March 4, 2025 • 64 mins
I do wish we could chat longer, but... I'm having an old friend for dinner.
On today’s episode of Deep Thoughts, Emily revisits what is arguably the most influential film of our lifetime: The Silence of the Lambs. Although director Jonathan Demme and lead actor Jodie Foster illuminate the spectrum of misogyny women experience, from casual workplace putdowns to the violent treatment of women as objects, the film does this at the expense of our trans siblings.
To its credit, the movie attempts to differentiate the murderous Buffalo Bill from “real” trans women via exposition, but we can draw a straight line from the chilling depiction of the film's villain to current hysteria over trans women in bathrooms. And though Demme and Foster avoided the “men writing women” aspect of Thomas Harris’ novel that was the source material for the movie, our culture once again remembered the bad guy character of Hannibal Lecter and forgot the dynamic and fully human badass Clarice Starling.
Put some lotion on your skin and prepare to listen in…
Content warning: Discussion of gendered violence toward women, fatphobia, homophobia, transphobia, cannibalism, serial killers, rape, and other really really unpleasant stuff. Just…this movie is a lot, y’all, and we talk about it all.
Mentioned in this episode:
The line in the book that made Emily throw it across the room
Before we knew better: Silence of the Lambs is a win for women—but fails LGBTQ culture
The cultural impact of The Silence of the Lambs
Why The Silence of the Lambs is a feminist fable
The Loud Feminism Of The Silence Of The Lambs
This episode was edited by Resonate Recordings.
Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus episodes, video versions, and early access to Deep Thoughts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls
We are Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our family as the Guy Girls.
We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com
We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, and analyzing pop culture for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, and whatever else we find.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's a real mixed bag because, like this, did active
and direct harm to trans folks,to our trans siblings, and at
the same time it's an amazingfilm.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Have you ever had something you love dismissed
because it's just pop culture?
What others might deem stupidshit, you know matters.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
You know it's worth talking and thinking about, and
so do we.
So come overthink episode.
I'll be sharing my deepthoughts about the 1991 film
Silence of the Lambs with mysister, tracy Guy-Decker, and
with you.
Let's dive in.
So, trace, I know you've seenthis movie.
I don't know if we watched ittogether the first time or no
idea, but it was reading, and Ithink this is correct.
(01:05):
People say this is the mostinfluential movie of at least
our lifetime, and I I think thatis absolutely correct.
So so I know you've seen it.
Tell me, what's the furnitureof your brain about silence of
the lambs, such a?
Speaker 2 (01:19):
weird thing to say what is the most influential
movie, but okay, I guess.
Yeah, I've definitely seen it,but not more than once.
We did not see it togetherbecause I was.
I know I didn't see it in 91.
I was 16, 15, 16 in 91.
Yeah, it was way too scary forme.
Then I mean, frankly, it'sstill too scary for me, but yeah
(01:42):
, I saw it as an adult.
And there's too scary for me,but yeah, I saw it as an adult
and there's, I have a lot.
They're like little, like likeso many of these things that are
so much in the culture, likethere are these little like
vignettes that bubble up of theguy, that whose name is escaping
me, the character's name,Actually.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Elector yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Hannibal, like the way that he said her name,
Clarice no-transcript.
(02:28):
In terms of the storytellingpiece of it, I think even on
first viewing which was not in91 for me it had to have been
somewhere in the early 2000s Idid not understand.
There seems to be a core ofattraction between Hannibal and
Clarice that I just don't get.
(02:51):
Like I have to take it on yourword that there's something
there.
I don't see it and even thefirst time I saw it and so, like
in storytelling wise, like Iget why the storyteller wants me
to believe that's there, Ididn't get it, I didn't buy it
and I know, just because you andI've spoken offline about it,
some of the things that botheryou about the actual specific
(03:16):
details that I am curious tothink about, about the actual
villain or the you know the bigbad that we're working to fight.
That I haven't looked atclosely but even side-eyeing I'm
like, ooh, this isn't going tobe fun.
That's what I got.
It's very disjointed, it's verydisjointed which kind of frankly
(03:37):
describes my life right now.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
So like oh yeah, I hear that my life, my brain, my
thoughts, my emotions.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
I'm just disjointed Our country.
Welcome to the club.
Silence of the Lambs.
Disjointed, but why are wetalking about it today, Em?
Speaker 1 (03:56):
So this is a movie that is very much part of the
furniture of my mind.
I saw it around when it cameout.
I didn't see it in the theater.
My mind, I saw it around whenit came out, like I didn't see
it in the theater.
I can remember being on the busstop when I was in middle
school, because I was 12 when itcame out the scene where one of
the prisoners throws semen ather face, I had literally no
idea what that was and I wasasking another kid at the bus
(04:20):
stop who had also seen it, whowas a boy do you know what that
was?
And like he got really like andjust wouldn't talk to me, like,
like didn't want to answer andlike I and I still completely no
idea, no clue what was going on.
So, like years later, when Isaw it again in my late teens, I
was like oh, no wonder.
(04:41):
My poor friend was like oh,dear God, why did you ask me?
Speaker 2 (04:44):
that.
That's really funny.
That's your friend who's nowlike on Broadway, right?
Yes, yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Yeah, okay, just making sure I know who it was.
Yeah, so the other thing likejust to give you a sense of how
deeply embedded in the furnitureof my brain this is my eldest
was speech delayed.
Before his younger brother wasborn, we were getting speech
therapy in the home through,like Head Start or something
like that, and so he would dothis thing where he would go ah,
(05:13):
ah and like kind of grasp withhis hand when he wanted
something, and so I think it waslike winter or something like
that I got some lotion, wasputting it on my hands, and he
came over and went, ah, uh, andwithout consulting my brain, my
mouth immediately went it putsthe lotion on its skin or else
it gets the hose again.
Oy gevalt, emily To my child,oy gevalt, front of a mandated
(05:34):
reporter.
Now I actually come to think ofit.
I think I've stopped myselfbefore the second half of the
sentence.
I just said it puts the lotionon its skin.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Still still, hopefully, the mandated reporter
.
It was not furniture up herbrain.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
So the mandated reporter at the time was like 23
years old, soaking wet.
So I don't think she had anyidea what I was referring to.
Think she had any idea what Iwas referring to.
So that just kind of gives youa sense of like how embedded
this is.
That's part of why I want totalk about it.
(06:18):
I really enjoyed the movie as ateenager.
I ended up reading the bookthat it's based on in college.
It's the only time I've everthrown a book across the room.
It made me so angry.
I'll tell that story at somepoint.
And I did not see thetransphobia and transmisogyny in
the story as a kid seeing thismovie, because you know just,
(06:41):
there was no, like it didn'texist in culture that I was
consuming.
And so as soon as I readcriticism of it I was like oh,
oh, yeah, oh.
But I had to get the outsideperspective to notice it.
Thomas Harris who wrote thenovel.
(07:04):
He created a very strongfeminist character in Clarice
Starling, but I think he did itby accident in a lot of ways and
I think it's Jonathan Demme andJodie Foster so Demme being the
director and Foster embodyingher, playing her who made her
the incredibly strong feministrole model that the character is
(07:27):
.
But that means this moviereally does the give with one
hand and take with the other andthere's a very complicated
legacy of this film I think isreally worth examining.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Cool, all right.
Well, I'll look forward to that.
In the meantime, like, remindme and our listeners like what
happens in this movie, what's?
Speaker 1 (07:48):
the plot.
So we meet Clarice Starling.
She is a student at Quantico tobecome an FBI agent.
There are some really excellentestablishing shots where, like
she is on the like ropes coursething at the beginning, like
going through the whole coursethat you have to do like
climbing ropes and you knowrunning and all of that, and
(08:09):
she's called into Agent JackCrawford's office.
Meanwhile, every time shepasses you see people turning
their heads to look at her.
So like, it establishes thatshe's an attractive young woman
without relying on the male gazeat all.
And then there's another reallyamazing shot where she gets
into the building and she getsinto an elevator and Jodie
(08:31):
Foster I don't know how tall sheis, but she must not be a
particularly tall woman and thenthey also intentionally have
extras it's all men surroundingher who tower over her.
So Jack Crawford was one of herprofessors at Quantico and she's
basically his protege.
She has not graduated yet andall of that.
He knows that she's interestedin the behavioral psychology
(08:54):
unit of the FBI and so he asksher to go to a prison in
Baltimore it's like it's aninstitution for criminally
insane basically to interviewthe psychopath Dr Hannibal
Lecter, because the belief isthat he will have some insight
into a new serial killer namedBuffalo Bill who has at this
(09:17):
point killed five women.
Now Crawford doesn't tell her.
That's why she's going, becausehe knows that if she goes in
with an agenda, Lecter willunderstand it right away,
because he's just thatintelligent.
So we meet the Dr Chilton whois the head of this prison,
slash hospital, slash asylum.
(09:39):
He hits on her immediately andhe says and again I think this
is goes to jonathan demi's likereally excellent filmmaking,
like how smart it is forcrawford to send a young,
attractive woman to interviewlector because he's more likely
to open up to her, because hehasn't seen a woman in eight
(10:00):
ears.
So we see the really creepy shotof her going to sit outside his
cell.
But she has to walk past fiveor six other cells beforehand
and very, very disturbingindividuals in each one of them.
Right next door is multipleMigs is the name that Lecter
(10:21):
calls him who shouts or whohisses at her I can smell your
cunt.
She and Lecter kind of sparback and forth a little bit and
he basically says no, I'm notgoing to help you.
So she's leaving.
And that's when Miggs throwshis semen at her and like all
the rest of the inmates are alsolike hooting and hollering and
(10:43):
like it's terrifying.
And Hannibal is at the edge ofhis cell, which is glass or
plexiglass instead of bars, andshouts come back, come back.
And he says basically like thatwas very rude of Miggs, I would
never have that happen to you.
And so because of that, likeI'm not going to answer your
questions, but I'm going to tellyou something that you want to
(11:05):
know.
And he basically tells her tolook up his former patient, miss
Moffett, m-o-f-e-t, and he sayslook in yourself.
Something like that.
So look in yourself.
Yeah, it's a clue.
Okay, he gives her basicallyOne of the things that's great
about Jodie Foster.
We show her and this isapparently based on they spoke
(11:26):
to several FBI agents who kindof suggested that this is
something that happens.
She goes to stand next to hercar and she cries, and the FBI
agent who suggested that saidlike it's a lot and you need to
kind of let it out and then youcan move on with your day.
So the clue turns out to belike you know, there's no way to
look up his former patientsbecause he destroyed all the
(11:48):
files he kept before he wasapprehended.
She finds a storage placecalled Yourself Storage.
She had gotten the impression,like the way he said, it was
weird and there's a storagefacility in there, one unit in
there that was leased to a MissHester Moffitt.
No one has touched it for 10years.
It's very difficult to get in.
