Dangerous Women and Disappointing Films
Perpetuating Harmful Tropes Surround Femme Fatales, Vengeance, and Justice; a Critic of Promising Young Woman
Tags: #PromisingYoungWoman #FemmeFatale #RevengeStory #Films
Have you ever heard of the term femme fatale? Maybe in reference to Black Widow from the Marvel Cinematic Universe or perhaps in connection with the film-noir era or a detective novel? The femme fatale is defined by Yvonne Tasker (1998: 120) as having four core traits: a seductive sexuality, power and strength over men arising from this sexuality, a cloud of mystery and confusion that surrounds her, creating an ambiguous figure for the story’s hero and the audience, and finally, she is most often found within an investigative narrative structure that “seeks to find ‘truth’ amidst the deception”. There is also a fifth element that most stories featuring femme fatales require: “typically, the dangerous woman at the centre of the plot is either killed, married off, or otherwise safely neutralised by the end” (Simkin, 2014: 6). Femme fatales are an archetype and one of the most widely used tropes in literature, art, film, books, and other media dating at least as far back as Greek Mythology; think, for example, of Medusa.
Usurpingly, the femme fatale has the movie industry in a chokehold as yet another iteration appeared on screen in 2020: Cassie from Promising Young Woman (Focus Features and Universal Pictures, 2020). Promising Young Woman is the black comedy-tragedy thriller with an upbeat pop soundtrack, drenched in pinks and pastels. Cassie spends her days working in a coffee shop after dropping out of med-school, nearly a decade before. Her evenings, however, are another story; she dresses up in tight clothing and thick makeup, visiting local bars where she pretends to be drunk to trick men into bringing her home. Once she has them alone, she forces them to confront the truth – they are basically sex offenders, ignoring her feeble ‘no’s and quiet ‘I need to leave’ statements. After the various men have her in compromising positions, she reveals her deception, warns against similar behaviour in the future, and walks away.
Her late night vigilantism, we find out later in the movie, is motivated by her desire for justice after her friend Nina, who dropped out of med-school following a group sexual assault, died by suicide. The assailants were a group of “promising young men”, protected from prosecution by lawyers, their peers, and even the university’s dean. Despite incriminating evidence in the form of a video, the assailants all went on to graduate and become successful. Having learned through a mutual friend that the ringleader of the group is back in town and getting married, Cassie’s revenge takes a darker turn: destroy those that helped to destroy Nina.
Many articles have been written praising the film. Jake Kleinman (2022) for Inverse calls it ‘the best erotic thriller of the decade’ while Blue Kalupa (2021) from The New Feminist praises its “gritty portrayal of realism”. The film was nominated for 89 awards, winning 33 of them, including Best Original Screenplay at the Academy Awards and two British Academy Film Awards, Outstanding British Film and, again, for Best Original Screenplay.
While we appreciate the sentiment around the “everyday nice-guy” being a possible sex offender, issues around bystander compliance in sexual abuse and silencing survivors, and the realism that femicides are more worthy of the attention of criminal justice agents than sexual violence, the film makes a few questionable narrative choices. The movie, in short, becomes an adaptation of a rape-revenge fantasy. The femme fatale is a tool within this narrative repeatedly causing the demise of women whilst desperately trying to provide critique on itself.
It has been disputed whether the rape-revenge fantasy is a genre (e.g. Heller-Nicholas 2011, Shaw 2021; Kaye 2014) or a narrative structure (e.g. Read 2000; Talbert 2021). Regardless, it does have a common set of traits (Talbert, 2021; Paquet, 2018; Kaye, 2014). First, a girl or young woman is raped, potentially ending in her murder or presumed death. Second, the survivor or their immediate family/close friend seek to avenge the victim motivated solely by the rape. Third, both the ‘heroine’ and ‘villain’ fall into caricatures of victim and offender. Fourth, because she has been established as blameless, the revenge is no longer senseless violence but is seen as a justified, if not the appropriate, response.
In femme fatale fashion, staying true to the rape-revenge fantasy, Cassie fails. Instead of getting any justice for Nina, Cassie herself is murdered by the ringleader and the crime is covered up. This was the originally intended ending of the film (Olsen, 2021). Full stop. Thankfully, when the writer, Emerald Fennell, sat down to complete the screenplay, she understood that it was ‘too cruel’ to end the film on the burning of Cassie’s body (Olsen, 2021) adding an additional 5 minutes to reveal a failsafe Cassie meticulously planned out. However, Fennell remains adamant that Cassie must die – “any other ending to the script didn’t feel right” (Fennell cited in Olsen, 2021).
Part I: Cassie As A Femme Fatale
Femme fatales counter traditional notions of femininity; “women are defined in relation to men … [and t]he primary crime the ‘liberated’ woman is guilty of is refusing to be defined in such a way” (Place, 1989: 3). Femme fatales often have another feminine, virginal counterpoint to really emphasize what awful, wily creatures they truly are. This disobedient woman sits against the ideal woman. Where femme fatales inflict harm on men, the obedient counterpart tends to his wounds.
Cassie is unique, in that she fulfills both roles; her pastel-clad, coffee pouring facade from the daytime is stripped away at night to become a bar-hopping, femme fatale hidden in damsel-clothing. Her night-time activities are never mentioned during daylight, until her final plans are in motion. Her alter ego is discovered by Ryan, Promising Young Woman’s attempt at a hero turned villain.
Since Cassie’s goal is vengeance for Nina, her commitment to fulfill this desire comes at any cost (Grossman, 2009). She victimizes another woman; ensuring Madison would think she was raped after getting a tad too drunk at brunch. She disregards her own safety by keeping her night-time activities a secret from everyone. She does not believe in people’s ability to change for the better, immediately treating Ryan as hostile after learning he was present at Nina’s rape. Ultimately, she is even willing to commit assault, regardless of the outcome to herself, by attending Al’s bachelor party uninvited to carve Nina’s name into his body. By the end of the movie, justice for Nina is all that matters.
