Frau Farbissina

Frau Farbissina
Austin Powers character
Mindy Sterling as Frau Farbissina
First appearance	Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)
Last appearance	Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)
Created by	Mike Myers
Portrayed by	Mindy Sterling
In-universe information
Gender	Female
Occupation	Attack and defense specialist, Founder of the militant wing of The Salvation Army, Henchwoman
Significant others	Dr. Evil Una Brau
Children	Scott Evil
Nationality	German

Frau Greta Farbissina is a fictional character played by Mindy Sterling in the Austin Powers film series. Farbissina is a German attack and defense specialist and the founder of "the militant wing of the Salvation Army". She is also Dr. Evil's henchwoman and tries to help in his schemes to terrorize and take over the world. She has a heavy German accent and is well known for a running gag in which she shouts her orders needlessly loud and screeching, often startling Dr. Evil. For her performances, Sterling was nominated for Favorite Supporting Actress in a Comedy at the BMI Film & TV Awards.

Biography

Characterization

Frau Farbissina's look and demeanour are parodies of several female villains from early James Bond films, namely From Russia with Love's Rosa Klebb (played by Lotte Lenya), On Her Majesty's Secret Service's Irma Bunt (played by Ilse Steppat), and particularly the character of Frau Hoffner (played by Anna Quayle) in the 1967 Bond spoof Casino Royale. In Mike Myers' book Canada, he states that Frau Farbissina was a mixture of Rosa Klebb and Lotta Hitschmanova, who appeared in commercials for the Unitarian Service Committee of Canada on late-night television.

Farbissina asserts that she would eventually like to get out of the criminal mastermind business and open a boarding school for girls. This is another reference to Quayle's "Frau Hoffner" role in Casino Royale in which Hoffner heads an international spy school in East Berlin known as the "Mata Hari School of Dancing", where she boards and trains young women to be agents for both sides of the Cold War.

Surname

Her surname derives from the Yiddish word פאַרביסן farbissen (verbissen in German), meaning "embittered"; a farbissiner is an angry, bitter, vocal (male) person, while farbissina is the corresponding female form.

Background

She has a heavy German accent; in the German dubbed versions of the films, she speaks with an Upper Saxon dialect, suggesting coming from East Germany. In Comedy Central's Canned Ham: The Doctor Evil Story, a half-hour-long preview special of The Spy Who Shagged Me, Dr. Evil states that he met Farbissina "at gymnasia in Baden-Baden at a street corner next to the McDonald's."

Out of all his henchmen and assistants, Farbissina is perhaps closest to Dr. Evil. In praising Dr. Evil, Farbissina commented, "Dr. Evil is a man of great intelligence - able to step on a bug and say 'too bad!'"

When the first Austin Powers movie made its Network television premiere on TBS Superstation in June 2000, Sterling appeared in character as Frau during the bumpers going into and leading out of commercial breaks where she told trivia about the movie and also presented many deleted scenes from the film.

International Man of Mystery

Farbissina participates in helping Dr. Evil hijack a nuclear warhead and hold the world hostage. It is revealed that Farbissina used a sample of Evil's semen just a couple of years after Dr. Evil's cryostasis to artificially create his son, Scott Evil (played by Seth Green), now a Generation X young adult. Scott is resentful of his father, but close to Farbissina, the only one who cares about his wellbeing. In the first film, Dr. Evil is about to press a button that would kill Scott for his insolence by burning him alive, but Farbissina swats his hand away, then winks at Scott.

The Spy Who Shagged Me

The second film jumps from the 1990s to the 1960s due to time travel. Inexplicably, Frau Farbissina looks exactly the same in the 1960s as she did in the 1990s, which was used for comedic effect in the film.

In the present, she states that she is homosexual and is in a relationship with Una Brau, a woman she met on a LPGA tour. However, when Dr. Evil goes back in time, after imbibing some of Austin Powers' mojo, he has sex with Frau. This leads to an uncomfortable morning-after encounter (even though Dr. Evil told her things wouldn't "get weird") and Farbissina swearing she will never love another man. It is also revealed that Scott was not the result of artificial creation from Dr. Evil's frozen sperm, but rather was naturally conceived as a result of the sexual encounter. In the closing credits, Farbissina and Scott Evil go on The Jerry Springer Show, in which she reveals herself to be Scott's mother and that Scott wasn't artificially created. She also reveals she never told him because she didn't want him to be hurt; he forgives her and they embrace.

Goldmember

Frau Farbissina is still helping Dr. Evil with his evil schemes. Farbissina and Dr. Evil also kiss while he is in prison; although the two enjoy it (despite her having been established as a lesbian in the previous movie), the purpose was to transfer a key to Dr. Evil so that he could escape. Once her son Scott begins to become evil, she shows that she is very proud.