The Femme Fatale and the Female Screenwriter: Disrupting the Stereotype

Abstract

‘I am back, you bastards’, declares Tilly (Kate Winslet). She smokes a cigarette and wears an evocative white cartwheel hat in the dead of night. This is the opening line of the film The Dressmaker (2015) written and directed by the Australian filmmaker Jocelyn Moorhouse, based on the 2000 novel of the same name by Rosalie Ham. With a mixture of spaghetti western, noir, comedy and drama genre elements, this film recreates the archetype of the femme fatale with a depth rarely seen in such characters. What also makes Tilly ground-breaking is the fact that she is the protagonist of the story, and instead of luring men, she lures the town’s demure women through the beauty of haute couture to uncover the truth about her past and get revenge on those who wronged her. The Dressmaker thus contributes to a female-centric approach to the femme fatale archetype in the film noir genre.

Using The Dressmaker as a case study, this article will draw a parallel between Tilly’s character and the development of the protagonist in my own creative-practice screenplay, Indecent, an erotic thriller driven by a femme fatale detective. Employing narrative theory developed over several screenwriting texts as well as analysing popular discourses around the femme fatale archetype and their intertextual aspects, the objective is to explore through personal reflections how the film The Dressmaker can inform the development of my screenplay’s protagonist towards creating an authentic feminist portrayal of the femme fatale archetype, whilst preserving some classic femme fatale traits in order to pursue a multifaceted and subversive representation of these characters on screen.