(12:09):
She finally manages to getinside and she finds a whole
bunch of different stuff,including a decapitated head in
a jar.
She realizes that HesterMoffitt is an anagram for the
rest of me, so he never actuallyhad a patient and so she goes
back to Lecter.
He basically suggests that hetreated Buffalo Bill.
(12:33):
The disembodied head was one ofhis first victims.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Bills, bills or Lecter, yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Yeah, one of Bill's first victims.
So there's that suggestion.
Okay, meanwhile they're talkingabout like victims, so there's,
there's that suggestion OK.
Meanwhile they're talking aboutlike we think that there will be
another victim.
And we meet Catherine Martin,who is the daughter of Senator
Ruth Martin, and we see herabducted.
The, the Buffalo Bill,basically uses her kindness
(13:01):
against her.
She sees, sees him likestruggling to get a couch into a
truck and she's like can I giveyou a hand?
And he's like, oh yeah, whydon't you?
You can go backwards and then Ican push up.
And so he forces her into thetruck and takes her away.
They also get a call that thereis I think this is a sixth
victim that came out of a riverin West Virginia.
(13:21):
So Crawford and Starling go toinvestigate.
They get there the body,because it's in a very small
town, the body is at a funeralhome instead of like a coroner's
office.
That's where the coroner doesthe work and it's full of police
and the police chief is alreadyclearly like angry that the FBI
(13:42):
is coming in on this turf.
And so Crawford goes to thepolice chief right in front of
Starling and says hey, withthese kinds of sex crimes there
are things I want to discuss.
That isn't fit for a mixedcompany.
So let's go talk.
So and leave Starling there Allof the rest of the police are
now eyeing her.
They go through the autopsy andthey discover that this victim
(14:05):
has skin missing off of her backin two like diamond patterns.
They also find a like a cocoon,a chrysalis, in the throat
cavity of the dead woman.
So Starling takes it to someentomologists to find out what
it is.
Takes it to some entomologiststo find out what it is.
She also gives Crawford whatfor, although he does bring it
(14:26):
up, he said that really burnedyou when I said that to the
police chief and she said itmatters.
The cops look to you to knowhow to treat me.
So the way that you treat me infront of other cops matters.
And he's like you're right, itdoes.
And he's her mentor, her boss,her teacher.
So like she doesn't bring it upfirst, he does, but she doesn't
(14:48):
back down, Nice.
So the entomologists let herknow that it's a death's head
moth.
It only lives in Asia, sosomeone had to have imported it.
She goes back to Lecter At thispoint.
Senator Ruth Martin knows thather daughter is gone and is
probably another Buffalo Billvictim.
They know that he keeps hisvictims for like three or four
(15:09):
days before he kills them.
They haven't figured out why,but they know the clock is
ticking.
Martin has said that she willmake sure that you are
transferred to another facilitythat has a view, because that's
one thing that he wants.
He's in this windowless room.
(15:29):
He hates Chilton, the lead ofthis hospital, so he'd like get
away from Chilton and then also,once a year he'll get to have a
week on this island called PlumIsland, where there's like
research into animal disease andbe able to like under guard but
be able to walk on the beachfor an hour a day.
And so with all of that, willyou please answer my questions
(15:51):
to try to identify this man.
So he says quid pro quo, I askyou one question, you ask me one
question.
So he asks about herself.
He wants to know, like whereshe came from and her background
.
About herself, he wants to knowwhere she came from and her
background.
And we learned that her fatherwas a police officer who was
shot in line of duty when shewas 10 years old.
Her mother had already diedwhen she was a baby and so after
(16:14):
she was orphaned, she was sentto live with her mother's cousin
and husband on a ranch inMontana, but she was only there
for two months and they, like hewants to know why, but she
doesn't tell him and he sharesseveral pieces of information
with her about who Buffalo Billis and must be and what she
(16:35):
needs to know to find him.
Chilton is listening in andthen he comes and taunts Lecter
telling him like there's no deal.
Starling made it up.
Senator Martin is not, has noidea that you think that you're
going to be going on this islandand this new facility and says
but I will talk to Martin if yougive us a name, because at this
(16:57):
point it's clear that he hastreated Buffalo Bill.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Do we know if Chilton is telling the truth?
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Yes, we do know Chilton is telling the truth.
We then get confirmation fromCrawford later and Crawford's
like I felt, like you know Igave the authorization for
Starling to do that.
That's also where Catherine wasabducted was in Tennessee.
(17:23):
Lecter agrees, but only youknow, if they fly him there,
chilton had been in his cell andhad been like playing with his
pen and forgot it there, andthey made it clear early on, you
know, don't nothing other thanpaper can go to him.
And so Lecter steals it.
They go to Tennessee.
He tells Martin that LewisFriend is the name of the
(17:45):
perpetrator and has somedescriptions for him.
And Chilton is doing all ofthis so that he can take credit
for solving the ongoing serialkiller Buffalo Bill
investigation.
Starling shows up in Tennesseeand goes to see Lecter and says
(18:10):
Lewis Friend is an anagram ofiron sulfide, which is fool's
gold.
So I know that that's not hisname.
I know that you're making thatup.
They talk some more.
He says more quid pro quo andshe realizes that everything
else he told her was true, justnot the name.
And he asks her to explain whyshe left.
She ran away from the ranch inMontana.
It was because she woke up inthe middle of the night one
night to hear the lambsscreaming because they were
(18:33):
slaughtering them.
It was a spring lamb slaughterand it horrified her, and so she
ran to the barn to see what washappening and she opened the
pens to try to get the lambs torun away, and they wouldn't.
And she opened the pens to tryto get the lambs to run away,
and they wouldn't.
And so she didn't know what todo.
So she grabbed one lamb and ran, thinking if she could at least
save one.
But she only got four or fivemiles away because it was so
(18:54):
heavy and the husband hermother's cousin's husband who
owned the ranch, was so angry.
He put her in an orphanage,basically, and that's where she
grew up.
So that's where the title comesfrom.
Starling's interrupted in themidst of this, chilton has come
and is dragging her away at whenLecter says you have everything
(19:17):
you need and here's the casefile.
He's had it, and now he's in anoctagon with bars rather than
the place he was in Baltimorehad it, and now he's in like an
octagon with bars rather thanthe place he was in Baltimore,
and so he passes it to herthrough the bars and he like
brushes her finger with his.
More on that later.
So we then see Lecter escape.
(19:38):
It's a long sequence.
Basically there are two guardscome in to bring him a meal.
They have him handcuffed but heuses a piece of the pen to get
out of the handcuffs.
He manages to kill both ofthose men.
He ends up taking the clothesof one of the men and his face
(20:02):
and pretends to be him and putshis clothes on that police
officer's body and hides it.
The look my sister has given me.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
He cuts the man's face off.
Yeah, that's really unpleasant.
It's really unpleasant.
No wonder I don't remember it,I compartmentalized it.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
And he ends up also like they call an ambulance
because they think that this isOfficer Pembrey, the ambulance
is taking him away and hemanages to kill hole in the
ground.
Buffalo Bill is keeping her inshe is amazing.
(20:50):
So he like lowers things to her.
That's where it puts the lotionon the skin or else it puts its
nose again.
And so he like gives her abucket with like the bare
minimum of food because he'sstarving these women to make
their skin looser.
The bill has a dog, like a tinylittle poodle he calls Precious
(21:11):
, and so she uses a bone fromher meal like a chicken bone
that she ties to the string thatthe bucket comes down in and
she throws the bone and thebucket up to the top and is like
trying to lure Precious down,lure Precious to her, and we
don't see it happen.
(21:32):
Like we see her try once andfail.
Next thing we know we see likewe hear Precious really barking
and Buffalo Bill comes in and islike furious at her and she's
like I don't want to hurt thisdog but I will.
If you don't let me out, giveme a phone.
Starling's investigation makesher realize that the first
victim who they didn't discoveruntil after two others had been
(21:53):
discovered, was the only victimthat had been weighted down in
the water.
The rest of them had just beenthrown in the water and Starling
and her friend Ardelia talkingabout it, and they realize you
know that's the first victim andthat Bill covets what he sees,
so he must have known her,whereas the others were
strangers.
So they go to Belvedere, ohio,which is where or Starling goes
(22:16):
Belvedere, ohio, which is wherethe first victim was from, and
interviews people.
Meanwhile Crawford has foundthe address of Jame Gumm, who
they found based on the DeadheadMoths, and it's an address in
Illinois, and so he's going witha SWAT team to take him down
from the house.
Starling offers to come and he'slike no, no, no, there's not
(22:38):
enough time for you to get here.
We're going to need backgroundinformation to be able to
actually prosecute the sucker.
So stay in Belvedere, do theinterviews.
You need to do Her interviews.
Take her to the house of MrsLipman, who was a tailor, while
in the first victim's home shesees like dolls and dressmaking
(22:59):
dolls, sewing machines and stufflike that, and then a dress
with darts in the back that hadthese like diamond shaped
patterns, and she realizesthat's when she realizes that
buffalo bill is making a woman'ssuit for himself because the
dart shape is the same as what?
Speaker 2 (23:15):
the skin that was missing from the first victim,
that clarison, that starling andinteracted with.
Yes, okay.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
So she finds out that the first victim, frederica,
was her, had worked for a tailornamed Mrs Lipman.
So she goes to Mrs Lipman'shouse and Bill James Gumm
answers the door.
Clarice doesn't know that's whoit is, but when he gives his
aliases he also calls himselfJohn Grant and he calls himself
Jack Gordon, so he always usesthe same two initials.
She's asking about the Lipmansand he's like oh, I think I have
(23:45):
her son's number in heresomewhere.
Come on in.
And she realizes that this isthe guy, because she sees some
moths and she pulls her gun onhim.
But he also has a gun and isable to get away from her.
He goes down into the basementwhere the pit is, and all of
that she sees.
Catherine tells her to stay.
(24:08):
I need to leave and get thisguy.
And at the end and this stuckwith me for so long she is
trying to figure out where he is.
She's terrified.
She gets into a room and thisis subterranean and he turns off
the lights and it is pitchblack, but he has infrared
goggles.
(24:28):
And so the last few minutes wesee from his point of view.
We see her where she is andlike has her gun at the ready,
but has no idea he's rightbehind her.
He cocks his gun and sheimmediately turns and shoots him
(24:49):
, and and is able to shoot himdead.
Just based on hearing thecocking of the gun, she knew
where he was, and one of herbullets manages to shoot out
like one of those high windowsin a basement that had been
blacked out so light comes in.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Then, whoa she's a badass, that's intense.
So katherine lives.
Katherine lives.
Whoa, she's a badass, that'sintense, so Catherine lives.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Catherine lives.
Hooray, catherine's a badass.
The final scene is Starling isgraduating from Quantico.
Crawford pulls her aside,saying like I'm no good at these
kinds of things.
