Passion – Bitch Flicks

The Trope of the Murderous Bisexual Woman

There are a number of films — frequently defined as “erotic thrillers” — which feature bisexual women who are violent, manipulative, and even murderous. … The trope of the promiscuous, aggressive, violent, and unstable bisexual woman is one that truly needs to disappear. Even if directors do not intend any harm to queer people or communities, these inaccurate portrayals lead movie-goers to believe that bisexuality is something dangerous, to be feared.

This guest post written by Angela Morrison appears as part of our theme week on Bisexual Representation. | Spoilers ahead.

Bisexual characters are rarely represented in cinema, but among the scarce examples, one trope stands out as particularly insidious. There are a number of films — frequently defined as “erotic thrillers” — which feature bisexual women who are violent, manipulative, and even murderous. Femme fatales such as Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone) in Basic Instinct are aggressive and sexually confident, and thus are considered to be dangerous. This trope assumes that if a woman’s sexuality is fluid, then she must be unstable; there must be something wrong with a woman whose sexuality does not fit into a neat little box.

Two of the most prominent examples of this trope come from the aforementioned Basic Instinct, as well as Brian De Palma’s 2012 film, Passion. Both films are directed by straight white men who filter the female experience through their own male perspective, and then through their camera lenses. Their female characters are shown to have some charming qualities, but in the end they are promiscuous and manipulative, never to be trusted.

In Passion, Rachel McAdams plays Christine, an extremely successful advertising executive, who works closely with Noomi Rapace’s character, Isabelle. The women at first appear to have a close friendship and solid work relationship, but this is not a movie about working women supporting one another. It soon becomes evident that Christine does not see Isabelle as her equal, but rather, as someone she has complete control over – in work and in personal life. Christine takes credit for Isabelle’s work to ensure she can move up within the advertising company. Shortly after, she tells Isabelle a sad tale of her twin sister being killed by a car, ending the speech by saying, “I love you,” to Isabelle. This is clearly manipulative behavior.

At various points in the film, Christine kisses and makes mild sexual advances towards Isabelle. Christine is also involved with a man named Dirk (Paul Anderson), whom she has theatrical sexual encounters with, frequently involving power play. The film casually enforces the idea that bisexual women do not abide by the codes of monogamy, but rather, have sexual/romantic relations with anyone they want at any time. Of course, Dirk also sleeps with Isabelle, so I guess straight men are not presented as being much more faithful. This is not to say that monogamy is “normal” or “right” — not at all. But De Palma has not made a film about the joy and beauty of polyamory. Christine goes behind Dirk’s back and makes sexual advances towards Isabelle, because according to De Palma, that is how bisexual women operate.

Isabelle returns Christine’s attraction, and also has sex with Dirk. She is another bisexual character portrayed as promiscuous. At various points in the film, Christine and Isabelle also exhibit dangerous, and even violent, tendencies. [SPOILER] Christine is murdered, and it is revealed that Isabelle killed her, and manipulated everyone around her in order to cover it up. In the world of Passion, bisexual women are criminal masterminds with lots of secrets. Even Isabelle’s assistant Dani (Karoline Herfurth) joins in the fun, professing her love for Isabelle and then blackmailing her into having a sexual relationship with her. All three of these queer women fit into the trope of the femme fatale), which is not necessarily a bad thing. Christine, Isabelle, and Dani are all successful career women who are confident and highly intelligent. However, their fluid sexualities pose a threat in the mind of De Palma, so they are also portrayed as unstable and prone to violence.

Passion is not meant to be taken as a realistic film – De Palma clearly indicates that this slightly humorous and highly stylized film is meant to be over-the-top. The set and costume design are sleek and shiny. Christine wears big, ornate earrings and perfectly-fitting business suits. Everyone’s office is made completely of glass and polished metal. The score uses “stingers” to heighten moments of shock and fear. Characters often bolt upright in the middle of the night, revealing that the previous scenes were just a dream. The film is clearly flamboyant, which is one of its charms. The same can be said about Basic Instinct – the film is full of neon lights, noir-ish twists and turns in the narrative, and equally athletic dance and sex scenes. And of course, Paul Verhoeven is a master of satire – he is rarely serious. Verhoeven is always smirking at the audience through his movies. However, representation is important. These two films are fun and exciting (as B. Ruby Rich notes of Basic Instinct in her essay, “New Queer Cinema“), but for all their satirizing and stylizing, the insidious ideas about queer women are hurtful. Biphobia literally means “fear of bisexuality,” and that fear is amplified by movies such as these.

