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I'm asking because it seems like it's a very rare thing to come across in stories, if at all.
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Chad Thundercock.
Isn't that pretty much classic James Bond?
Homme Fatale
Manne Matale
Also, the Byronic hero comes to mind. He’s admired by a woman/women and even has an affair with her/them, but doesn’t stay, because this world is too flawed and painful and so is love. He leaves and breaks heroine’s heart. Repeat. As en example, in Russian literature it’s 100% Lermontov’s Pechorin from “A Hero of Our Time”.
Man I looked into the Byronic hero and I loved the archetype. Do you know where I could find some more archetypes? Or could you tell me about any other archetypical heroes you know?
Do you mean literary studies archetypes or mythology ones? They are quiet different. Byronic hero (derives from Byron, obviously) is a literature studies one. A Mentor (for example) is a mythology one. A Byronic hero can be a Mentor within a single piece of writing.
I mean literary studies archetypes. I had never heard of them. I have heard of mythological ones.
Well, basically, it is very close-knitted to the history of literature itself. Every period (Early/Late Medieval, Renaissance, Enlightenment, Classicism, Romanticism, Realism, Modernism, Postmodernism) had it’s own type of Hero based on period’s philosophy and system of values/beliefs. I’d say, Raskolnikov is a typical realistic hero. And Don Quixote is a Renaissance hero (with Medieval Carnival traits).
Lady killer, I think.
Someone dangerous who happens to be attractive?
Is that not... literally any spy?
Also the origins of the femme fatale is that women were perceived to have no other agency than to use sex as their power over men.
Obviously there's a lot of gender politics that underpins this - and I'm skipping through this as I'm not the person who should be commenting - but its hard to have a "homme fatal" as men have historically had plenty of options on how to move up and through their worlds (plus ... male fantasy plays a huge role in the history of these women). Which is also why a direct comparison with James Bond doesn't work.
However, theres no reason at all that you can't create one.
Yeah, contextually this is it. Femme fatale has a whole lot of cultural context behind it. And male characters were usually the heroes. It doesn't quite work the same way because of cultural and social dynamics.
There isn't one.
The concept of a femme fatale ck.es from a period of writing where male voices and narratives dominated. There is no established male equivalent.
So just male femme fatale, I guess.
what period of time is that when male voices dominated? look at the bestsellers list from Publisher's Weekly going back a century and there's a pretty even male-female split among authors of best selling novels. I question this idea that men have dominated writing or publishing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publishers_Weekly_list_of_bestselling_novels_in_the_United_States_in_the_1890s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publishers_Weekly_list_of_bestselling_novels_in_the_United_States_in_the_1900s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publishers_Weekly_list_of_bestselling_novels_in_the_United_States_in_the_1910s
Although women were writing back then, there was and is the very prevalent underlying patriarchy that forced female/female characters into their traditional societal roles or into these mystical, many times erotic archetypes like the femme fatal trope.
First, not all writing, or all popular or successful writing employed the archetype of the "femme fatale".
So the fact that best selling authors split evenly between men and women is sort of irrelevant.
Also, when I say male voices dominated, I dont just mean male writers, I mean a male perspective.
It is generally considered that the first use of the femme fatale was in the 1913 film, The Vampire. This is also why the Femme Fatale is sometimes called The Vamp.
But it really was film noir and the detective novel that made the character what we think of today.
To my point about gender. You dont really find femme fatales in any major way in the work of prominent female detective writers. I'd argue that the character of Tom Ripley from The Talented Mister Ripley is Patricia Highsmith answer to the femme fatale character.
It's the man's man, no?