I just wanted to say like wecouldn't have caught him without
you and like, really proud ofyou, blah, blah, blah.
And then someone tells her youhave a phone call.
It's Lecter on the phone sayingI won't come after you because
(25:29):
the world's much moreinteresting with you in it.
I hope you can say the same.
And she said you know I can'tmake that promise.
And he said well, I have to run.
I'm having an old friend fordinner.
And he hangs up the phone.
We see he's in some kind oftropical island where Chilton is
getting off the plane and wesee him follow him and that's
(25:49):
the end of the film.
Let me start with what thismovie does right.
Okay, because there's a lot tolove.
Well, for one thing, it is awell-constructed, beautifully
made, super creepy and I meanthat in a good way movie Like
Jonathan Demme is an amazingdirector.
It is a very well-writtenscreenplay and it is one of only
(26:12):
three movies to get all five ofthe major Academy Awards Best
film, best director, bestadapted screenplay, best actor
and best actress.
Only two other films in theentire history of the Academy
have done that and in a lot ofways it gets feminism right.
(26:34):
So, as I mentioned, we do notever see Clarice through the
male gaze.
We know that she's attractive,and partially because look at
her, but also based on the wayother people treat her and we
see her handle both the casualmisogyny and the like overt,
(26:57):
violent misogyny in realistic,badass and yet still vulnerable
ways.
You know she's allowed to befully human.
She's allowed to be upset bythese things, but she also is
like I got a job to do and Iwill do it.
It passes the Bechdel testreally well.
(27:19):
So Starling has a friend at theAcademy named Ardelia, who is
another cadet.
She's a Black woman and theytalk about the case.
They talk about severaldifferent things.
They do talk about Lecter andBuffalo Bill, but they're
talking about the victims.
It's a wide range ofconversation multiple times.
So Catherine and Starling talkto each other about getting out
(27:43):
of the hole and all of that.
Starling, when she interviews afriend of the first victim whose
name we get, we see her liketalk about the victim, talk
about their lives, all of thosesorts of things.
Part of the reason why Starlingwas able to get somewhere in
Belvedere Ohio because we seethe first victim's father, who's
(28:06):
like we've had the police overand, over and over again and
they can't like I have nothingnew to say is because she sees
this woman as a full andcomplete person and she talks to
her friend, including there's ascene where she's in the
victim's bedroom and she's got amusic box you know the kind you
keep jewelry in that's got alittle dancer in it that spins
(28:28):
around and she sees that there'slike the lining on the top is
loose and she opens it and shefinds some Polaroids of the
victim in her underwear.
And so these were, like youknow, before you had cell phones
, she was taking like boudoirphotos of herself or someone
took them for her and hid themaway because she lived with her
dad and she was a young woman.
(28:49):
But it is very clear thatStarling is seeing like this
woman who was gone was a sexualbeing.
All of the women are somewhatoverweight because Buffalo Bill
wants to make a suit that willfit him and so he needs to have
looser skin.
So Starling does not in any wayfat shame or problematize these
(29:17):
women's bodies and that momentI thought I was really glad to
see when I watched it again lastnight, because it made it clear
that Starling was like yeah,this is a full person, including
sexuality, and you get thesense of like and it is such a
shame that she is gone and canno longer explore that aspect of
herself.
It's a shame she is gone andwill never finish this dress
(29:37):
that she was sewing, that shewas very talented at.
So it centers the victim in away that the franchise does not.
Now, jodie Foster is aphenomenal talent, is was always
, has been, always, will be.
I mean, she's incredible andsome of the most amazing scenes
are just her talking, hertelling the story about the
(29:59):
lambs and in fact, apparentlyDemi had planned to do some
location shots in Montana tolike kind of cut to those Like
flashback kind of thing yeah,flashback while she's talking.
But they had gotten the footageof her telling this monologue
and they're like we don't needthat.
I'm like, yeah, you don't,that's really cool, that's very
(30:21):
cool.
Yeah, you don't, that's reallycool, that's very cool.
Not for nothing.
Chris Carter of the X-Files partof the reason why he wanted to
do what he did with the X-Fileswas, he was patterning Scully
somewhat after Clarice Starling.
Oh, interesting, that is part ofwhat got him interested in the
(30:41):
idea of the FBI being whoinvestigates this paranormal
stuff.
Some of the stuff that I'veread talks about how so much of
the tough woman law enforcementcharacter that we see over and
over and over and over and overagain in the last 30 years can
be traced back to of amazing.
And yet I want to kind of savethe transphobia and trans
(31:12):
misogyny for last.
So I want to first kind of gothrough my experience of reading
Silence of the Lambs.
Now, starling is not at all fatphobic and for the most part
the victims appear to be treatedwith gentleness and respect by
(31:34):
law enforcement.
For the most part there Is, Ithink, some fat phobia inherent
in the storyline in that and Imight be like this is I like
your way of putting it.
This is my first draft thought.
But there, like as I waswatching last night, I felt like
(31:56):
you know it's very easy to say,well, this wouldn't have
happened if she lost a fewpounds.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Yeah, I was just thinking that, like, is this
story sort of blaming the victimfor being fat, making herself a
target of this psychopath?
Speaker 1 (32:10):
So and I'm not sure that that's true, in part
because we see Katherine Martin,she's kind, which is why she
ended up getting taken and likethat kind of kindness and
respect for other people is nota bad thing.
It led to something awful, butyou see that she's kind, she's
(32:32):
smart, she's resourceful.
She also the other thing that Ithought was really interesting,
because I completely forgottenthis so when she gets to her
apartment, it's right outsideher apartment where she's
grabbed.
Her cat is in the window upabove where she parks, and so
she's like hey, they're a littlecheaper, I'll be right up.
And then, with the dog, she'sholding the dog and she's like
(32:52):
threatening the dog.
When you see her being walkedout of the house at the end with
the shock blanket around her,she's carrying Precious and
they're trying to take the dogaway from her and she's like no.
And so like there's this sheclearly is an animal lover,
taking responsibility, even justfor that moment, or gaining
comfort from this dog who.
(33:13):
It's not the dog's fault thatshe was owned by a psychopath.
She is a full human being.
Catherine Martin is a completehuman being and so there is no
sense of like fat shaming her.
I feel like by the movie, thedetails.
(33:44):
All they see is her from herhead down, I think she's naked,
I think it's supposed to be fromwithin the pit.
And again, I don't remember thedetails or how it ended up here
, but they said they were prettysure that it was Catherine
Martin because from the picturethey could tell that 145 pound
long body could be none otherbut her.
Harris consistently describesCatherine as fat like zoftig
(34:06):
pillowy breasts.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
What's?
Long bottom, long body.
What does that mean Meaning?
She's tall, so she's 145 poundsand tall, that ain't fat.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
And that's when I threw the book across the room.
Across the room, 125 pounds,that's all, but she's fat, oh
man.
All right, I was so angry whenI read that and in part because,
like this book is enormous,huge, like it is, like it led to
you know, the most influentialmovie of our time.
Not only did Harris get that sowrong, like where was the
(34:42):
editing team?
And like not that it would havebeen better if they had said
like 185 pounds, like why put anumber on it, but the impression
that I got was that Harris islike oh, hot women are like 110
pounds.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Totally yeah.
I mean, that's the only thingit could be, because 145, if
tall, is quite slender.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
The way I recall the book because I read it when I
was a senior in college.
This is literally 25 years ago,but the way I remember the book
was before I had the words forthis.
It was men writing women.
You know like she breastedBoobily down the stairs.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
Because I remember the way even characters who are
supposed to be like powerful andsmart, like Ruth Martin,
catherine's mother, like therewas just something like
infantilizing about the waythey're described.
They're described and youmentioned when you were talking
about it like that there'ssupposed to be like this
connection attraction thingbetween Lecter and Starling
(35:50):
Harris in his further books.
Has them become lovers?
And so when they made and Idon't remember what they're
called, but there were follow-upmovies where anthony hopkins
reprised his role of lector,both jonathan demi and jodie
foster were like absolutely not,I'm not gonna have anything to
(36:11):
do with this because of thatromantic connection, for good
reason, because, ew, it's justout of character for this whole
woman.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
She's har's Harley Quinn if she ends up in a
romantic relationship with himand Harley Quinn is a real fun
comic book character, but she'sa fucking comic book character.
She is literally a cartoon, andI think that's what you're
telling me.
that is so beautiful aboutClarice Starling, as played by
(36:43):
Jodie Foster, is that she's nota cartoon she's a real human
being like that, real fbi agentskind of consulted on to make
sure that the way that sheresponds is realistic and
accurate.
And I guarantee you those womenare not falling in love with a
psychopath who's eating peopleand like there is a bit.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
So I mentioned that.
That moment where he likecaresses her finger.
Oh, it gave me the creeps and Ifeel like Jonathan Demme and
Jodie Foster and probably evenAnthony Hopkins at the time,
wanted it to give you the creeps.
And at some point Starlingactually says to Lecter you're,
you're just like Migs, the guywho threw semen at her, because
(37:29):
he, every time he meets her, hebrings up sexuality in a way
that is like just very juvenile.
So he does it in a much moresocially acceptable and classier
in some ways way, my brain isreminding me that he said I
cannot in fact smell you.
I smell that's right otherthings yeah, that's correct, and
(37:51):
so he'll ask her things andshe's like I'm really not
interested in that, like I'minterested in solving this case
and finding buffalo bill.
So I have no problem imagininglector beinger being entranced
and interested in her.
Yeah, yeah, I'm sure he's asapiosexual like, turned on by
(38:33):
smarts, and she's very smart.
Also, he hasn't seen a woman ineight years.
So a very smart woman who'sgorgeous, and that is not
attraction on her part.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
It's the like, in the same way that you could say
there's hmm.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
Yes, and he is very interesting and engaging, but I
truly believe that ClariceStarling, as played by Jodie
Foster, is perfectly capable ofrecognizing the difference
between you know, like I'mtalking to this man, I'm giving
him some access to who I am as ahuman being, in furtherance of
(39:05):
my goal, which is saving lives,and I will be thinking about
these conversations for the restof my life, but not because I'm
enjoying myself.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
And not because there's any kind of romance.
I mean, even if something aboutthe banter was dopamine
inducing, that's not the same asromance.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
Yeah, when Lecter escapes, Ardelia is worried.
He's going to come afterStarling and she says, like you
know, I kind of trust that he'snot going to because, like this
is gonna sound weird, but he'dthink it was rude.
And she's right, she has thelike, she understands his
character.
So, like between that and thenwhat we see of Catherine, who is
(39:56):
so very strong even though sheis in this horrifying,
impossible situation, you reallyget this amazing view of what
feminine strength looks like.
So let's bring, let's get tothe transphobia and
transmasodony.
Now, to both Harris's credit andthe film's credit, there is
(40:20):
exposition where Starling andLecter are discussing Buffalo
Bill, and they are.
