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Vanessa Jo Powers (née Kensington) was a British secret agent and the daughter of Louis and Marie Kensington and Austin's ex-wife.


Biography[]

Early life[]

Vanessa Kensington was born to Louis and Marie Kensington at an unknown time. Little is known about her childhood. When Mrs. Kensington retired from British Intelligence, Vanessa followed in her footsteps and became an agent. She is introduced by Basil Exposition as "one of our top agents."

However, at some unknown point, Vanessa would be replaced by a Fembot version of herself who would be tasked with seducing Austin Powers once he was unfrozen and eventually kill him. Basil, as well as the rest of British Intelligence very easily discovered that Vanessa was a Fembot, however for whatever reason decided not to tell Austin this after he was unfrozen, instead acting like the Fembot Vanessa was the real one, with the real Vanessa's whereabouts unknown.

International Man of Mystery[]

When Austin Powers is unfrozen in 1997, Vanessa is assigned as his partner, both to help him catch Dr. Evil and to serve to help acclimatize him to the 90's. She is at first disgusted by Austin's teeth and politically incorrect, womanizing sensibilities, but soon warms to his good nature and falls in love with him. That love is reciprocated, to the point where Austin vows to be a one-woman man just for her. At the end of the film, she and Austin get married and are shown nude, with strategically placed props in their honeymoon suite. They are attacked by Random Task in their suite, but she managed to defeat him by smashing a vase over his head while he's distracted by Austin using the Swedish-made Penis Enlarger Pump on him.

The Spy Who Shagged Me[]

In the second Austin Powers film, after having sex with Austin on their honeymoon, Vanessa is quickly revealed as a Fembot when Austin inadvertently controls her with his television remote. She soon after attempts to kill him and self-destructs. Austin grieves for 20 seconds before getting over it, realizing that without a monogamous partner to commit to, he's single again and can return to his old lifestyle. When Austin informs Basil on Vanessa being a Fembot all along after being asked how his honeymoon went, Basil casually and nonchalantly reveals that everyone had known about Vanessa being a fembot the entire time, much to Austin's confusion.

Personality[]

For a while, Vanessa had a stoic, serious personality, always focused on the job. Austin referred to this as her having "a bug up her arse." However, spending time with Austin caused her to loosen up and have more fun.

With the revelation that she's a Fembot, it's implied that she was programmed with a sly and manipulative mind and knew how to gradually and effectively draw in her prey with a complicated, yet subtle, form of seduction.

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Vanessa Kensington wearing glasses in her introductory scene.

Appearance[]

Vanessa has a slim, busty and curvaceous build with brown hair and crystal blue eyes just like her mother. She wore a variety of outfits in her time with Austin, such as a grey business suit with a skirt, high heels and a pair of glasses for her work at the Ministry of Defense, a white, sleeveless turtleneck shirt with light brown pants for casual attire, a black halter neck cocktail dress for formal occasions, a silver, "quasi-futuristic" prisoner dress with high heel boots forced on to her by Dr. Evil's minions, a black leather catsuit (she wore her mothers) for military operations, and a black silk nightdress with thin straps and a white lace trim for coitus. Before her death, she also wore a wedding ring on her left hand.

Underneath her beautiful synthetic appearance, at least from what's been shown on the head, is a metallic face with exposed wires, a circular speaker where a mouth should be, a small, triangular nose, big eyebrows, and black, emotionless eyes displaying LED 0s. Before self-destructing, her eyes act as countdown timers. Like all Fembots, she had two silver gun barrels (while her own barrels functioned like machine guns) protruding from her breasts.

Relationships[]

Austin Powers[]

The relationship between Austin and Vanessa got off to a very rocky start. Unlike the women Austin remembered from the '60s, Vanessa was turned off by Austin's forwardness, and particularly his teeth. However, as time went on, Austin began to win her over with his charm and humor, to the point that she got jealous when Austin shagged Alotta Fagina. Eventually, Austin won her over for good when he vowed to become a one-woman man for her.

They would get married after foiling Dr. Evil's plot, though the marriage would be short-lived as Vanessa was revealed to be a Fembot. Her death occurred soon afterwards by self-destruction.

Basil Exposition[]

Basil Exposition worked with Vanessa Kensington in British Intelligence. He had a lot of respect for her skills and talents, calling her "one of our top agents." He was also aware that she was a Fembot, although he never revealed this information to Austin.

