Femme Fatale in Max and Daya's Music Video: A Psychoanalytic Feminism

Windi Aulia Putri

doi:10.071025/bqcqd662

Authors

Windi Aulia Putri Universitas PGRI Jombang Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.071025/bqcqd662

Keywords:

Femme Fatale, Psychoanalytic Feminism, Freud, Lacan, Gender, Popular Music

Abstract

This study aims to explore the representation of the femme fatale in Max’s music video Sweet but Psycho (2018) and Daya’s Sit Still, Look Pretty (2016) through a psychoanalytic feminist framework. By integrating Freud's (1905) foundational theories of sexuality, power, and desire with Lacan’s (1973) notions of the gaze and subjectivity, the research investigates how femininity is constructed and contested in contemporary popular music. Lyrical analysis identifies twenty instances that foreground seduction, identity, and gendered power relations, resonating with Freudian notions of male anxiety and female seductiveness. In parallel, ten significant visual scenes are examined to highlight Lacanian dynamics of desire and spectatorship. This interdisciplinary approach underscores the tensions between female agency and patriarchal structures, revealing how the femme fatale figure operates simultaneously as an object of desire and a challenge to dominant gender roles. The findings suggest that popular music both reproduces and destabilizes cultural scripts of femininity, offering a critical site for rethinking gender, sexuality, and power in mass-mediated texts.

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