The Femme Fatale in Brazilian Cinema

In film, the femme fatale has long been constructed as a beautiful heterosexual Caucasian woman. Da Silva shows the need to incorporate diverse ethnic groups and male homosexuals into the range of "femmes" fatales and examines how the Brazilian representations cross gender, race, and class and offer alternatives to the dominant Hollywood model.

Antônio Márcio da Silva is Coordinator of Portuguese Studies at the University of Kent, UK.