Too Exotic to Enchant? How the Femme Fatale was sent on Retreat

Abstract

In their latest movies of Japanese adaptions, Spike Lee, Adam Wingard, and Rupert Sanders all display the femme fatale in the discourse of patriarchy and female empowerment. She is portrayed as a complex figure, entangled in power, desire, femininity, self-determination and deception. She is the downfall of the hero. Once dominating countless oeuvres in Japanese productions, the femme fatale disappeared in Japanese films from 1930s through the 1990s and did not return in contemporary cinema. I propose that the end of the femme-fatale scenario ultimately began in Japanese popular culture in that she is now transformed into a western figure in a foreign land where she fears to tread. This papers demonsrates how the types of the modern girl and the meiji school girl are present in manga originals and how western producers transform them into femme fatales with potent sexuality and destructive power. The productions under discussion include Death Note , Ghost in the Shell and Oldboy .