed under the threat of suffering the fury of God or, directly, going to hell. In this sense, the assimilation of the femme fatale with the red-haired woman, since the color red was associated with hell, and, therefore, redheads were considered children of Satan. In the popular heritage of Eastern European countries this has been believed until just a few decades ago.
In the religion of ancient Mesopotamia, which is found in cuneiform texts from Sumeria, Assyria and Babylon, Lilith means “spirit” or “demon”: she is the female demon associated with storms, and therefore a carrier of misfortune, illness and death.
In the biblical stories, both from the Old and New Testaments, it is seen that when a woman commits a mistake or leaves home, she is punished, as in the cases of Jezebel, Esther, Mary Magdalene, Delilah and Lot’s wife.
This instructive custom perhaps stems from the myth of Lilith, considered Eve’s predecessor. The Babylonian Talmud tells that Lilith was Adam’s first wife, made in the image and likeness of her companion. But when she found herself subdued and subjugated by him, she abandoned him and fled from Eden.
The accusations of evil and lust directed at Lilith have not only fallen on her, but also on her successor: from the beginning, Eva is presented as a libidinous woman, also creating metonyms between the apple and the sexual act. But the Christian vision of Eve also emerges from the Epic of Gilgameshwhere Lilith is related to the serpent. Lilith’s link with the snake comes from being the symbol of knowledge, of science, on the one hand; and, on the other hand, of the sinful, the forbidden, the evil. This last meaning will be reinforced by Jewish and Catholic cultures.
In fact, faced with female discredit, Catholicism contrasted the figure of the Virgin Mary with Lilith.
The image of this entity full of perversion is also one of those that has provided the greatest artistic inspiration. Perhaps the most remembered is that of the British painter John Painter Collierwho represented her as a beautiful naked woman, with long red hair, and with her body surrounded by snakes.
The cinema made it its own
Later, and as we saw at the beginning, this image of women as the cause of evil will be reflected in literary texts and, above all, in cinema. A good example of this is the movie A Fool there was (1915). In it, the silent film actress Theda Bara She seduces a family man into physical and mental misery. This film popularized the word vampwhich describes a woman who causes the moral degradation of her victims.
Las femme fatales Stanwyck or Bara, like all the others of the archetype, usually combine two main attributes: sexual desire and excessive ambition. They manage to dominate their insatiable libido because, unlike the male characters, they manage that drive for their own interest.
Several elements of the imagination are combined in this character. Its ability to be other in a disruptive way gives it mystery and barbarism. Added to this are her nymphomania and her metaphorical anthropophagy: the powerful sexuality she wields ends up tearing apart the men who surrender to her. Finally, the femme fatale attributes dominance to herself and leaves impotence and obedience to the men.
As in biblical texts, its outcome on the big screen is never good. Murder and suicide are the predestined endings for them. If they succumb to marriage – which meets the requirements of rationality, morality and submission – it is just a type of conservative and traditional mask that they put on to continue scheming their plans. The femme fatale harbors a diabolical intelligence, and for this she receives death as punishment.
The Vampiresses of Kipling and Burne-Jones
But cinema is not the only artistic form that has drawn on the archetype. There is a clear connection between the poem “The Vampire” by Rudyard Kipling and the painting of the same title by Philip Burne-Jonesson of the Pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones.
Kipling’s poem, often seen as a response to Burne-Jones’ work, offers a warning about the destructive power of feminine beauty. And it starts by saying:
There was an idiot who prayed
(just like you and me)
to a rag and a bone and a lock of hair
(we called her the carefree woman)
but the idiot called you his perfect lady-
(just like you and me)
Oh, the lost years, the lost tears
and the work of our head and hand
belongs to the woman who didn’t know
(now we know that we could never know)
and we didn’t understand.
Burne-Jones’ painting emphasizes the figure of the femme fataledepicting a sexually assertive woman subjugating a man who lies unconscious and helpless. Both works suggest that feminine beauty hides danger and leads to masculine ruin.
The representation of women often reflects patriarchal anxieties, reducing them to passive objects within a male-dominated visual culture. The Lilith archetype has been recreated and reduced to stereotypes in different ways and in different formats. It is undeniable that the model seduces from the very name, and this is reaffirmed in the success of the literary and film characters, present, in the past and currently, in different cultural products.
Fuente: The Conversation