Neither Passion nor Basic Instinct ever utters the word “bisexual.” However, in Basic Instinct, Catherine clearly has an intimate romantic and sexual relationship with Roxy (Laelani Sarelle). Catherine is presented as a threat because she is a confident queer woman, who knows what she wants in all aspects of her life: professionally, personally, sexually. Detective Nick Curran (Michael Douglas) remains suspicious of her for the entire film. A confident, sexual woman must secretly be a murderer. Yes, there are many other clues that point to Catherine being the murderer, but the one thing that is constantly foregrounded is her sexuality – especially in that famous scene. She uses her out-of-control sexuality to manipulate the men around her, because according to Verhoeven, that is what queer women do.

Carrie Nelson at Bitch Media outlines the many biphobic elements of Basic Instinct in her article, “A Look at Basic Instinct.” She notes that Catherine and Roxy’s relationship is framed so that it’s titillating for male viewers. When Catherine and Roxy kiss each other, Catherine has one eye on Nick, gauging his reaction, hoping he’s aroused. Bisexual encounters in cinema are often filtered through the “male gaze”: rather than representing two women enjoying each other for their own pleasure, sexual relations between women are objectified, with the purpose of arousing male viewers. With the release of films such as Basic Instinct and Darren Aronofsky’s 2010 film Black Swan, comes the question from young male viewers — “Did you see that lesbian scene?” Whether or not the male directors of these films intend to objectify queer women, it inevitably ends up happening. The queer women in these films are often not given a voice to express their emotional and romantic attachment to their partners. Their experiences are seen as purely sexual, and more often than not, calculating and cold. Catherine, Christine, and Isabelle have sexual encounters in order to manipulate others.

The trope of the promiscuous, aggressive, violent, and unstable bisexual woman is one that truly needs to disappear. Even if directors do not intend any harm to queer people or communities, these inaccurate portrayals lead movie-goers to believe that bisexuality is something dangerous, to be feared. As is widely known, LGBTQ+ activists protested Basic Instinct during filming and then once it had been released. This trope has been criticized since at least the 1990s (and even before, with women’s groups protesting Brian De Palma’s earlier film, Dressed to Kill, for equating female sexuality with violence). But films such as Passion demonstrate that the trope is alive and well. Much work needs to be done to give bisexual characters a voice – bisexual characters should be portrayed as the complex, beautiful, and complicated human beings that they are. Not all of us are secretly hiding ice picks under our beds.

See also at Bitch Flicks:

Passion and Crime d’Amour: Women and Corporate Power Plays

Angela Morrison is a feminist cinephile, and she has written for Bitch Flicks before. She lives in Canada and is a recent Cinema Studies graduate. She writes about cinema for fun on her blog.

Older Women Week: The Ruthless Power of Patty Hewes from ‘Damages’ & Victoria Grayson from ‘Revenge’

The shadow of Patty Hewes dwarfs her protege Ellen Parsons in Damages

Emily Thorne stands beside her enemy Victoria Grayson in Revenge

Written by Amanda Rodriguez

Spoiler Alert

Older women in film and TV are generally a stereotypical lot. They’re usually sexless matrons or grandmothers who perform roles of support for their screen-stealing husbands or children. These older women are typically preoccupied with home and family, lacking a complex inner life because they are gendered symbols of, you guessed it, home and family. Occasionally we see older women who go beyond that trope, even defying it to focus more on power, prestige, winning, and their own personal success and public image rather than that of others. Two potent examples of this are Patty Hewes from Damages and Victoria Grayson from Revenge.

The award-winning actress Glenn Close brings Damages‘ corporate lawyer and anti-heroine, Patty Hewes, to life with complexity, subtlety, and sheer force of presence. Patty Hewes is the uncannily successful proprietor of the law firm Hewes & Associates. She has high-up connections that she thinks nothing of exploiting, and she has no problem circumnavigating the law and propriety to win a case or to get what she wants. She thinks nothing of, say, attempting to murder her protege, Ellen, and succeeding in murdering Ellen’s fiance or blackmailing witnesses or judges. Patty has a reputation for ruthlessness, and, basically, people know she’s not a woman to be fucked with because she will toy with her opponents before unleashing an unholy shit storm that utterly destroys them. She’s beyond smart; she’s brilliant. She’s dedicated, ambitious, addicted to winning seemingly unwinnable cases, and cares more about her career than she does about anything else in her life.