This is when the termtranssexual was the common
parlance.
They're saying that Bill is nota true transsexual because he
just wants to transform.
He is this damaged person wholoathes himself and wants to
(40:42):
transform into anythingdifferent, and becoming a woman
is as different as he can thinkof being.
And so one of the clues thatLecter gives Starling is to
check with the only threehospitals in the country that do
.
They called it genderreassignment.
Now you know, gender affirmingcare surgery.
(41:02):
He'll have been turned downbecause he's not truly
transsexual.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
He'll have been turned down for bottom surgery
is what you're telling me, yes,or any surgery.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
So Okay, good.
And Starling even says althoughit's one of those like damning
with faint praise she says youknow, transsexuals don't tend to
be violent, they tend to bevery passive, which I'm like
1991.
(41:33):
Of this deviant psychopathcoveting a woman's body for
himself plays into so much ofthe horrors that trans folks put
up with and there's like youcan draw a straight line from
(41:54):
there's this it's an amazingscene where Ted Levine, who
plays James Gunn, is dancing andputting on makeup and it's
creepy and sensual and likeoddly sexy but also terrifying.
It's like perfect storytellingin cinema.
(42:16):
But you can kind of draw astraight line between that and
like knowing what a psychopathhe is and knowing how awful he
is to the sort of people who aresaying like men are trying to
use women's restrooms.
Ed, you know, doing research forthis was talking about how like
.
I don't know if this was beforethe term was coined, but this
(42:40):
is very much atrans-exclusionary, radical
feminist film.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
Oh, interesting.
Speaker 1 (42:46):
Because it is very feminist in a lot of ways.
But you know, trans women don'tget to.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
Well, bill's not.
Yeah, bill is not treated as awoman, mm, hmm, yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
I don't know where to put that.
Jonathan Demme got a lot ofpushback at the time, even from
LGBT communities and outreachand stuff like that.
Saying like this is homophobicand at the time they were
focusing on homophobia, in partbecause there wasn't as much
discussion about transphobia In91.
(43:18):
There wasn't as much discussionabout transphobia, sure, in 91.
Bill is coded as queer, asidefrom the gender expression.
He kept saying like well, buthe's not really gay, he's not
really this and like, andleaning on the exposition, but
that's not what's remembered.
You know, people don't rememberthat scene.
They remember the dancing.
They remember it puts thelotion on its skin.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
I think you're right, though, about the bathroom
thing.
Right, Because if, in your head, Buffalo Bill equals what a
trans woman is instead of justyou know the nice lady who's
helping you at the, you know theIT desk or whatever like,
because that's what we'reactually talking about when
we're talking about trans women.
(44:01):
But if you don't know anybodyand this is, as you say, one of
the most influential films ofthe generation yeah, I think
that's significant.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
And so I also think that it's significant.
I don't know this for sure, butDemi went on to make
Philadelphia, the Tom Hanks filmabout gay men dying of AIDS.
And I personally have no doubtthat that was intentional after
getting all the pushback becauseof Silence of the Lambs.
Speaker 2 (44:29):
You think it was?
Speaker 1 (44:30):
penance.
Yeah, he was like, okay, I'mhearing all this pushback.
He was defensive about it, butI think he listened.
Pushback, he was defensiveabout it, but I think he
listened, considering how wellhe handled the issue of misogyny
in the workplace in this and heis a cis man.
I think he's capable oflistening and, honestly, the
storyline comes from Harris.
(44:51):
So it's a real mixed bag,because this did active and
direct harm To trans folks, totrans folks, to our trans
siblings, and at the same time,it's an amazing film.
So trying to hold both of thoseat the same time, you know
(45:13):
realizing like how much I reallydid take from.
So this is similar to Nightmareon Elm Street everyone
remembers the bad guy and notthe badass.
But I remembered Starling.
I remembered the long monologuewhere she talks about trying to
save the lamb.
I remembered that ending scenehow terrifying it was when she
(45:33):
couldn't see and Bill could, butshe still bests him and so,
like, I'm very grateful for that.
But why did it have to come atthe expense of trans folks and
their safety?
It's a tough one and in 2011,it was selected for Library of
(45:58):
Congress.
You know, because of culturalsignificance, that sort of thing
.
It's my hope that whensomething is done, it is chosen
for that, and I don't think thatthat's wrong.
It is an important part ofcultural significance also be a
conversation about what it meantthat this film was so beloved,
(46:22):
so award-winning, so influential, and it hinges on the idea that
trans is scary, yeah, anddangerous and dangerous.
And we've talked before about,like, if you have representation
, generally no one has a problemwith the fact that Anthony
(46:42):
Hopkins is a white man playing apsychopath, you know, because
that's not the only white man wesee.
Like that's no problem, okay,because there's plenty of white
characters out there.
We make a big deal of the factthat Clarice Starling is not
sexualized, because that's whathappens with all of the women
(47:05):
and like, even though there'salways roles for white women,
but we don't have anyrepresentation of trans
characters other than as thebutt of the joke through the 80s
and 90s and 2000s or as thishorrific villain in this case A
monster, an actual monster.
(47:26):
Yeah, and you know, as the moviesays, he's not actually trans,
but that also feels likegatekeeping in a way Totally
Like who gets to decide who istrans and who is not?
Speaker 2 (47:40):
yeah, yeah, it's that .
That doesn't feel good yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
So like that was the attempt to be like oh no, no,
you don't actually have to worryabout trans folks, because it's
not really not one of them yeah, that's very.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
No, that feels very problematic it's.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
Yeah, I also feel like I'm not fully equipped to
grapple with this movie.
Sure, sure, but it is.
I mean, it's a masterpiece of afilm.
And Foster, when she won theOscar for portraying Starling,
like, said she was so gratefulto be able to play this strong
(48:16):
woman.
Speaker 2 (48:17):
Mm.
Speaker 1 (48:18):
And like embody this, this what it means to be a good
investigator, what it means tobe both a team player and
someone who knows when to strikeout on her own, and all of that
because that was the otherthing they were talking about
Prior to this.
If you had a story about apolice officer or someone in law
enforcement, they were a rogueand she's by the book, and so
(48:42):
that kind of led to policeprocedurals.
You could claim this ispropaganda as well.
I have a lot of mixed feelingsabout this film.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
Yeah, any final original thoughts before I see
if I can reflect back to what Iheard?
Speaker 1 (48:56):
That's everything I brought.
I wanted to bring to the table.
Speaker 2 (49:05):
Okay, so let me see if I can reflect back to you
what I heard about this 1991Silence of the Lambs.
So I'll start with ClariceStarling, who I think you laid
out in several reasons why thischaracter is so powerful and so
feminist character is sopowerful and so feminist.
One of the things that I reallylike that you brought is the
way in which the filmmaker madeclear that she is an attractive
young woman, that she is anattractive woman without sort of
(49:32):
relying on the male gaze.
So we as the viewer do not seeher in sexualized positions.
Rather, the director showsother people reacting to her and
that allows us to see theeffect that she has, the fact
(49:53):
that others are sexualizing herwithout the director being
guilty of sexualizing her, whichis pretty cool, and we don't
see that very often.
Speaker 1 (50:03):
It was remarkable in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2 (50:06):
Because it's important to the storyline.
It's part of who she is andwhat she's contending with.
And to show it to us withoutsort of forcing us to also be
guilty of it, is really reallypowerful and in some ways makes
us an ally, and I like that alot.
So thank you for sort ofarticulating that in that way
(50:26):
and, on the feminist track, likethis does pass the Bechdel test
.
So, per Alison Bechdel, thereare at least two women with
names and they talk to eachother about something other than
a man or a boy, and so and thathappens in multiple ways Not
only does Clarice talk to eachother about something other than
a man or a boy, and thathappens in multiple ways.
Not only does Clarice talk toher friend from the academy, she
also talks to Catherine, who isthe victim she saves.
So that's pretty cool.
(50:54):
We witness Starling kind of pushback against her boss and
mentor and teacher for casualmisogyny in the workplace in a
way that is strong, unqualified,unequivocal, but also
respectful because, as you pointout, she didn't bring it up.
(51:17):
But also respectful because, asyou point out, she didn't bring
it up, she waited for him tobring it up, but then, once it
was up, once it was in theconversation like once it was
like conversation topic she gavehim the what for she didn't
pull any punches and that'spretty remarkable, like as a
role model, like for us it givesa a like a script.
(51:37):
Yeah, it gives a very clearscript for, for how to push back
about, against, against momentslike that.
Then the victim, the victim whogets saved.
Katherine also gave us likelike a whole human right.
She was a whole person.
So we saw that she was kind.
We saw that she cared aboutanimals.
(51:57):
We saw that she cared aboutanimals.
We saw that she recognized theanimal lover in her abuser, in
her would-be killer, and usedthat to her advantage.
She was resourceful, she justkept going, she did not lose
hope and she kept doing what sheneeded to do in order to try
and get out of the situation.
So she also was a prettyremarkable character.
(52:19):
So that was also really cool.
The not so cool is there's acouple of things in that column.
One is the suggestion of aromance between Clarice and
Hannibal Lecter which, though itmakes sense that Hannibal would
be into her, the idea thatClarice would reciprocate feels
(52:42):
anathema to the character that'sbeen created.
And at the time I had thereaction when I saw it which was
not in 91, but I had thereaction.
You just gave that sort ofshudder and the fact that
original author like wrotefuture and or was it the author
or was it other people in thefranchise?
Speaker 1 (53:02):
harris.
Yeah, harris, actually, likethat was his intention was to
create this romance betweenthese two people to create a
romance between them yucky.
Speaker 2 (53:11):
So that's, that's really gross.
Speaker 1 (53:13):
The other he actually has, like clarice, also eat
people in later books, which isjust like why, did you create
this character if you were goingto abuse her in this way?
Speaker 2 (53:26):
That's not who she is .
She's totally Harley Quinn.
Yeah, so he wanted a notcartoon version of Harley Quinn.
But sorry, harley's a cartoon.
Speaker 1 (53:34):
That's part of the reason why I say he's a man
writing women.
Yeah, is that that kind ofthing?
Speaker 2 (53:38):
It's say he's a, he's a man writing women, yeah, yeah
.
Speaker 1 (53:39):
Is that that kind of thing, like it's like you're
forcing your character intosomething?
Speaker 2 (53:43):
yeah, I want a really strong woman who defends her
boundaries, who also, like,makes herself become the thing
she hates.
Yeah, because she thinks sheloves him.
What?
Speaker 1 (53:53):
no, anyway, and I I don't know if the age difference
in the book is what it isbetween, between the character
Between the characters, betweenthe actors I should say Actors
and Jodie Foster, but it's alsolike not that that's the most
egregious difference betweenthem, but just in so many ways
it's like that's a no.
