sons

becomes fully realized. One of my favourite
examples of this is Overwatch’s Widowmaker.
Shallowly, she is a beautiful woman who kills
people, and is therefore a Femme Fatale (she’s
even French!)—but if you’re a lore junkie (like me),
you’re probably aware that Blizzard has slowly
been revealing various aspects of the Overwatch
backstory. In Widowmaker’s case, she was once
a woman subjected to torture, brainwashing, and
experimentation by a terrorist cell. As a result, she
has seemingly become a sociopath obsessed with
using the act of killing as a means to feel any form
of emotion. This places reason behind her actions,
and gives her a distinct motivation—as opposed to
one pre-conceived by a stereotype. It may not be
the most complex character development, but it
does put her on the path leading towards being a
fully developed character.

Surprisingly, this kind of stereotype evolution
is fairly exclusive to the Femme Fatale, as most
stereotypes remain stagnant. So why, then,
did this evolution occur? As someone who is
obsessed with both classical literature as well as
popular culture/fiction, | can theorize, but | can’t
present any solid concrete answer. It is probable
that the Femme Fatale evolved due to society’s
changing impression of women and femininity
in general. What was once seen as something to
be monitored and carefully cultivated was later
regarded with fear, because it presented a danger
to masculine defined morality. That sense of
danger then naturally progressed from being an
exclusive type of feminine danger to becoming
synonymous with an overall sense of danger. The
impression of women evolved from at first simply
being weak, and later being portrayed as capable
in their own way of presenting a threat, and that
then progressed to women being seen as human

beings just as capable of violence as anyone else.

In a sense, the Femme Fatale isn’t necessarily
a symbol of feminine oppression, but is really

a measure by which we can see the female

 

influence within society changing and evolving.