Patty Hewes: You do not want to fuck with her.

The much acclaimed Madeleine Stowe portrays the equally ruthless Victoria Grayson on Revenge. The playing field is different: instead of a court of law, Victoria reigns supreme as a filthy rich socialite in the Hamptons who, like Patty, plays deep games of power and manipulation and is a woman who gets what she wants. Victoria shamelessly throws around her wealth to gloatingly buy off people and services, and if that doesn’t work, she capitalizes on her cool poise to threaten unspeakable reprisal if her powerful will is not obeyed. In all honesty, it was hard to find emotive pictures of Victoria because Madeleine Stowe masterfully plays her character’s unruffled containment, with emotion only briefly escaping through her eyes or a momentary flash of facial expression before disappearing beneath a well-practiced veneer of composure.

Victoria Grayson sits in her signature chair smugly triumphant about…something. To be fair she’s usually smugly triumphant.

Both Patty and Victoria have elegant homes and expensive wardrobes that are further embodiments of their success. They both play the game. It is usually a game of their own making where the rules are known only to them and are likely to change when it suits them. Both are detached and calculating, having trouble relating in genuine, meaningful ways even to the people who mean the most to them. In fact, their closest loved ones tend to despise them the most for the atrocity of their actions. However, their maternal instincts (or lack thereof) are points of differentiation. Patty has a son, Michael, and she wrests custody of his daughter from him primarily to teach him a lesson. She is cold and harsh with Michael, and once she has sole custody, Patty is distant and downright absent from the upbringing of her granddaughter, Catherine. We also come to find out that she aborted a child in her youth, choosing her career over motherhood. This sets Patty up as a typical Hollywood example of the masculinized female authority figure. Her lack of maternal instinct is set up as proof that her power has dehumanized her, implying that a woman who succeeds in the masculine world of corporate law can’t possibly be a good mother with a happy home life. Aside from the glory of her career, Patty’s life is depicted as empty and lonely; her nights are filled with solo booze consumption, and the only companion to whom she can freely relate is her pet dog, Cory.

Patty feeds her beloved Cory.

While she is a twisted excuse for a mother, Victoria has a ferocious maternal instinct. She ascribes the utmost importance to her role as “mother.” Though her games, plots, and intrigues enmesh her children in a suffocating web of deceit and motherly control, Victoria’s goals (however misguided) are always designed to protect and benefit her children. For example, Victoria offers her daughter Charlotte’s boyfriend $20,000 to piss off, and in her mind, she’s doing it to save her child from a boy who is unworthy and with whom a lasting relationship is doubtful. Victoria also has her son, Daniel, viciously beaten in prison in order to show the court that his life is in danger and he should be remanded to house arrest under her direct care and supervision. Power, in Victoria’s hands, hasn’t robbed her of her maternal instinct; instead it has made her love dark and hard and cruel.

Victoria bears the strongest distaste for Emily Thorne, her son’s fiancee; her maternal instinct telling her (correctly) that Emily is up to no good.

Patty and Victoria also differ in the depictions of their sexuality. Patty is basically an asexual being, especially after her vitriolic divorce from her cheating husband, Phil. The show alludes to her complex sexual past (with two marriages and a sordid affair with a witness resulting in the birth of her son), but no relationships or trysts materialize throughout the series because when would she have the time? Like her maternal instinct, Patty has surrendered the freedom of sexuality in return for power and prestige.

Patty sacrifices what society tells us it means to be a woman for masculine power.

Victoria, on the other hand, has a passionate sexuality that is as fierce as her ambition, as fierce as her maternal instinct. Equal to the contained control of Victoria’s public facade, is the pure abandonment of her sexuality. Unlike Patty, Victoria desperately wants love. Revenge shows that Victoria’s denial of love and the denial of the honesty of her sexual desires (first with her painter/counterfeiter Dominik and later with her husband’s coworker David Clarke) in exchange for money and power has lead her to deeper darkness, deeper emptiness, and a dwindling moral compass. The supposition seems to be that a woman can’t be rich and powerful while feeling love and tenderness.