Speaker 2 (54:11):
Because she's in her 30s and he's in his, or she's in
her 20s.
She's in her late 20s, likeshe's, I think, jodie Foster was
like 28 or 29.
Speaker 1 (54:15):
And he was in her 20s .
Speaker 2 (54:16):
She's in her late 20s like she's, I think he's in his
foster was like 28 or 29 and hewas in his 50s.
Speaker 1 (54:23):
now there is like again harris kind of sets this
up where there is in the filmyou can definitely see there's a
suggestion of not improprietyor anything like that, but the
the hero worship of crawford andthe fact that her father died
young, like there is thissuggestion that she is attracted
to older men.
Speaker 2 (54:41):
Okay, yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:42):
So, and I know that Lecter is supposed to be older
than her- yeah.
Speaker 2 (54:46):
But, it's okay.
Another thing in the not socool column came from the book.
But you threw the book acrossthe room when it said that that
145 pound long body could onlybe katherine.
And katherine had beendescribed as zoftig and round
(55:06):
and fat throughout the wholebook and and then she's
identified as 145 pounds, whichis just inaccurate, frankly, and
sort of baked into like.
So as a result of the book andthat source material, though the
film in general seems to avoidfat phobia mostly, there is at
least like a suggestion or ahint that maybe some of these
(55:30):
victims it wouldn't happen tothem if they'd been thinner,
because Bill was looking forwomen with greater surface area
of skin.
So that was another sort ofthing in the not so great column
.
But the biggest thing in thenot so great column is this
elephant in the room which istransphobia and transmisogyny in
this film, which, thoughthrough exposition would sort of
(55:52):
suggest is not accurate becauseBill wasn't trans insofar as he
had gender dysphoria we weren'tusing that phrase in common
parlance in 1991, but thesuggestion is that this person
did not in fact have genderdysphoria and was a different
gender than their biological sex, but rather just wanted to be
(56:16):
someone completely differentthan who they were, and the
opposite gender, opposite sexwas as different as he could
imagine.
And so there's this expositionto suggest that he is not quote
unquote, really trans.
Speaker 1 (56:31):
That also is exhibiting the binary thinking,
like the most different thingyou can think of is to be a
woman.
Speaker 2 (57:00):
I'm like really, and then that's the binary and sort
of not make this into a weaponwith which culture would
bludgeon trans people.
But he wasn't actually capableof doing that, because it has
become a weapon with which tobludgeon trans people.
Speaker 1 (57:17):
Well, there was not a single trans person in the room
Right right For any part ofmaking this movie.
Speaker 2 (57:24):
There's so clearly a straight line between Buffalo
Bill and the freak out overbathrooms that we see, today
it's a straight line.
We don't need to kind of likecarefully trace the circuitous
route we can see it.
This movie helped to sort ofdefine transgenderism as
(57:48):
monstrosity and something to benot only feared but but
protected against, becausethey're going to kill you and
steal your skin.
So that's like the really bigthing.
That like is true, it's there,we can see it.
And also, this is a brilliantpiece of storytelling, a
(58:13):
brilliant piece of media, likethe use of the medium of film in
beautiful ways.
We have amazing performancesfrom some of the key actors,
notably Jodie Foster, whosemonologue about the lambs being
slaughtered made the on-locationflashback completely
unnecessary because she's sofucking compelling.
And also, like all of thesethings are true, which is a hard
(58:36):
thing for our brains to holdI'm including you and me, and
like listener, maybe you too,but like we've been expected to
sort of say like this is a goodone, this is a bad one, and like
not the same film, same film,same film.
So I think those are the bigthings that I heard.
(58:58):
Is there anything that I forgotthat you want to lift back up?
Speaker 1 (59:02):
just one like notable thing.
So brooke smith, who playedkatherine martin, and ted levine
, who played jame gum, wereactually became friendly off
camera and, and you know,enjoyed spending time together
like just just as friends.
And so there were points where,because of how Levine had to
(59:24):
treat her character when he wasacting like he had it to
separate himself, part of thereason why I bring this up is
this is not where we we startedour like obsession with serial
killers, right, no, but, and ina lot of ways that there is the
attempt to make this about likethe victims, like they really do
(59:44):
humanize the victims, but whatwe remember, the serial killers
we have like this long line ofmovies and tv and true crime and
stuff like that it's not justthat I I feel like this goes
back from the obsession withJack the Ripper and maybe even
before, but certainly that's apre-20th century.
(01:00:06):
The idea of the reallyintelligent serial killer, I
think came from this Sherlock.
Speaker 2 (01:00:11):
What about Moriarty?
Speaker 1 (01:00:14):
He only actually appears in the story in which
he's destroyed.
So it's not like he's battlinghim, the story in which he's
destroyed.
Oh, so it's not like, you know,he's battling him the whole
time, like he is in the BBCversion.
And so the reason like one ofthe things that I read was Mandy
Patinkin, who was in that TVshow, criminal Minds, quit after
two seasons because of thepsychic damage it was causing
(01:00:35):
him to be.
He's like it's the biggestmistake I ever made was to be on
this show because it was about,you know, profilers trying to
to catch serial killers, andevery night it's women being
raped from being abused.
And so mandy patinkin quit, tedlevine, having to to separate
from a friend because of how hehad to treat her on camera Like
(01:00:56):
is this like that psychic damageof like engaging with this
ugliness?
That, yes, that's human, it'svery human to be interested in
this sort of thing.
But I think that we can be, Idon't know like.
I don't have an answer for it,because I feel like Demi, in a
lot of ways, did the best hecould, and better than Harris
did, to make this about thehuman element of the victims,
(01:01:23):
the humanity of Starling, andcomparing it to the inhumanity
of both Lecter and Bill.
But there is psychic damagefrom playing these characters
and there's psychic damage fromlike bathing our brains in them
and I'm not sure how we dealwith that, that real human
impulse to be interested,because I feel it, like I.
(01:01:46):
I saw this when I was like 13.
They considered a horror movie,which I never did because at
that 13 I wouldn't have watchedsomething that I thought of as a
horror movie.
I thought of it as apsychological mystery.
Yeah, yeah, I am veryinterested in like these kinds
of puzzles but at the same time,like recognizing that there is
(01:02:07):
staring into the face of thiskind of ugliness not only allows
us to push it off onto amarginalized group, you know,
and decide that the uglinessbelongs over there because it
was a trans person in this story, but it also, like causes
long-term psychic damage to us,I think, and I don't know how
you solve that.
Speaker 2 (01:02:27):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:02:29):
Well, this was a deep one.
This is a movie I think I couldtalk about for even longer.
Speaker 2 (01:02:35):
We have been talking for actually quite a long while,
so I'm going to actually wrapus up.
Speaker 1 (01:02:40):
So I'm not saying I want to, but I'm saying yes,
it's deep because there's a lotto it and there's a lot of like
bigger issues that come up as aresult of it.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:02:49):
So next time, em for something completely different.
I'm going to bring you my deepthoughts about SpongeBob
SquarePants Completely different.
Speaker 1 (01:03:01):
I'm going to bring you my deep thoughts about.
Speaker 2 (01:03:02):
SpongeBob SquarePants I'm ready.
Speaker 1 (01:03:04):
I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready.
I'm just thinking like HannibalLecter and SpongeBob
SquarePants.
Who kills in a pineapple underthe sea, hannibal Lecter and a
pineapple under the sea,hannibal Lecter.
Speaker 2 (01:03:20):
Well, if that happens , we'll talk to you about it
next time.
Yes, look forward to it.
This show is a labor of love,but that doesn't make it free to
produce.
If you enjoy it even half asmuch as we do, please consider
helping to keep us overthinking.
You can support us at ourPatreon there's a link in the
(01:03:41):
show notes or leave a positivereview so others can find us and
, of course, share the show withyour people.
Thanks for listening.
Our theme music is ProfessorUmlaut by Kevin MacLeod from
incompetechcom.
Find full music credits in theshow notes.
Thank you to ResonateRecordings for editing today's
(01:04:02):
episode.
Until next time, remember popculture is still culture, and
shouldn't you know what's inyour head?
It's a real mixed bag because, like this, did active
and direct harm to trans folks,to our trans siblings, and at
the same time it's an amazingfilm.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Have you ever had something you love dismissed
because it's just pop culture?
What others might deem stupidshit, you know matters.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
You know it's worth talking and thinking about, and
so do we.
So come overthink episode.
I'll be sharing my deepthoughts about the 1991 film
Silence of the Lambs with mysister, tracy Guy-Decker, and
with you.
Let's dive in.
So, trace, I know you've seenthis movie.
I don't know if we watched ittogether the first time or no
idea, but it was reading, and Ithink this is correct.
(01:05):
People say this is the mostinfluential movie of at least
our lifetime, and I I think thatis absolutely correct.
So so I know you've seen it.
Tell me, what's the furnitureof your brain about silence of
the lambs, such a?
Speaker 2 (01:19):
weird thing to say what is the most influential
movie, but okay, I guess.
Yeah, I've definitely seen it,but not more than once.
We did not see it togetherbecause I was.
I know I didn't see it in 91.
I was 16, 15, 16 in 91.
Yeah, it was way too scary forme.
Then I mean, frankly, it'sstill too scary for me, but yeah
(01:42):
, I saw it as an adult.
And there's too scary for me,but yeah, I saw it as an adult
and there's, I have a lot.
They're like little, like likeso many of these things that are
so much in the culture, likethere are these little like
vignettes that bubble up of theguy, that whose name is escaping
me, the character's name,Actually.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Elector yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Hannibal, like the way that he said her name,
Clarice no-transcript.
(02:28):
In terms of the storytellingpiece of it, I think even on
first viewing which was not in91 for me it had to have been
somewhere in the early 2000s Idid not understand.
There seems to be a core ofattraction between Hannibal and
Clarice that I just don't get.
(02:51):
Like I have to take it on yourword that there's something
there.
I don't see it and even thefirst time I saw it and so, like
in storytelling wise, like Iget why the storyteller wants me
to believe that's there, Ididn't get it, I didn't buy it
and I know, just because you andI've spoken offline about it,
some of the things that botheryou about the actual specific
(03:16):
details that I am curious tothink about, about the actual
villain or the you know the bigbad that we're working to fight.
That I haven't looked atclosely but even side-eyeing I'm
like, ooh, this isn't going tobe fun.
That's what I got.
It's very disjointed, it's verydisjointed which kind of frankly
(03:37):
describes my life right now.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
So like oh yeah, I hear that my life, my brain, my
thoughts, my emotions.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
I'm just disjointed Our country.
Welcome to the club.
Silence of the Lambs.
Disjointed, but why are wetalking about it today, Em?
Speaker 1 (03:56):
So this is a movie that is very much part of the
furniture of my mind.
I saw it around when it cameout.
I didn't see it in the theater.
My mind, I saw it around whenit came out, like I didn't see
it in the theater.
