The femme fatale occupies a precarious yet highly visible space in contemporary cinema. From sci-fi alien women to teenage bad girls, filmmakers continue to draw on the notion of the sexy deadly woman in ways which traverse boundaries of genre and narrative. This book charts the articulations of the femme fatale in American cinema of the past twenty years, and contends that, despite her problematic relationship with feminism, she offers a vital means for reading the connections between mainstream cinema and representations of female agency. The films discussed raise questions about the limits and potential of positioning women who meet highly normative standards of beauty as powerful icons of female agency. They point towards the constant shifting between patriarchal appropriation and feminist recuperation that inevitably accompanies such representations within mainstream media contexts.

The Nasty Woman and the Neo Femme Fatale in Contemporary Cinema puts forward the theoretical notion of the ‘nasty woman’ as a means of examining female protagonists in contemporary culture and cinema, particularly films directed by women. The phrase is taken from an insult thrown at Hillary Clinton during the 2016 Presidential election debates and reclaimed by the feminists worldwide. The volume also draws from the figure of the femme fatale in film noir. Piotrowska presents ‘the nasty woman’ across cultural and mythical landscape as a figure fighting against the entitlement of the patriarchy. The writer argues that in films such as Zero Dark Thirty, Red Road, Stories We Tell, and even Gone Girl the ‘nastiness’ of female characters creates a new space for reflection on contemporary society and its struggles against patriarchal systems. The nasty woman or neo femme fatale is a figure who disrupts stable situations and norms; she is pro-active and self-determining, and at times unafraid to use dubious means to achieve her goals. She is often single, but when married she subverts and undermines the fundamental principles of this patriarchal institution. For students and researchers in Cultural Studies, Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Film Studies and Psychoanalysis in Film Studies, The Nasty Woman and the Neo Femme Fatale in Contemporary Cinema offers an original way of thinking about female creativity and subjectivity. It is also a proud celebration of feminist and female authorship in contemporary Hollywood.

"The femme Fatale takes a long view on the figure of the femme fatale, exploring her style, language, and stories from silent cinema to contemporary television. Author Julie Grossman provides a history of some of this dynamic figure's eruptions in film, TV, and culture generally, exploring the notions of female ambition, frustration, and intelligence that undergird the power and fascination of the femme fatale across time and media. We see how the fatal woman often mediates contradictory views on women's lives and their desire to gain fulfillment in a hostile or otherwise challenging environment. Embodied by some of the most charismatic female performers in Hollywood history, from Theda Bara and Barbara Stanwyck to Hedy Lamarr, Reese Witherspoon, and Jodie Comer and Sandra Oh, the femme fatale remains an active source of pleasure and subversion. Femmes Fatales pays particular attention to performance not only as a prominent feature of these works' production-established in part through references to studio press books and popular reviews--but also as a theme within the narrative (in, for example, the idea of the deceitful, untrustworthy, or "performing" woman). Focusing on expressive moments and scenes in texts that are celebrated and also those that are lesser known, this volume attends to the variety, trauma, wit, and transgressions of the femme fatale, emphasizing how this figure continually provokes us to reflect on rigid conventions and social roles. Femmes Fatales generates questions and analysis that speak to why stories about gender and criminality featuring tough and smart women are so endlessly thrilling"--

These essays trace the femme fatale across literature, visual culture and cinema, exploring the ways in which fatal femininity has been imagined in different cultural contexts and historical epochs, and moving from mythical women such as Eve, Medusa and the Sirens via historical figures such as Mata Hari to fatal women in contemporary cinema.

"examines the changing social and economic status of women from the 1860s through the 1880s, and rejects the stereotypical mid-Victorian femme fatale portrayed by conservative ideologues critiquing popular fiction by Wilkie Collins, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Honore de Balzac, and William Makepeace Thackeray. In these book reviews, the female protagonist is simply minimized to a dangerous woman. Refuting this one-dimensional characterization, this book argues that the femme fatale comes to represent the real-life struggles of the middle-class Victorian woman who overcomes major adversities such as poverty, abusive husbands, abandonment, single parenthood, limited job opportunities, the criminal underworld, and Victorian society's harsh invective against her." --publisher description.

My name is Blue—insert a mood-related joke here—and I’m a femme fatale in training. My goal is to join the CIA. Unfortunately, I have a tiny issue with birds, and the closest I’ve come to my dream is working for a government agency that’s disturbingly up-to-speed on everyone’s sexts, rants in private Facebook groups, and secret family chocolate-chip cookie recipes. I know I’m a spy cliché, that agent who works at a desk but craves fieldwork. However, I have a plan: I’m going to infiltrate the secretive Hot Poker Club, where I’ve spotted a mysterious, sexy stranger who I’m convinced is a Russian spy. And once I'm in? All I have to do is seduce the presumed spy without falling for him, so I can expose his true identity and prove my femme fatale bona fides to the CIA. I never lose concentration at work, so that'll be an absolute breeze for me. Oh, and did I mention he's sexy? I’m doing it for my country, not my ovaries, I pinky swear. WARNING: Now that you’ve finished reading this, your device will self-destruct in five seconds. NOTE: This is a standalone, raunchy, slow-burn romantic comedy featuring a quirky, spy-movie-obsessed heroine, a scorching hot maybe-Russian, several terrifying tales about birds, and lots of text debates about the relative cuteness of animals. If any of the above is not your cup of tea, run far, far away. Otherwise, buckle up for a laugh-out-loud, feel-good ride.

A mixed-media artist, Nora Novak shares her artistic journey through a collection of contemporary Femme Fatale portraits. A designer and writer, Novak is the author of Art Damaged and Los Feliz Confidential, A Memoir.