The Femme Fatale

"A fascinating exploration of Hollywood’s most notorious female that goes beyond film noir. With a focus on the performance of gender as subversive and empowered, Grossman illuminates over a century of femme fatales from silent cinema’s 'Vamp' Theda Bara to television’s Killing Eve."

~Philippa Gates, author of Detecting Women: Gender and the Hollywood Detective Film

"In this lively and engaging book, Julie Grossman elegantly traces the long tradition of the femme fatale figure in film, television and popular culture. She deftly analyses a diverse range of characters, from Theda Bara’s vamp in early Hollywood, the hard-boiled dames of classic Film Noir, to the complex and vibrant Villanelle in contemporary television’s Killing Eve. Grossman persuasively illustrates the centrality of role performance to these femme fatale figures, and establishes performance as a key mode by which they resist inequalities in social structures. This book provides both a history of how women have been represented, and a compelling case for the relevance of the femme fatale to contemporary debates on gender politics."
 

~Helen Hanson, author of Hollywood Heroines: Women in Film Noir and the Female Gothic Film