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A trope is a common pattern in a story or a recognizable attribute in a character that conveys information to the audience.

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A trope becomes a cliche when it’s overused.

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Sadly, some of these tropes often perpetuate offensive stereotypes.

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Does this remind you of a woman? How about this one? Or that one?

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Ya me neither.... but somehow these insects have become the inspiration for a whole trope of sexy female characters.

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The Evil Demon Seductress is a supernatural creature usually a demon, robot, alien, vampire most often disguised as a sexy human female.

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She uses her sexuality and sexual wiles to manipulate, seduce, and kill and often eat poor, hapless men by luring them into her evil web.

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One example of this trope shows up in the form of a Deceptacon in Transformers 2, where Isabel Lucas

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plays an alien robot disguised as a sexy college co-ed sent to kill poor Sam.

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"I can explain everythin--"

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Then who can forget back in 1995 when Natasha Henstridge starred in the horror film Species playing

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the sexy half human/half alien hybrid created by the U.S. government.

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When the alien hybrid escapes into the real world she see that human women have babies and therefore she wants one too.

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"Listen, I want a baby"

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"WHAT!? Excuse me?"

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So she uses her sexual wiles to lure men in and uses her alien strength to kill them.

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And in the Batman universe Poison Ivy is another example of the Evil Demon Seductress.

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"That feels so much better."

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"And now we'll grow together"

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And this trope even makes a couple of appearances in Buffy the Vampire Slayer first when Xander is

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seduced by his sexy teacher who is really happens to be a giant preying mantis.

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"I think it's eenie, meenie, miney..."

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And then again in the last season when performer Ashanti seduces Xander.

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"It can't just keep happening that demon women find me attractive, there's gotta be a reason"

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"You just seem like a nice guy, that's all, and I wanted to get to know you."

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"And kill me?"

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"Sure"

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It might also be worth mentioning at this point that one of the roots of this trope is based on a

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misconception that dates back to 1886 with a scientist name Leland Ossian Howard.

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Howard made the claim that the female praying mantis cannibalizes the heads of her sexual partners after mating,

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well... turns out, this isn't exactly true.

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New scientific research found that the vast majority of female Praying Mantis species do not in fact kill their mates.

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So back to this trope,

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the amount of times that this character appears in speculative fiction is kind of astounding, the list goes on and on and on.

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In Star Trek's First Contact we have the Borg Queen trying to seduce Data.

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Keanu Reeves is taken advantage of by the Brides of Dracula.

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And then some years later in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Giles meets these three sisters.

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In the science fiction show Farscape there's the villain Grayza with her enchanting body sweat.

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There are the evil mermaids in Pirates of the Caribbean 4.

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And Mystique in X-Men often fulfills this trope.

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In the opening scene of Battlestar Galactica we meet a human looking cylon woman who seduces and kills a man.

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Men in Black 2 stars a shapeshifting alien who disguises herself as a Victoria Secret model

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And Megan Fox as a man eating demon in Jennifer's Body.

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Alright, we get the idea, it's everywhere and you'll notice that there's variations of this trope between mermaids, and sirens and vampires

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and their expressions of supernatural evil seductress varies but the basic characteristics remain the same, they're using their sexuality as a weapon.

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This trope is closely connected to its counterparts The Vamp, The Black Widow, The Femme Fatale

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which are human women using their sexuality to manipulate men.

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Here I'm only focusing on supernatural creatures but you can see how insidious this trope has become in popular culture.

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Let's dig a little deeper into what this means, we have a whole collection of supernatural creatures using

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their sexuality to manipulate and control men in order to fulfill some nefarious plan of doom.

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You'll notice that these supernatural creatures are not necessarily enjoying or exploring their sexuality,

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they're not even really being genuinely sexual, they are just using it to manipulate and trick men.

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So we see over and over again female characters written as The Evil Demon Seductress

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who are portraying women as manipulative, conniving and controlling,

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that these demon women always have ulterior motives, and that there sexuality is dangerous,

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and they'll probably bite your head off.

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The harmful misogynist myth that this tropes reinforces is that women primarily use their

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so-called sexual power as a way to manipulate, trick and control men.

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This fallacy is widespread and pervasive and some men even claim that women hold more power in society based on this absurd myth.

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Thank you Hollywood for encouraging and promoting sexist thinking.

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So what do Hollywood, male viewers and even female viewers to a lesser extent get out of the Evil Demon Seductress trope?

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Well, Hollywood is in the business of selling the status quo they use these characters to appeal to a male demographic.

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When an Evil Demon Seductress is on screen men get to objectify her while having these sexist

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preconceived notions reconfirmed that women are in fact manipulative and deceitful.

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And there is a danger of real world women internalizing this sexist myth.

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Instead of believing that our sexuality is something to be explored and celebrated we are repeatedly told that it is our only form of social power.

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Hollywood writers, I don't have a problem with you occasionally making some of your villains female,

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but you've gotta stop writing women who's primary weapon is her sexuality.

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I'll leave you with a clip of Alicia Silverstone in one of the worst movies ever made,

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saying something kinda cool.

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"Using feminine wiles to get what you want, trading on your looks? Read a book sister,

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that passive aggressive number went out long ago, chicks like you give women a bad name."

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Ooooh here she comes, watch out boy she'll chew you up, 


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Oooh here she comes she's a maneater.