Super women and the rise of l’homme fatal

Hollywood is bad at portraying women as superheroes. Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter said as much in a leaked Sony email in which he listed failed projects “Catwoman,” “Elektra” and “Supergirl.” The most consistent stumbling block studios seem to hit with female superheroes is romance: The superhero story (as it’s profitably told) usually includes at least a bit of heterosexual suspense, but Marvel isn’t sure who its female protagonists can date.

When Jeremy Renner called his “Avengers” co-star Scarlett Johansson’s character, Scarlet Widow, a “slut” for her (unconsummated) flirtations with male coworkers, he ignited a firestorm. But what is she supposed to do? Male superheroes can hook up with naive civilians (Lois Lane), professional adversaries (Catwoman), their assistants (Pepper Pots) and co-workers (Jean Grey) without deviating from widely known scripts. But when women superheroes star in their own projects, their romantic options are limited or nonexistent.

Actor Enver Gjokaj, who plays agent Daniel Sousa on Marvel’s female-fronted TV show “Agent Carter,” described his character’s interest in the protagonist thus: “If she hadn’t dated Captain America, he might ask her out for a drink. It’s like if your new girlfriend dated Ryan Gosling. It’s going to make you sweat a bit.”

Female superheroes are stuck in a narrative Catch-22: Their only suitable romantic partners are male superheroes, but male superheroes don’t play substantial supporting roles. If superhero movies need an at least plausible romance, the recipe won’t work for women. The masters of formulaic narrative need a new formula.

Comics should look to television for guidance. On female-fronted action dramas such as “Scandal,” “Orphan Black” and “The Blacklist,” female protagonists fight to bring down shady government cabals and learn hard truths about their origins. They are, for most intents and purposes, superhero stories, and they’re popular with viewers and critics. On the small screen, at the very least, it can be done. And to solve the romance dilemma, each of these shows has succeeded by rewriting another well-worn narrative: the femme fatale.

In the classic noir story, the femme fatale is a seductress who tricks the protagonist detective into thinking that she’s on his side. Meanwhile, she plays her own angle. Right before the climax, she is discovered, roughed up by the hero and reduced to tears, and then she helps the detective after all. Femmes fatales can be compelling, but they are by archetypical nature supporting characters. To make the female-fronted action drama work, writers for “Scandal,” “Orphan Black” and “The Blacklist” had to create a new character: l’homme fatal.

Like the femme fatale, the homme fatal is a spy. But instead of baiting our lead with desire, the male version tends to use security to entrap the leading lady. On “The Blacklist” and “Orphan Black,” romantic interests Tom and Paul — played by Ryan Eggold and Dylan Bruce, respectively — pose as a catalog husband or boyfriend: supportive, affectionate, built like professional athletes, with just a bit of stubble. (On “Scandal,” Jake — a hunky secret agent — is similar, but Olivia Pope is in love with the president, who, as leader of the free world, is the one civilian qualified to woo a superhero.) Underneath the model exterior, these men are sent to monitor the protagonist and report back to her enemies. The sultry blonde at the bar flirts; the strong-yet-snuggly boyfriend gaslights. While the male detective’s dilemma is “Does she want me, or does she want something from me?” the female superhero is forced to wonder, “Does he love me, or does he want to control me?” The latter is the deeper betrayal and makes for very suspenseful TV.

And so the female superhero usually finds her supportive love interest. He just needs to be broken in first. And to switch sides, the homme fatal must be tortured. Televised torture has come a long way since the George W. Bush–era agitprop “24,” and now women are getting their turn. In “Orphan Black,” one of the two husband hommes fatals (there are clones — it’s complicated) is tortured with craft supplies, lending the scene a second-wave feminist vibe. Jake on “Scandal” gets locked in a concrete hole by the boss-dad. On “The Blacklist,” protagonist Liz shoots her husband Tom, fakes his death, then chains him up on a boat and interrogates him for four months.

The label “homme fatal” has been used before, most prominently by Irina Aleksander in a 2008 piece for The New York Observer. At the time, she used it to describe a particular kind of faux-sensitive, emotionally abusive pickup artist that’s now more commonly known as a man-child or fuckboy. Her homme fatal fakes vulnerability to win women’s trust, then bails as soon as he can. Seven years later, this archetype is well known, but he’s no better at supporting female protagonists in fiction than he is women in real life.

The character I’m writing about is different; he’s more than just a cautionary tale. In the end he finds his way to commitment — and a supporting role.

According to a 2014 UCLA report, women have reached proportional representation when it comes to broadcast TV drama leads but star in only a quarter of movies. Studios and writers should see an opportunity to reinvigorate their formulas. In the femme fatale narrative, she’s working for the hero’s adversary, cuckolding him with the enemy. In the homme fatal story, he’s working for not just any enemy but the protagonist’s absent father (or father figure). In “Scandal,” Olivia Pope’s dad is the director of a secret agency, and he repeatedly places men in her life to sabotage her, including one femme-style in a dark bar.

It’s a Freudian twist that blurs boyfriend and dad into an evil Rule-of-the-Father force bearing down on the hero. And it lends some variety to the tired superhero origin story.

The homme fatal is one narrative mechanism that can invigorate female action hero tales, and there’s no reason to think there aren’t dozens more. As writers search for more stories starring women, maybe they’ll go beyond Freud and displace the hetero romance as a necessary part of the hero’s journey. A company like Marvel has the money to experiment with new narratives about gender and love and power, but it has to be willing to give it a try.