The basics are these:
- A mysterious woman,
- who's incredibly beautiful,
- and on top of that, has magical powers of glamour and seduction,
- but ONLY over the (presumably straight) men,
- so that the one or two token female cast members get to sort everything out.
1
Why is it always always always a magically beautiful woman? There is a counterpart to the succubus, you know, and it's called an incubus.
2
Why do only the men fall for her charms? Is this a sexuality thing? If so, there are bound to be SOME gay men or gay women who, respectively, won't be tricked or will be equally mesmerised. Yet I've never seen those. Is it a 'men are fundamentally different from women and that's why the magic doesn't work on women' thing? If so, I hate the world because that's just not true.
3
Isn't it funny that the token female characters get to have an active role in sorting things out, which seems pretty interesting, but no one believe them because they are being jealous of the succubus' good looks and success with the men? Thus, woman is pitted against woman again, and all the men are safe in their knowledge that women are spiteful, jealous, hating creatures who will tear eachother apart.
I realise that the succubus is supposed to be evil, and the other women is the saviour, and usually the men are apologetic afterwards, but to have everyone dismiss the 'good' woman's (valid) criticism as hysterics is just... It's something that happens a lot in real life, except without th apologies afterwards. It seems to me as a justification for men's dismissal of women; if they were right, we'll figure it out and there will be apologies and drinks for everyone! If they are wrong, well, women are just so hysteric and jealous.
4
Speaking of the succubus as evil and the saviour woman on the other side, this is not just setting women against eachother, this is also an example of the virgin/whore dichotomy.
The succubus is actively sexual, she owns her sexuality and she seduces men because she wants to, or because she likes sex, or because she uses it as a tool to get something else she wants. This something else is always something evil, like killing people or taking over the world. In fact, she's not just seducing people, she's taking away their free will, making them mindless zombies to their desire. This is Very Evil.
Our saviour is the good woman who realises that this woman is evil, with her bare midriff and flirty ways and winks and kisses and, oh, the whole mindless zombie thing.
Mind you, I'm not saying turning people into mindless zombies is a good thing, I'm saying that the way through which the succubus achieves it is ALREADY seen as evil without the results. She's already evil because she's sexual, and when she starts turning people into zombies, well, that only confirms things. Also, it's incredibly stereotypical and overdone and frankly, uneccesary.
5
That brings me to number five: men as mindless zombies to their desire.
It's a common stereotype that men, once they are tempted, cannot resist. This is nonsense, and it's doing a disservice to men, who can be so much stronger and smarter than that. Still, it's arampant belief. Look at rape apology. "He just couldn't stop himself, after all, she was wearing a miniskirt!" It's pretty disgusting, and it implies that men are brainless cave-people who always follow their dicks. Some men do that, sure, but that is all their own fault, not the fault of their gender.
Following these assumptions (which are wrong) the idea of a woman using sexual magic to turn men into zombies is easily believable. It's also wrong, and I hope you can see why.
These are some of the things I don't like about the magical femme fatale.
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