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In the second half of the nineteenth century, Western European visual artists and writers began to utilize the she-monsters of Greco-Roman mythology to explore and expand upon contemporary themes of the dangerous female. The figure of the femme fatale was often a response to proto-feminist and new political movements of liberation that generated enormous anxieties and often dominated cultural conversations. She frequently took the form of sirens, sphinxes, chimeras and other terrifying and seductive hybrid creatures that had long haunted the folklore and material culture of Europe. The seductive (and destructive) nature of these fantastical female monsters allowed these erotic anxieties to be played out in the visual arts, literature, theatre, dance and eventually cinema.