There is not a male version of her because the femme fatale seduces a man and then destroys him. The term is French for "fatal woman", meaning that falling for her dooms you. Imagine a romance where the girl meets a bad boy, they even seem to have good chemistry, and then things actually end badly for the girl. It wouldn't make much sense, commercially.
a lothario
The femme fatale often personifies the mythological role of Woman as Temptress (contrast with Woman as Goddess) - Joseph Campbell, Hero's Journey, etc. The femme fatale represents the promise of instant gratification through material goods or carnal pleasures - a tempting distraction from the hero's long, hard slog towards the actual goal. (The Temptress offers short-term pleasure with no real value, in contrast to the Goddess or wholesome love interest, who offers the hero true love, a way to become whole, sacred marriage, etc.)
On the whole, if you look at the sociological research, men (as a group - not every man) tend to be more open to having no-strings-attached sex, one-night stands, and short flings than women. They also tend to be less likely to have negative feelings afterwards than women. Women tend to be more cautious, and tend to take longer before deciding they trust a man enough to sleep with him. So while a femme fatale's seduction could be quite an attractive proposition for a male protagonist, a female protagonist might view the "homme fatale" as just another horny guy at the bar. Realistically, a homme fatale would probably have to invest more time into the female protagonist and work on getting her to trust him more.
So it makes sense to me that we don't see a lot of male femme fatales. However, I'd say that J.D. - the attractive young drifter in the movie "Thelma and Louise" - fits the bill, since heseduces Thelma and thus is able to steal Louise's life savings. It's significant that Thelma is feeling unloved - she's specifically craving this type of sexual affirmation from a man, which is why she falls for his charms despite the red flags. But a lot of female protagonists wouldn't have Thelma's particular issue.
If the story of Don Juan were written with one of the women as the protagonist, I wonder if he could be considered a "femme fatale" type of character. But then again, most Casanova-type characters offer a woman sex with an implicit promise of something more, and she ends up devastated because he was just in it for the sex and leaves her. But femme fatales offer male protagonists sex without requiring him to commit or love her, which makes it a no-strings-attached kind of deal. So on second thought... not really comparable.
TLDR: femme fatales offer male protagonists instant-gratification sex that distracts them from their real goal. Women tend to be more cautious about instant-gratification sex with strangers, and more likely to require some display of trustworthiness from the man first, so it's less likely that a female protagonist would be swayed by the sex appeal of a homme fatale.
I think it feels rare because usually the homme fatale archetype tends to get mixed in with other traits and is usually a secondary archetype, where femme fatale is more likely to be a primary archetype. If you define the fatale archetype as being mysterious and seductive, with a tendency of charming characters into dangerous situations, you start to see that these characteristics can show up in male characters as well, but may get overshadowed by other factors.
Batman is a great example of a homme fatale that can easily be missed. Angel from the Buffy series is another. They're both mysterious, seductive males with a tendency of charming woman into dangerous situations (though they can also be charmed themselves). I think works with female protagonists are more likely to have the homme fatale, simply because that allows for a mysterious male charmer character to work their way slowly into the plot.
Memme Fatale
Gigolo? Kazanova may fit.
Wait is there really no female James Bond movie? Not even like a Kingsman or Austin Powers type with a female lead drinking liquor, using stupid gadgets, fucking himbos, and fighting a Cruella de Vil. Is the Blackwidow movie really the closest were gonna get
atomic blonde from a few years ago was pretty close, I think
Men are always perceived as more than the their sexuality alone, so there is not true comparison.
most commonly I've seen it referred to as an Homme Fatale
there is no male equivalent of the femme fatale.
women are the engines of reproduction and childbirth, and thus represent nature in a way that men simply don't.
https://crimereads.com/the-homme-fatal-reimagining-a-noir-archetype/
Wouldn't that really be the main character in the movie Saltburn. A homme fatal. A man who uses his sexuality lethally to achieve a monetary goal. I wonder if it's a sign of progress that negative stereotypes that only use to apply to women are now being applied to (gay) men, too?
Weighing on late, but I think the handsome scoundrel is the male counterpart. Han Solo, Jack Sparrow, and Flinn Ryder are all good examples of males that are attractive but cause their female counterparts to be in more danger.