The femme fatale in the movies has held our attention since Hollywood's golden age but the archetype has evolved, say NPR staff in movies panel.
Copyright 2026 NPR
Adrian Ma
Adrian Ma is a host and reporter for NPR's The Indicator from Planet Money, a daily podcast that helps listeners make sense of our ever-changing economy.
Marc Rivers
Barrie Hardymon
Barrie Hardymon is the senior editor for NPR's Investigations team. In 2020 she was the editorial lead for election coverage and ran NPR's pop-up talk show during the early days of the coronavirus called The National Conversation from All Things Considered. Before that she was senior editor at NPR's Weekend Edition, and the lead editor for books. You can hear Hardymon on the radio talking about everything from Middlemarch to middle-grade novels, and she's also a frequent panelist on NPR's podcasts It's Been A Minute and Pop Culture Happy Hour. She went to Juilliard to study viola, ended up a cashier at the Strand and finally got a degree from Johns Hopkins' Writing Seminars, which qualified her solely for work in public radio. She lives and reads in Washington, D.C. [Copyright 2025 NPR]