I can remember being on the busstop when I was in middle
school, because I was 12 when itcame out the scene where one of
the prisoners throws semen ather face, I had literally no
idea what that was and I wasasking another kid at the bus
(04:20):
stop who had also seen it, whowas a boy do you know what that
was?
And like he got really like andjust wouldn't talk to me, like,
like didn't want to answer andlike I and I still completely no
idea, no clue what was going on.
So, like years later, when Isaw it again in my late teens, I
was like oh, no wonder.
(04:41):
My poor friend was like oh,dear God, why did you ask me?
Speaker 2 (04:44):
that.
That's really funny.
That's your friend who's nowlike on Broadway, right?
Yes, yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Yeah, okay, just making sure I know who it was.
Yeah, so the other thing likejust to give you a sense of how
deeply embedded in the furnitureof my brain this is my eldest
was speech delayed.
Before his younger brother wasborn, we were getting speech
therapy in the home through,like Head Start or something
like that, and so he would dothis thing where he would go ah,
(05:13):
ah and like kind of grasp withhis hand when he wanted
something, and so I think it waslike winter or something like
that I got some lotion, wasputting it on my hands, and he
came over and went, ah, uh, andwithout consulting my brain, my
mouth immediately went it putsthe lotion on its skin or else
it gets the hose again.
Oy gevalt, emily To my child,oy gevalt, front of a mandated
(05:34):
reporter.
Now I actually come to think ofit.
I think I've stopped myselfbefore the second half of the
sentence.
I just said it puts the lotionon its skin.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Still still, hopefully, the mandated reporter
.
It was not furniture up herbrain.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
So the mandated reporter at the time was like 23
years old, soaking wet.
So I don't think she had anyidea what I was referring to.
Think she had any idea what Iwas referring to.
So that just kind of gives youa sense of like how embedded
this is.
That's part of why I want totalk about it.
(06:18):
I really enjoyed the movie as ateenager.
I ended up reading the bookthat it's based on in college.
It's the only time I've everthrown a book across the room.
It made me so angry.
I'll tell that story at somepoint.
And I did not see thetransphobia and transmisogyny in
the story as a kid seeing thismovie, because you know just,
(06:41):
there was no, like it didn'texist in culture that I was
consuming.
And so as soon as I readcriticism of it I was like oh,
oh, yeah, oh.
But I had to get the outsideperspective to notice it.
Thomas Harris who wrote thenovel.
(07:04):
He created a very strongfeminist character in Clarice
Starling, but I think he did itby accident in a lot of ways and
I think it's Jonathan Demme andJodie Foster so Demme being the
director and Foster embodyingher, playing her who made her
the incredibly strong feministrole model that the character is
(07:27):
.
But that means this moviereally does the give with one
hand and take with the other andthere's a very complicated
legacy of this film I think isreally worth examining.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Cool, all right.
Well, I'll look forward to that.
In the meantime, like, remindme and our listeners like what
happens in this movie, what's?
Speaker 1 (07:48):
the plot.
So we meet Clarice Starling.
She is a student at Quantico tobecome an FBI agent.
There are some really excellentestablishing shots where, like
she is on the like ropes coursething at the beginning, like
going through the whole coursethat you have to do like
climbing ropes and you knowrunning and all of that, and
(08:09):
she's called into Agent JackCrawford's office.
Meanwhile, every time shepasses you see people turning
their heads to look at her.
So like, it establishes thatshe's an attractive young woman
without relying on the male gazeat all.
And then there's another reallyamazing shot where she gets
into the building and she getsinto an elevator and Jodie
(08:31):
Foster I don't know how tall sheis, but she must not be a
particularly tall woman and thenthey also intentionally have
extras it's all men surroundingher who tower over her.
So Jack Crawford was one of herprofessors at Quantico and she's
basically his protege.
She has not graduated yet andall of that.
He knows that she's interestedin the behavioral psychology
(08:54):
unit of the FBI and so he asksher to go to a prison in
Baltimore it's like it's aninstitution for criminally
insane basically to interviewthe psychopath Dr Hannibal
Lecter, because the belief isthat he will have some insight
into a new serial killer namedBuffalo Bill who has at this
(09:17):
point killed five women.
Now Crawford doesn't tell her.
That's why she's going, becausehe knows that if she goes in
with an agenda, Lecter willunderstand it right away,
because he's just thatintelligent.
So we meet the Dr Chilton whois the head of this prison,
slash hospital, slash asylum.
(09:39):
He hits on her immediately andhe says and again I think this
is goes to jonathan demi's likereally excellent filmmaking,
like how smart it is forcrawford to send a young,
attractive woman to interviewlector because he's more likely
to open up to her, because hehasn't seen a woman in eight
(10:00):
ears.
So we see the really creepy shotof her going to sit outside his
cell.
But she has to walk past fiveor six other cells beforehand
and very, very disturbingindividuals in each one of them.
Right next door is multipleMigs is the name that Lecter
(10:21):
calls him who shouts or whohisses at her I can smell your
cunt.
She and Lecter kind of sparback and forth a little bit and
he basically says no, I'm notgoing to help you.
So she's leaving.
And that's when Miggs throwshis semen at her and like all
the rest of the inmates are alsolike hooting and hollering and
(10:43):
like it's terrifying.
And Hannibal is at the edge ofhis cell, which is glass or
plexiglass instead of bars, andshouts come back, come back.
And he says basically like thatwas very rude of Miggs, I would
never have that happen to you.
And so because of that, likeI'm not going to answer your
questions, but I'm going to tellyou something that you want to
(11:05):
know.
And he basically tells her tolook up his former patient, miss
Moffett, m-o-f-e-t, and he sayslook in yourself.
Something like that.
So look in yourself.
Yeah, it's a clue.
Okay, he gives her basicallyOne of the things that's great
about Jodie Foster.
We show her and this isapparently based on they spoke
(11:26):
to several FBI agents who kindof suggested that this is
something that happens.
She goes to stand next to hercar and she cries, and the FBI
agent who suggested that saidlike it's a lot and you need to
kind of let it out and then youcan move on with your day.
So the clue turns out to belike you know, there's no way to
look up his former patientsbecause he destroyed all the
(11:48):
files he kept before he wasapprehended.
She finds a storage placecalled Yourself Storage.
She had gotten the impression,like the way he said, it was
weird and there's a storagefacility in there, one unit in
there that was leased to a MissHester Moffitt.
No one has touched it for 10years.
It's very difficult to get in.
(12:09):
She finally manages to getinside and she finds a whole
bunch of different stuff,including a decapitated head in
a jar.
She realizes that HesterMoffitt is an anagram for the
rest of me, so he never actuallyhad a patient and so she goes
back to Lecter.
He basically suggests that hetreated Buffalo Bill.
(12:33):
The disembodied head was one ofhis first victims.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Bills, bills or Lecter, yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Yeah, one of Bill's first victims.
So there's that suggestion.
Okay, meanwhile they're talkingabout like victims, so there's,
there's that suggestion OK.
Meanwhile they're talking aboutlike we think that there will be
another victim.
And we meet Catherine Martin,who is the daughter of Senator
Ruth Martin, and we see herabducted.
The, the Buffalo Bill,basically uses her kindness
(13:01):
against her.
She sees, sees him likestruggling to get a couch into a
truck and she's like can I giveyou a hand?
And he's like, oh yeah, whydon't you?
You can go backwards and then Ican push up.
And so he forces her into thetruck and takes her away.
They also get a call that thereis I think this is a sixth
victim that came out of a riverin West Virginia.
(13:21):
So Crawford and Starling go toinvestigate.
They get there the body,because it's in a very small
town, the body is at a funeralhome instead of like a coroner's
office.
That's where the coroner doesthe work and it's full of police
and the police chief is alreadyclearly like angry that the FBI
(13:42):
is coming in on this turf.
And so Crawford goes to thepolice chief right in front of
Starling and says hey, withthese kinds of sex crimes there
are things I want to discuss.
That isn't fit for a mixedcompany.
So let's go talk.
So and leave Starling there Allof the rest of the police are
now eyeing her.
They go through the autopsy andthey discover that this victim
(14:05):
has skin missing off of her backin two like diamond patterns.
They also find a like a cocoon,a chrysalis, in the throat
cavity of the dead woman.
So Starling takes it to someentomologists to find out what
it is.
Takes it to some entomologiststo find out what it is.
She also gives Crawford whatfor, although he does bring it
(14:26):
up, he said that really burnedyou when I said that to the
police chief and she said itmatters.
The cops look to you to knowhow to treat me.
So the way that you treat me infront of other cops matters.
And he's like you're right, itdoes.
And he's her mentor, her boss,her teacher.
So like she doesn't bring it upfirst, he does, but she doesn't
(14:48):
back down, Nice.
So the entomologists let herknow that it's a death's head
moth.
It only lives in Asia, sosomeone had to have imported it.
She goes back to Lecter At thispoint.
Senator Ruth Martin knows thather daughter is gone and is
probably another Buffalo Billvictim.
They know that he keeps hisvictims for like three or four
(15:09):
days before he kills them.
They haven't figured out why,but they know the clock is
ticking.
Martin has said that she willmake sure that you are
transferred to another facilitythat has a view, because that's
one thing that he wants.
He's in this windowless room.
(15:29):
He hates Chilton, the lead ofthis hospital, so he'd like get
away from Chilton and then also,once a year he'll get to have a
week on this island called PlumIsland, where there's like
research into animal disease andbe able to like under guard but
be able to walk on the beachfor an hour a day.
And so with all of that, willyou please answer my questions
(15:51):
to try to identify this man.
So he says quid pro quo, I askyou one question, you ask me one
question.
So he asks about herself.
He wants to know, like whereshe came from and her background
.
About herself, he wants to knowwhere she came from and her
background.
And we learned that her fatherwas a police officer who was
shot in line of duty when shewas 10 years old.
Her mother had already diedwhen she was a baby and so after
(16:14):
she was orphaned, she was sentto live with her mother's cousin
and husband on a ranch inMontana, but she was only there
for two months and they, like hewants to know why, but she
doesn't tell him and he sharesseveral pieces of information
with her about who Buffalo Billis and must be and what she
(16:35):
needs to know to find him.
Chilton is listening in andthen he comes and taunts Lecter
telling him like there's no deal.
Starling made it up.
Senator Martin is not, has noidea that you think that you're
going to be going on this islandand this new facility and says
but I will talk to Martin if yougive us a name, because at this
(16:57):
point it's clear that he hastreated Buffalo Bill.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Do we know if Chilton is telling the truth?
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Yes, we do know Chilton is telling the truth.
We then get confirmation fromCrawford later and Crawford's
like I felt, like you know Igave the authorization for
Starling to do that.
That's also where Catherine wasabducted was in Tennessee.
