The Hairpin looks at “The Most Wicked Face of Theda Bara”: “She was the first in a long line of what came to be known as femme fatales — dangerous, devouring women who pop up in various genres at cultural moments when anxiety over the woman’s place in society is at its highest. Bara anticipated The New Woman just as the femme fatales of film noir anticipated Women’s Lib. In noir, the femme fatale always had to be punished for her sins, dying any number of ignoble deaths. But Bara, she fucking lived.”