The idea that every portrait of a woman should be an ideal woman, meant to stand for all of womanhood, is an enemy of art — not to mention wickedly delicious Joan Crawford and Bette Davis movies. Art is meant to explore all the unattractive inner realities as well as to recommend glittering ideals. It is not meant to provide uplift or confirm people’s prior ideological assumptions. Art says “Think,” not “You’re right.”
via Lady Psychopaths Welcome – NYTimes.com.
I would argue that there aren’t all that many female characters conceived as paragons and there’s a big difference between characters with flaws and cliched psychopaths. Bette Davis tended to play strong, sometimes slightly unpleasant women, she was only really exiled to playing complete grotesques, monsters, and nutcases late in her career (and she was excellent at playing them) with some occasional respite.
I’m reminded of a phrase said by Benedict Cumberbatch in BBC’s “Sherlock” series. “I’m not a psychopath, I’m a highly functioning sociopath.” See Noomi Rapace in the original (and best) version of “Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”, Angelina Jolie in “Tomb Raider”, Gene Tierney in “Leave Her to Heaven”, Patty McCormack in “The Bad Seed”…