(17:23):
Lecter agrees, but only youknow, if they fly him there,
chilton had been in his cell andhad been like playing with his
pen and forgot it there, andthey made it clear early on, you
know, don't nothing other thanpaper can go to him.
And so Lecter steals it.
They go to Tennessee.
He tells Martin that LewisFriend is the name of the
(17:45):
perpetrator and has somedescriptions for him.
And Chilton is doing all ofthis so that he can take credit
for solving the ongoing serialkiller Buffalo Bill
investigation.
Starling shows up in Tennesseeand goes to see Lecter and says
(18:10):
Lewis Friend is an anagram ofiron sulfide, which is fool's
gold.
So I know that that's not hisname.
I know that you're making thatup.
They talk some more.
He says more quid pro quo andshe realizes that everything
else he told her was true, justnot the name.
And he asks her to explain whyshe left.
She ran away from the ranch inMontana.
It was because she woke up inthe middle of the night one
night to hear the lambsscreaming because they were
(18:33):
slaughtering them.
It was a spring lamb slaughterand it horrified her, and so she
ran to the barn to see what washappening and she opened the
pens to try to get the lambs torun away, and they wouldn't.
And she opened the pens to tryto get the lambs to run away,
and they wouldn't.
And so she didn't know what todo.
So she grabbed one lamb and ran, thinking if she could at least
save one.
But she only got four or fivemiles away because it was so
(18:54):
heavy and the husband hermother's cousin's husband who
owned the ranch, was so angry.
He put her in an orphanage,basically, and that's where she
grew up.
So that's where the title comesfrom.
Starling's interrupted in themidst of this, chilton has come
and is dragging her away at whenLecter says you have everything
(19:17):
you need and here's the casefile.
He's had it, and now he's in anoctagon with bars rather than
the place he was in Baltimorehad it, and now he's in like an
octagon with bars rather thanthe place he was in Baltimore,
and so he passes it to herthrough the bars and he like
brushes her finger with his.
More on that later.
So we then see Lecter escape.
(19:38):
It's a long sequence.
Basically there are two guardscome in to bring him a meal.
They have him handcuffed but heuses a piece of the pen to get
out of the handcuffs.
He manages to kill both ofthose men.
He ends up taking the clothesof one of the men and his face
(20:02):
and pretends to be him and putshis clothes on that police
officer's body and hides it.
The look my sister has given me.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
He cuts the man's face off.
Yeah, that's really unpleasant.
It's really unpleasant.
No wonder I don't remember it,I compartmentalized it.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
And he ends up also like they call an ambulance
because they think that this isOfficer Pembrey, the ambulance
is taking him away and hemanages to kill hole in the
ground.
Buffalo Bill is keeping her inshe is amazing.
(20:50):
So he like lowers things to her.
That's where it puts the lotionon the skin or else it puts its
nose again.
And so he like gives her abucket with like the bare
minimum of food because he'sstarving these women to make
their skin looser.
The bill has a dog, like a tinylittle poodle he calls Precious
(21:11):
, and so she uses a bone fromher meal like a chicken bone
that she ties to the string thatthe bucket comes down in and
she throws the bone and thebucket up to the top and is like
trying to lure Precious down,lure Precious to her, and we
don't see it happen.
(21:32):
Like we see her try once andfail.
Next thing we know we see likewe hear Precious really barking
and Buffalo Bill comes in and islike furious at her and she's
like I don't want to hurt thisdog but I will.
If you don't let me out, giveme a phone.
Starling's investigation makesher realize that the first
victim who they didn't discoveruntil after two others had been
(21:53):
discovered, was the only victimthat had been weighted down in
the water.
The rest of them had just beenthrown in the water and Starling
and her friend Ardelia talkingabout it, and they realize you
know that's the first victim andthat Bill covets what he sees,
so he must have known her,whereas the others were
strangers.
So they go to Belvedere, ohio,which is where or Starling goes
(22:16):
Belvedere, ohio, which is wherethe first victim was from, and
interviews people.
Meanwhile Crawford has foundthe address of Jame Gumm, who
they found based on the DeadheadMoths, and it's an address in
Illinois, and so he's going witha SWAT team to take him down
from the house.
Starling offers to come and he'slike no, no, no, there's not
(22:38):
enough time for you to get here.
We're going to need backgroundinformation to be able to
actually prosecute the sucker.
So stay in Belvedere, do theinterviews.
You need to do Her interviews.
Take her to the house of MrsLipman, who was a tailor, while
in the first victim's home shesees like dolls and dressmaking
(22:59):
dolls, sewing machines and stufflike that, and then a dress
with darts in the back that hadthese like diamond shaped
patterns, and she realizesthat's when she realizes that
buffalo bill is making a woman'ssuit for himself because the
dart shape is the same as what?
Speaker 2 (23:15):
the skin that was missing from the first victim,
that clarison, that starling andinteracted with.
Yes, okay.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
So she finds out that the first victim, frederica,
was her, had worked for a tailornamed Mrs Lipman.
So she goes to Mrs Lipman'shouse and Bill James Gumm
answers the door.
Clarice doesn't know that's whoit is, but when he gives his
aliases he also calls himselfJohn Grant and he calls himself
Jack Gordon, so he always usesthe same two initials.
She's asking about the Lipmansand he's like oh, I think I have
(23:45):
her son's number in heresomewhere.
Come on in.
And she realizes that this isthe guy, because she sees some
moths and she pulls her gun onhim.
But he also has a gun and isable to get away from her.
He goes down into the basementwhere the pit is, and all of
that she sees.
Catherine tells her to stay.
(24:08):
I need to leave and get thisguy.
And at the end and this stuckwith me for so long she is
trying to figure out where he is.
She's terrified.
She gets into a room and thisis subterranean and he turns off
the lights and it is pitchblack, but he has infrared
goggles.
(24:28):
And so the last few minutes wesee from his point of view.
We see her where she is andlike has her gun at the ready,
but has no idea he's rightbehind her.
He cocks his gun and sheimmediately turns and shoots him
(24:49):
, and and is able to shoot himdead.
Just based on hearing thecocking of the gun, she knew
where he was, and one of herbullets manages to shoot out
like one of those high windowsin a basement that had been
blacked out so light comes in.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Then, whoa she's a badass, that's intense.
So katherine lives.
Katherine lives.
Whoa, she's a badass, that'sintense, so Catherine lives.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Catherine lives.
Hooray, catherine's a badass.
The final scene is Starling isgraduating from Quantico.
Crawford pulls her aside,saying like I'm no good at these
kinds of things.
I just wanted to say like wecouldn't have caught him without
you and like, really proud ofyou, blah, blah, blah.
And then someone tells her youhave a phone call.
It's Lecter on the phone sayingI won't come after you because
(25:29):
the world's much moreinteresting with you in it.
I hope you can say the same.
And she said you know I can'tmake that promise.
And he said well, I have to run.
I'm having an old friend fordinner.
And he hangs up the phone.
We see he's in some kind oftropical island where Chilton is
getting off the plane and wesee him follow him and that's
(25:49):
the end of the film.
Let me start with what thismovie does right.
Okay, because there's a lot tolove.
Well, for one thing, it is awell-constructed, beautifully
made, super creepy and I meanthat in a good way movie Like
Jonathan Demme is an amazingdirector.
It is a very well-writtenscreenplay and it is one of only
(26:12):
three movies to get all five ofthe major Academy Awards Best
film, best director, bestadapted screenplay, best actor
and best actress.
Only two other films in theentire history of the Academy
have done that and in a lot ofways it gets feminism right.
(26:34):
So, as I mentioned, we do notever see Clarice through the
male gaze.
We know that she's attractive,and partially because look at
her, but also based on the wayother people treat her and we
see her handle both the casualmisogyny and the like overt,
(26:57):
violent misogyny in realistic,badass and yet still vulnerable
ways.
You know she's allowed to befully human.
She's allowed to be upset bythese things, but she also is
like I got a job to do and Iwill do it.
It passes the Bechdel testreally well.
(27:19):
So Starling has a friend at theAcademy named Ardelia, who is
another cadet.
She's a Black woman and theytalk about the case.
They talk about severaldifferent things.
They do talk about Lecter andBuffalo Bill, but they're
talking about the victims.
It's a wide range ofconversation multiple times.
So Catherine and Starling talkto each other about getting out
(27:43):
of the hole and all of that.
Starling, when she interviews afriend of the first victim whose
name we get, we see her liketalk about the victim, talk
about their lives, all of thosesorts of things.
Part of the reason why Starlingwas able to get somewhere in
Belvedere Ohio because we seethe first victim's father, who's
(28:06):
like we've had the police overand, over and over again and
they can't like I have nothingnew to say is because she sees
this woman as a full andcomplete person and she talks to
her friend, including there's ascene where she's in the
victim's bedroom and she's got amusic box you know the kind you
keep jewelry in that's got alittle dancer in it that spins
(28:28):
around and she sees that there'slike the lining on the top is
loose and she opens it and shefinds some Polaroids of the
victim in her underwear.
And so these were, like youknow, before you had cell phones
, she was taking like boudoirphotos of herself or someone
took them for her and hid themaway because she lived with her
dad and she was a young woman.
(28:49):
But it is very clear thatStarling is seeing like this
woman who was gone was a sexualbeing.
All of the women are somewhatoverweight because Buffalo Bill
wants to make a suit that willfit him and so he needs to have
looser skin.
So Starling does not in any wayfat shame or problematize these
(29:17):
women's bodies and that momentI thought I was really glad to
see when I watched it again lastnight, because it made it clear
that Starling was like yeah,this is a full person, including
sexuality, and you get thesense of like and it is such a
shame that she is gone and canno longer explore that aspect of
herself.
It's a shame she is gone andwill never finish this dress
(29:37):
that she was sewing, that shewas very talented at.
So it centers the victim in away that the franchise does not.
Now, jodie Foster is aphenomenal talent, is was always
, has been, always, will be.
I mean, she's incredible andsome of the most amazing scenes
are just her talking, hertelling the story about the
(29:59):
lambs and in fact, apparentlyDemi had planned to do some
location shots in Montana tolike kind of cut to those Like
flashback kind of thing yeah,flashback while she's talking.
But they had gotten the footageof her telling this monologue
and they're like we don't needthat.
I'm like, yeah, you don't,that's really cool, that's very
(30:21):
cool.
Yeah, you don't, that's reallycool, that's very cool.
Not for nothing.
Chris Carter of the X-Files partof the reason why he wanted to
do what he did with the X-Fileswas, he was patterning Scully
somewhat after Clarice Starling.
Oh, interesting, that is part ofwhat got him interested in the
(30:41):
idea of the FBI being whoinvestigates this paranormal
stuff.
Some of the stuff that I'veread talks about how so much of
the tough woman law enforcementcharacter that we see over and
over and over and over and overagain in the last 30 years can
be traced back to of amazing.