As the femme fatale she is ‘doubly deviant, doubly damned’ (Lloyd 1995). Cassie is a threat to the patriarchy by “having both broken the law and transgressed the ‘rules’ of what is understood to be acceptable female behaviour” (Simkin, 2002: 55) to bring about the demise of ‘respectable men’. To truly conform to the femme fatale trope and the ideology of male patriarchal control, Cassie must be neutralised one way or another. Consequently, she is killed by the very man she tried to enact vengeance against.
To top it all off, by the end of the movie, men are the heroes: The lawyer calls the police after receiving a package from Cassie outlining her plan and providing evidence against Al; The police, predominantly men, arrive to arrest the murderer. Therefore, with the death of Cassie, the film perpetuates traditional ideas of the femme fatale. Promising Young Woman confirms hegemonic patriarchal roles rather than providing critique to this by defeating the threat to dominant masculine culture, Cassie.
Part II: Rape-Revenge Fantasy
While rape revenge fantasies do address some societal issues, including putting men’s reputation above women’s wellbeing and the inadequacy of support and justice for rape survivors (Talbert, 2021), these stories fall short in several other aspects. Many versions explicitly depict the sexual assault, mostly for shock value. The depictions of victim and offender are rooted in rape myths (Bourke, 2007) and ideal victim status (Christie, 1986). For example, she – the rape victim – is young, heterosexual, White, and entirely innocent. He – the rapist – is the ‘big and bad’ assailant and a stranger to her (Henry, 2013). This fails to consider that, first, the majority of rape victims fall outside of ideal portrayals and, second, offenders are most likely someone known to the victim (UN Women, 2022). The rape often takes over the victim’s and their family’s lives and they can never move past the assault (Talbert, 2021; Paquet 2018). Finally, the fantasies often lack a satisfying ending for the rape survivor as they cannot escape the abuse (Talbert, 2021).
Both Cassie and Nina can be considered ideal victims: they are young, White, presumably heterosexual women who are innocent (from the perspective of the audience). Cassie cannot move on with her life, spending the decade since Nina’s assault seeking revenge by hunting men in bars. These men are all strangers to her, and every week she finds a different would-be assailant. Her response seems justified: Nina is innocent and, though the attack was reported to the University, the Dean’s victim-blaming put the rapist’s reputation above Nina’s disclosure. Consequently, Cassie’s ‘call-out-possible-rapists’ spree is a reaction to a lack of support and justice for survivors on the hands of institutions who instead perpetuate the problem. Her vigilantism is presented as a suitable alternative to avenge Nina when formal responses failed to recognise the seriousness of sexual violence.
On a positive note, as opposed to the traditional rape-revenge fantasy, we never actually explicitly see Nina’s rape. Therefore, the film does not rely on visual ‘shock value’ for sexual abuse. However, Cassie’s death is still explicitly shown. It is thus questionable if the utilization of explicitly gruesome content is truly absent.
The depictions of victims and offenders in Promising Young Woman do defy some rape myths. For example, Nina was raped by someone she knew; Cassie was murdered by someone she knew. Rapists are not ‘boogie men’ trying to snatch you in a dark back alley.
However, the film still perpetuates harmful myths. For example, Cassie assumes that women are more likely to be harmed by strangers than by men they already know. Similar to how Nina was consumed by her rape and died by suicide as a result, Cassie also cannot get past the assault. It is all-consuming: she dropped out of med-school, she lost all her friends, her sole purpose is reduced to seeking vengeance. Revenge then becomes the only suitable form of justice. However, this fails to acknowledge that punitive retribution is just one form of justice. Research has shown that survivors of sexual assault particularly seek acknowledgement and validation from their abuser and the (criminal justice) system, having assailants acknowledge and repair the harms caused and take responsibility, and wider safety and preventive measures, for example through education and advocacy (e.g. Clark, 2015; Daly, 2006; Fileborn, 2017). As such, Promising Young Woman perpetuates a one-dimentional rape justice narrative.
Part III: Conclusion
Despite reviews praising Promising Young Woman as a ‘new take’ on the femme fatale (e.g. Tauss, 2021; Kalupa, 2021; Tham, 2021), the movie supports the traditional definitions of the trope rather than breaking the mold. Cassie uses her sexuality to hold power over men, she is mysterious, and – frankly – confusing, in her motives and ultimately meets her demise so that the film can have “the only ending” – at least according to the writer (Fennell cited in Olsen, 2021). At the same time, Promising Young Woman follows an incredibly White and heterosexually framed rape narrative, denying victimhood to anyone outside these characteristics. Consequently, rather than providing a critique to rape, vengeance, and femme fatales, the film continuously perpetuates harmful myths and, ultimately, disempowers women. Where have we seen that again? Oh! Sounds oddly familiar to the likes of Neil Druckman and The Last of Us. Left reading your own media, much?
Part IV: Go To Therapy
Apart from being unclear what Cassie’s plan was, each character should consider therapy. Have you tried that? No? Ah, right, it’s based in the US, where no free healthcare means no free access to mental health services. Well, that explains a lot. In that case, head to this link for some resources if you have experienced abuse.
Sources
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Image Credit:
Promising Young Woman [@PromisingFilm] (2020). "Miss me? #PromisingYoungWoman" 9 October. https://twitter.com/PromisingFilm/status/1314581429687185408?s=20
Promising Young Woman [@PromisingFilm] (2020). "Payback is sweet. #PromisingYoungWoman" 8 December, https://twitter.com/PromisingFilm/status/1336383471179026432?s=20