Cultural Constructions of the Femme Fatale : From Pandora's Box to Amanda Knox

Thanks to my editor at Palgrave, Felicity Plester, for her enthusiasm for the project and her patience when I was sidetracked by two other writing projects and completion was delayed. Thanks also to assistant editor Chris Penfold and my copy editor Wendy Toole. Thanks to the University of Winchester for a period of research leave and two research grants. One facilitated a trip to the New York Public Library, where I spent several days having my eyeballs spun like a fruit machine as I worked my way through seemingly endless rolls of tabloid newspapers on microfilm from 1927 and 1928. The other travel grant enabled me to consult some records in the National Archives of Scotland in Edinburgh on the Madeleine Smith case and see two productions of Machinal there. Although they will probably never read this, I would like to thank the director and cast of the production staged by the Italia Conti Academy (Fringe Festival 2012), which has had an impact on my reading of Treadwell's play. Some of the discussion of Knox draws on an article published in Celebrity Studies, 4.1, pp. 33-45, 2013. Thanks to the issue editor John Mercer for his helpful feedback on earlier versions of the article, and thanks to Taylor and Francis for permission to recycle some of that material. Thanks to Charlie Smith for the important early work she did as research assistant on the Knox case, sifting through press coverage of the investigation and trial. Thanks to those who have heard and responded to some of the material in this book presented in embryonic form at research seminars. I'd also like to express my gratitude to friends outside 'the academy' who have engaged in lively debate about the issues, particularly around the Knox chapter. Thank you to Julian Petley, who has been a useful sounding board at different points throughout the process. My colleague Helen Grime gave valuable feedback on the Snyder chapter in particular. Going back a bit, my thanks to Rob Conkie and (going back even further) to Alan Girvin for their friendship and for the long-standing rewards of working with them in the seminar room: they were formative influences on my teaching and research, and I will always owe each of them a debt. A special thank you to Brian Woolland, who has been incredibly generous with his time, reading each chapter with great care, and providing xi xii Acknowledgements invaluable feedback, both conceptually and on the fine detail. It was a conversation with Brian that provided the spark that lit the fuse for this whole research process, and he has also been there to suggest ways forward through the occasional impasse at critical moments. Thanks to the boys in the band: Tom, Damon, Jo, Dan, Richard. The music has been much more than a welcome distraction. Here's to Chester. And his dog. Thanks to my parents for their love and belief. And finally, as always, this goes out with love (and customary apologies) to my family: Aileen, Jamie, Matthew and Sophie. Defining the Femme Fatale I would sooner have danced than supped with her. 1 John Inglis, Madeleine Smith's defence lawyer The figure of the beautiful but lethal woman has haunted the Western imagination from ancient myth (Pandora, Eve, Lilith) to contemporary cinema. However, there are also remarkable 'real life' cases of women on trial for murder who have been represented as femmes fatales, including Frances Howard in the court of King James I, Ruth Snyder (the inspiration for The Postman Always Rings Twice) in the 1920s and, most recently, Amanda Knox, accused of murdering a fellow student in Italy in 2007. This interdisciplinary study traces the figure of the femme fatale across a broad cultural map, considering representations in news media, drama, film, art and literature, and the relationships between them. By considering the ways each of these lethal women has been coded, decoded and re-encoded, Stevie Simkin reveals how Western culture and society has struggled to comprehend and contain female violence The figure of the beautiful but lethal woman has haunted the Western imagination from ancient myth to contemporary film. Looking at news media, cinema, drama and other cultural forms, this study considers the interaction between representations of ‘real life’ ‘femmes fatales’ and their fictional counterparts. Front Matter....Pages i-xii Introduction....Pages 1-19 Defining the Femme Fatale....Pages 20-49 Frances Howard (1590–1632)....Pages 50-92 Ruth Snyder (1891–1928)....Pages 93-139 Amanda Knox....Pages 140-186 Conclusion....Pages 187-199 Back Matter....Pages 200-233