Who is the femme fatale?
The femme fatale in Double Indemnity (1944) is Phyllis, she was able to use both her brains and her beauty to get the men in the movie to succumb to her will. Phyllis is a classic femme fatale because of her ability to do this. In this period of film, women gain power, as opposed to weakness, from their sexuality. The audience first meets Phyllis from the perspective of Walter. We see her in a way that exudes not only sex appeal but sexual dominance too. Any interactions that occur between these two characters will be sexualized. At every turn of the plot, Walter seems to be along for the ride instead of being in charge. This is because of that dominance that Phyllis established earlier. She managed to corrupt a once normal man using none other than her beauty as a form of control.
Similarly, Gilda from Gilda (1946) has an image of promiscuity that disrupts the normal lives of the men around her. Gilda’s presence is the main factor of the tensions between Johnny and Ballin. Interestingly enough, Gilda does not do much to attract this attention. Where in Double Indemnity Walter had succumbed to Phyllis’s advances and sexual nature, Gilda seems to exist neutrally and has this sexualization thrust upon her. She is more like an unwilling femme fatale than a classic femme fatale. Meaning that she does not seek out this power that other femme fatales do, but her sexual presence is so undeniable that she attains power from it without even trying. She is effortless. At the same time, she suffers because of this. The men around her use her as a prop to amplify their masculinity. Where Phyllis got to be proactive; Gilda is reactive.
On a similar note, Lady from Shanghai (1947) moves away from the classic trope of the femme fatale. Elsa, like Phyllis, uses her promiscuity to her advantage. Unlike Gilda, she is proactive in the plot. Elsa takes her beauty and weaponizes it as femme fatales often do, however she is also more cunning and less see-through than typical femme fatales. Elsa hides her mysterious past and manages to avoid any questioning by using her body. If the body is the femme fatales number one tool, the mind is the second. Elsa uses both of these perfectly. She uses her mind to manipulate the men around her who not only don’t see the manipulation but are also too blinded by her beauty. Where Gilda distinctly lacked power, Elsa and Phyllis have an abundance of it. However, Elsa also differs from these women because she is a sympathetic femme fatale. She has the typical motive of a femme fatale but there is also despair to her, because of her tortured past and her desire to separate herself from it. Elsa can be seen as innocent as well as deviant depending on the scenario and this is crucial to her twist on the femme fatale trope.
Cumulatively, all three of these women capture what it is to be a femme fatale. While they vary on how sexualized, how empowered, and how sympathetic they are, they all manage to capture the mystique behind the women who influence men. The sexualization of all three characters is the basis of why their male counterparts do anything. The femme fatale holds power by simply existing and if she chooses to weaponize that power it can be deadly. It shows women cannot exist in society without the male gaze having some impact on their way of life. That society is patriarchal and inherently sexualizes the presence of women and then more or less blames them for the outcomes of the men around them. Phyllis did not force Walter to commit the atrocities that he did, he was convinced from the moment they met that he should do anything to be with her. Gilda did not intend to cause the downfall of Johnny and Ballin’s friendship, which occurred naturally when they decided she was worth fighting over. Elsa was not entirely at fault for Micheal's deviance, rather he had convinced himself that this “easy money” would allow them to be together. In summation, the femme fatale only becomes fatal when men thrust their unwarranted expectations on a woman because they see her as a sexual object.