Victoria rapt in her lover David Clarke’s arms.

Both Patty and Victoria live in a perpetual state of guilt and remorse for their actions. Victoria suffers from interminable guilt for helping her husband frame her lover, the only man she ever loved, David Clarke, for terrorism and murder. She does this, presumably, because she is afraid to lose her wealth, her position, and the power that come with them. Victoria identifies her past crimes as “heinous.” In flashbacks, there’s a softer edge to Victoria, an openness and a willingness to love and to connect. Over the years, we see that her choice of power over principles has eroded her ability to empathize and turned her into the stereotypical ice queen. Eventually, we see a shift in Victoria where it seems she can no longer bear the guilt she suffers, and she seeks to purge herself of her crimes through confession (of course she manipulates the situation to ensure her own immunity…and it doesn’t end up happening).

A seemingly pivotal moment for Victoria as she prepares to board a federal plane to Washington and make her confession.

Patty also feels unassuageable remorse about many of her decisions, most notably her youthful abortion and the path on which it set her life. The symbolic weight that the abortion bears and the resulting demonization of Patty for her choice are disappointing. The implication is that if Patty had had the child instead of aborting it, she would’ve been a better person, contented and whole. This idea goes against the very grain of Patty Hewes. Would her ambition have dissipated upon the birth of her daughter? Her love of power, the law, the game, and manipulation disappeared when she looked at her screaming newborn? None of those things happened when she later gave birth to her son, so the reality is that having that child instead of aborting it would’ve made her gravely unhappy and trapped her, and she probably would’ve fucked up that kid’s life and its sense of self even worse than she fucked up Michael’s.

Though we learn much of Victoria’s past which casts her in a more sympathetic light (i.e. her mother was a gold digger who resented her, allowed her to be molested, and then kicked her out when she turned 15), she remains aloof and composed, while Patty has more moments of genuine vulnerability. Barefoot, curled on her couch with Ellen and her dog, Patty becomes human. Her temper tantrums where she wrecks her desk and throws her oft-held whiskey glass across the room show the depth of her frustration and impotence. Her wracking sobs and hysteria after she’s given the order for Ellen’s murder show the viewer the true emotional cost of her choices…and that she makes them anyway.

Patty loses it after giving the order to have Ellen murdered.

It’s no secret that I’m fascinated by women with power. I wrote about the machinations of women and corporate power in my review of Passion, and I wrote about the ruthless Claire Underwood of House of Cards (another aging anti-heroine). Patty Hewes and Victoria Grayson are both complex, compelling characters. The way they inhabit their power is endlessly watchable. Despite their borderline amorality, it’s infinitely gratifying to watch both of them at work, setting up the players and knocking them down in a life-sized game of chess. Unfortunately, there is such a profound darkness and emptiness in both Patty and Victoria as well as in their lives. They have cut themselves off from human connection and have lost the ability to love the simpler things in life. The message is “power corrupts,” but I wonder if Victoria and Patty are extreme examples of this because they are women, as if femaleness automatically bestows qualities of nurturing, affection, connectivity, and compassion. The implication is that the kind of power these women seek is outside the feminine realm, and to grasp it, they must reject their very nature, which leaves them a hollow shell of a person. It’s all too rare that we see a subtle, powerful woman who commands respect who hasn’t sacrificed her humanness in the bargain. Though I love these wicked, wicked anti-heroines, I want to see more balanced representations of women with power who aren’t demonized and damaged due to its pursuit.

‘Passion’ and ‘Crime d’amour’: Women and Corporate Power Plays

Brian de Palma’s Passion

Written by Amanda Rodriguez

Brian De Palma’s film Passion is a sleek, sexy, beautifully shot neo-noir thriller remade from Alain Corneau’s 2010 French film Crime d’amour (or Love Crime in English).

Crime d’amour

I always think it’s valuable to examine how films deviate from their source material because those are indications of deliberate choices that can say a lot (whether accidentally or intentionally). Honestly, the films aren’t tremendously different in an overt way, as most scenes are shot-for-shot, line-for-line identical, the basic differences being the languages of each and the uniquely lush, decadent darkness De Palma brings to his works. However, there are a few intriguing, telling differences that bear noting, and therein lies the meat of my analysis.