Marie Kensington[]

Vanessa seemed to have a close relationship with her mother, calling her on the phone and asking her for advice regarding Austin. When her daughter is revealed to be a Fembot, it is unknown if Marie knows.

Trivia[]

  • According to online fan polls, Vanessa is rated the sexiest Powers girl.
  • In one scene, it is hinted that Vanessa might be terrible in bed, but we later discover that she is actually quite adept in these matters.
  • At the beginning of The Spy Who Shagged Me, it is hinted that Vanessa may have inherited her mother's skills in bed.
  • Many Austin Powers fans have ranked each Powers girl in terms of sexual stamina, in these polls Vanessa was consistently voted #1 in the bedroom.
  • Vanessa can be considered like a version of Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) and Tracy Bond (Diana Rigg). Both Vanessa and Vesper are British secret agents and love interest of Austin Powers and James Bond, and both are killed. Also Vanessa studied at Oxford, specializing in Languages, before becoming a spy.
  • Like with her mother, her catsuit outfit is a reference to Mrs. Emma Peel (Diana Rigg) from The Avengers.
  • According to an early script for the second film, Vanessa's betrayal and Austin's heartbreak over it were going to play a larger role in the story. [1]
  • Vanessa is the only fembot who is a brunette, and also the only fembot who has encountered Austin without getting destructed by his mojo (rather, the fembot self-destructed).
  • In one scene, Vanessa, after returning to Dr. Evil’s hideout with the army, doesn’t shoot at Dr. Evil with Austin as he flees, but instead just points her gun at him and makes movements as if she were. While an obvious goof in the making of the film, as it's revealed in the sequel that Vanessa was a Fembot it could be said that she purposely chose not to shoot Dr. Evil given her true allegiance.
  • A blurb on the back of a trading card promoting The Spy Who Shagged Me speaks of Austin throwing champagne at Vanessa while he is in her stranglehold, causing her to short-circuit, thus releasing him. While this does not happen in the film, a close look at Vanessa's chest and face after she lets Austin go (for no reason) reveals small drops of liquid inexplicably on her body and smoke drifting down the screen. These details suggest that such a scene truly exists, but was not featured in the final cut, nor ever been revealed to the public.
  • When Austin changes Vanessa's voice to Spanish with the television remote, the sentence she speaks in that language translates to English as "Your imagination is playing with you, darling."

Fembot Confusion[]

Although Vanessa's reveal as a Fembot was a deliberately nonsensical twist, played for laughs as a reference to all of the James Bond series' one-time female leads, it has become the most contentious moment in the entire Austin Powers franchise, leaving many fans of the character in denial and anger over how she was written out.

It is highly questioned how Vanessa can be a Fembot, as she has a mother (and a father) and talks to her on the phone. Also, the Fembots were built in secret over the course of 30 years, making the circumstances of her creation a complete mystery. Lastly, her pre-recorded message from Dr. Evil is incredible, since he had been in cryogenic stasis for those 30 years, and the Fembots weren't made known to him until well after Austin and Vanessa met.

It is widely speculated, although not confirmed (nor denied), that Vanessa was at some point in the film replaced with a Fembot doppelganger. Fans of the films believe that Dr. Evil secretly had her killed (and disposed of her body) before the end of the film, despite the current lack of evidence to support their claims. Even The World of Austin Powers, a guidebook written by British author Andy Lane, has proposed the theory of an unseen switch between the "real" and Fembot Vanessa [2], though his comment has never been backed up by Jay Roach, Michael McCullers, Mike Myers, Elizabeth Hurley or anyone else who was directly involved with The Spy Who Shagged Me, it's entirely possible that the real Vanessa had been incapacitated non-lethally, with the Fembot Vanessa infiltrating British Intelligence before Austin had been defrosted, with the real Vanessa having no knowledge as to the events that would happen.

Regardless, the filmmakers clearly never meant for the retcon of what Vanessa actually is to be thought about too hard or taken seriously, since besides the fact that the Austin Powers films are parody-style comedies at heart, Austin remained happy in the sequels without her, and the whole revelation is quickly and completely forgotten about outside of a deleted scene and the scrapped early script.

Gallery[]

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