ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that, rather than functioning as a form of compromise, thinking about the femme fatale as bisexual offers a complex articulation of the ways in which femininity, knowledge and sexuality work together in cinema. Bisexual behaviour and the femme fatale figure exist in a tangled relationship, each drawing on the others' historical and cultural association with hypersexuality and deceitfulness, resulting in narratives which are preoccupied with issues of trust. Given the anxiety around the uncertain object choices of bisexuals, it is perhaps not surprising that bisexuality has been theorised in metaphors of betrayal and deceit. As well as standing in for anxieties about the immediate legibility of women's sexuality, the bisexually active femme fatale also foregrounds issues of infection and disease. Representations of women who behave bisexually are frequently seen as compromised lesbian representations, and the bisexually active femme fatale, whose body already signifies pollution and disease, comes to stand in for a range of these representative tensions.