In Crime d’amour, the manipulative, power-wielding character Christine is played by the acclaimed Kristin Scott Thomas, who is considerably older than her protege, Rachel (pictured above). This creates a more maternal relationship between them, giving Christine the additional power advantage of age. The sexual energy between the two is therefore more illicit and is unreciprocated by the younger Rachel. However, in Passion, the actresses Rachel McAdams as Christine and Noomi Rapace (whom I always love, love, love) as Rachel are much closer in age, so the power dynamic between them rests purely on the weight of Christine’s corporate power and her ability to manipulate people however she sees fit. The sexual energy between the two is complicated, but palpable with love, hatred, desire, and emulation thrown in the mix. This dynamic ensures that the entire film, including the “love crime” that occurs, is about the relationship between these two women and not the man between them (with whom they’re both having sex). He remains ever a pawn they both use against each other.

Christine and Rachel kiss and later, at Christine’s insistence, profess love for each other.

I won’t go into too great detail about the next difference between the two films because it’s spoiler-ridden, but they both approach the story’s murder in opposite manners. In Crime d’amour, we watch the plotting of the crime, unsure as to the perpetrating character’s sanity, motivation, and the final outcome of conviction versus acquittal. De Palma’s Passion, however, is more of a classic noir whodunit, where we’re constantly questioning guilt versus innocence, genuine emotion versus manipulation, and reality versus insanity/fantasy. Both approaches are engaging and enjoyable to watch, so I’ve got no complaints for either interpretation.

The murderer wears a mask that’s a mold of the victim’s face to chilling effect in Passion.

The last most significant change between the original film and its remake is the gender shift for Rachel’s assistant. In Crime d’amour, her assistant is Daniel, a man, and in Passion, her assistant is Dani (played by Karoline Herfurth), a woman. This shift makes only women the major players in Passion. We are left with a power struggle among three femme fatales, all smart, driven women who know what they want and use whatever means necessary to achieve their desires. This triumvirate of femme fatales, full of intelligence, secrets, and cunning, all battling for supremacy, is something I’ve never seen before on the silver screen. Their deep-laid game is impressive in its scope, and it is so exciting to watch three strong female characters unleashing their power.

The power dynamic shifts as assistant, Dani, reveals her knowledge to Rachel, mirroring the power play between Rachel and Christine.

My major critique of both films, in particular Passion, is the very stereotypical female-ness of the power plays the films explore. Love, sex, desire, humiliation, as well as the manipulation of people and emotions for revenge or personal gain are all tactics traditionally coded as female. Though this tale takes place in the male-dominated corporate world, many (if not all) of the female characters’ actions are dictated by emotion. We are given to see the cycle of mentor and protege being corrupted, ending with the protege on top, first with the relationship between Christine and Rachel and then with Rachel and Dani. It is brutal, cutting deeper than the loss or gain of a promotion due to a superior’s greed, insisting that a hierarchy must exist between women; equality is not an option. Christine says to Rachel, “There’s no back-stabbing here. It’s just business”, and Rachel later repeats it back to her. Both times, the statement is a lie. Both times it shows the opposite to be true. The implication, of course, being that women aren’t capable of divorcing their feelings from business, that the manner in which they gain and keep success, even in a corporate setting, is through ruthless manipulation and, its darkest permutation: out-and-out emotional blackmail.

Rachel devolves after Christine emotionally violates and humiliates her.

Both Crime d’amour and Passion pass the Bechdel Test with flying colors. Unfortunately, these women are slaves to emotion, which is their ultimate weakness, their fatal flaw. I don’t think the films go so far as to suggest that women don’t belong in a highly competitive corporate work place and aren’t capable of being powerful, high-level executives, but I also think the films stop just short of insinuating that. However, Passion, in particular, really showcases strong female characters who are smart, successful, and ambitious without masculinizing them as is common in film portrayals of powerful women, especially in a corporate setting. These women are complicated and morally ambiguous people replete with compelling layers, leaving viewers wondering whether we hate or love them for their brash disregard for the rules and their deeply ingrained self-preservation instincts. Despite the films’ weaknesses (and our heroines’), it’s always refreshing to see powerful, multifaceted women taking charge of the big screen because it happens not nearly often enough.