And yet I want to kind of savethe transphobia and trans
(31:12):
misogyny for last.
So I want to first kind of gothrough my experience of reading
Silence of the Lambs.
Now, starling is not at all fatphobic and for the most part
the victims appear to be treatedwith gentleness and respect by
(31:34):
law enforcement.
For the most part there Is, Ithink, some fat phobia inherent
in the storyline in that and Imight be like this is I like
your way of putting it.
This is my first draft thought.
But there, like as I waswatching last night, I felt like
(31:56):
you know it's very easy to say,well, this wouldn't have
happened if she lost a fewpounds.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Yeah, I was just thinking that, like, is this
story sort of blaming the victimfor being fat, making herself a
target of this psychopath?
Speaker 1 (32:10):
So and I'm not sure that that's true, in part
because we see Katherine Martin,she's kind, which is why she
ended up getting taken and likethat kind of kindness and
respect for other people is nota bad thing.
It led to something awful, butyou see that she's kind, she's
(32:32):
smart, she's resourceful.
She also the other thing that Ithought was really interesting,
because I completely forgottenthis so when she gets to her
apartment, it's right outsideher apartment where she's
grabbed.
Her cat is in the window upabove where she parks, and so
she's like hey, they're a littlecheaper, I'll be right up.
And then, with the dog, she'sholding the dog and she's like
(32:52):
threatening the dog.
When you see her being walkedout of the house at the end with
the shock blanket around her,she's carrying Precious and
they're trying to take the dogaway from her and she's like no.
And so like there's this sheclearly is an animal lover,
taking responsibility, even justfor that moment, or gaining
comfort from this dog who.
(33:13):
It's not the dog's fault thatshe was owned by a psychopath.
She is a full human being.
Catherine Martin is a completehuman being and so there is no
sense of like fat shaming her.
I feel like by the movie, thedetails.
(33:44):
All they see is her from herhead down, I think she's naked,
I think it's supposed to be fromwithin the pit.
And again, I don't remember thedetails or how it ended up here
, but they said they were prettysure that it was Catherine
Martin because from the picturethey could tell that 145 pound
long body could be none otherbut her.
Harris consistently describesCatherine as fat like zoftig
(34:06):
pillowy breasts.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
What's?
Long bottom, long body.
What does that mean Meaning?
She's tall, so she's 145 poundsand tall, that ain't fat.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
And that's when I threw the book across the room.
Across the room, 125 pounds,that's all, but she's fat, oh
man.
All right, I was so angry whenI read that and in part because,
like this book is enormous,huge, like it is, like it led to
you know, the most influentialmovie of our time.
Not only did Harris get that sowrong, like where was the
(34:42):
editing team?
And like not that it would havebeen better if they had said
like 185 pounds, like why put anumber on it, but the impression
that I got was that Harris islike oh, hot women are like 110
pounds.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Totally yeah.
I mean, that's the only thingit could be, because 145, if
tall, is quite slender.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
The way I recall the book because I read it when I
was a senior in college.
This is literally 25 years ago,but the way I remember the book
was before I had the words forthis.
It was men writing women.
You know like she breastedBoobily down the stairs.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
Because I remember the way even characters who are
supposed to be like powerful andsmart, like Ruth Martin,
catherine's mother, like therewas just something like
infantilizing about the waythey're described.
They're described and youmentioned when you were talking
about it like that there'ssupposed to be like this
connection attraction thingbetween Lecter and Starling
(35:50):
Harris in his further books.
Has them become lovers?
And so when they made and Idon't remember what they're
called, but there were follow-upmovies where anthony hopkins
reprised his role of lector,both jonathan demi and jodie
foster were like absolutely not,I'm not gonna have anything to
(36:11):
do with this because of thatromantic connection, for good
reason, because, ew, it's justout of character for this whole
woman.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
She's har's Harley Quinn if she ends up in a
romantic relationship with himand Harley Quinn is a real fun
comic book character, but she'sa fucking comic book character.
She is literally a cartoon, andI think that's what you're
telling me.
that is so beautiful aboutClarice Starling, as played by
(36:43):
Jodie Foster, is that she's nota cartoon she's a real human
being like that, real fbi agentskind of consulted on to make
sure that the way that sheresponds is realistic and
accurate.
And I guarantee you those womenare not falling in love with a
psychopath who's eating peopleand like there is a bit.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
So I mentioned that.
That moment where he likecaresses her finger.
Oh, it gave me the creeps and Ifeel like Jonathan Demme and
Jodie Foster and probably evenAnthony Hopkins at the time,
wanted it to give you the creeps.
And at some point Starlingactually says to Lecter you're,
you're just like Migs, the guywho threw semen at her, because
(37:29):
he, every time he meets her, hebrings up sexuality in a way
that is like just very juvenile.
So he does it in a much moresocially acceptable and classier
in some ways way, my brain isreminding me that he said I
cannot in fact smell you.
I smell that's right otherthings yeah, that's correct, and
(37:51):
so he'll ask her things andshe's like I'm really not
interested in that, like I'minterested in solving this case
and finding buffalo bill.
So I have no problem imagininglector beinger being entranced
and interested in her.
Yeah, yeah, I'm sure he's asapiosexual like, turned on by
(38:33):
smarts, and she's very smart.
Also, he hasn't seen a woman ineight years.
So a very smart woman who'sgorgeous, and that is not
attraction on her part.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
It's the like, in the same way that you could say
there's hmm.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
Yes, and he is very interesting and engaging, but I
truly believe that ClariceStarling, as played by Jodie
Foster, is perfectly capable ofrecognizing the difference
between you know, like I'mtalking to this man, I'm giving
him some access to who I am as ahuman being, in furtherance of
(39:05):
my goal, which is saving lives,and I will be thinking about
these conversations for the restof my life, but not because I'm
enjoying myself.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
And not because there's any kind of romance.
I mean, even if something aboutthe banter was dopamine
inducing, that's not the same asromance.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
Yeah, when Lecter escapes, Ardelia is worried.
He's going to come afterStarling and she says, like you
know, I kind of trust that he'snot going to because, like this
is gonna sound weird, but he'dthink it was rude.
And she's right, she has thelike, she understands his
character.
So, like between that and thenwhat we see of Catherine, who is
(39:56):
so very strong even though sheis in this horrifying,
impossible situation, you reallyget this amazing view of what
feminine strength looks like.
So let's bring, let's get tothe transphobia and
transmasodony.
Now, to both Harris's credit andthe film's credit, there is
(40:20):
exposition where Starling andLecter are discussing Buffalo
Bill, and they are.
This is when the termtranssexual was the common
parlance.
They're saying that Bill is nota true transsexual because he
just wants to transform.
He is this damaged person wholoathes himself and wants to
(40:42):
transform into anythingdifferent, and becoming a woman
is as different as he can thinkof being.
And so one of the clues thatLecter gives Starling is to
check with the only threehospitals in the country that do
.
They called it genderreassignment.
Now you know, gender affirmingcare surgery.
(41:02):
He'll have been turned downbecause he's not truly
transsexual.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
He'll have been turned down for bottom surgery
is what you're telling me, yes,or any surgery.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
So Okay, good.
And Starling even says althoughit's one of those like damning
with faint praise she says youknow, transsexuals don't tend to
be violent, they tend to bevery passive, which I'm like
1991.
(41:33):
Of this deviant psychopathcoveting a woman's body for
himself plays into so much ofthe horrors that trans folks put
up with and there's like youcan draw a straight line from
(41:54):
there's this it's an amazingscene where Ted Levine, who
plays James Gunn, is dancing andputting on makeup and it's
creepy and sensual and likeoddly sexy but also terrifying.
It's like perfect storytellingin cinema.
(42:16):
But you can kind of draw astraight line between that and
like knowing what a psychopathhe is and knowing how awful he
is to the sort of people who aresaying like men are trying to
use women's restrooms.
Ed, you know, doing research forthis was talking about how like
.
I don't know if this was beforethe term was coined, but this
(42:40):
is very much atrans-exclusionary, radical
feminist film.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
Oh, interesting.
Speaker 1 (42:46):
Because it is very feminist in a lot of ways.
But you know, trans women don'tget to.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
Well, bill's not.
Yeah, bill is not treated as awoman, mm, hmm, yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
I don't know where to put that.
Jonathan Demme got a lot ofpushback at the time, even from
LGBT communities and outreachand stuff like that.
Saying like this is homophobicand at the time they were
focusing on homophobia, in partbecause there wasn't as much
discussion about transphobia In91.
(43:18):
There wasn't as much discussionabout transphobia, sure, in 91.
Bill is coded as queer, asidefrom the gender expression.
He kept saying like well, buthe's not really gay, he's not
really this and like, andleaning on the exposition, but
that's not what's remembered.
You know, people don't rememberthat scene.
They remember the dancing.
They remember it puts thelotion on its skin.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
I think you're right, though, about the bathroom
thing.
Right, Because if, in your head, Buffalo Bill equals what a
trans woman is instead of justyou know the nice lady who's
helping you at the, you know theIT desk or whatever like,
because that's what we'reactually talking about when
we're talking about trans women.
(44:01):
But if you don't know anybodyand this is, as you say, one of
the most influential films ofthe generation yeah, I think
that's significant.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
And so I also think that it's significant.
I don't know this for sure, butDemi went on to make
Philadelphia, the Tom Hanks filmabout gay men dying of AIDS.
And I personally have no doubtthat that was intentional after
getting all the pushback becauseof Silence of the Lambs.
Speaker 2 (44:29):
You think it was?
Speaker 1 (44:30):
penance.
Yeah, he was like, okay, I'mhearing all this pushback.
He was defensive about it, butI think he listened.
Pushback, he was defensiveabout it, but I think he
listened, considering how wellhe handled the issue of misogyny
in the workplace in this and heis a cis man.
I think he's capable oflistening and, honestly, the
storyline comes from Harris.
(44:51):
So it's a real mixed bag,because this did active and
direct harm To trans folks, totrans folks, to our trans
siblings, and at the same time,it's an amazing film.
So trying to hold both of thoseat the same time, you know
(45:13):
realizing like how much I reallydid take from.
So this is similar to Nightmareon Elm Street everyone
remembers the bad guy and notthe badass.
But I remembered Starling.
I remembered the long monologuewhere she talks about trying to
save the lamb.
I remembered that ending scenehow terrifying it was when she
(45:33):
couldn't see and Bill could, butshe still bests him and so,
like, I'm very grateful for that.
But why did it have to come atthe expense of trans folks and
their safety?
It's a tough one and in 2011,it was selected for Library of
(45:58):
Congress.
You know, because of culturalsignificance, that sort of thing
.
It's my hope that whensomething is done, it is chosen
for that, and I don't think thatthat's wrong.
It is an important part ofcultural significance also be a
conversation about what it meantthat this film was so beloved,
(46:22):
so award-winning, so influential, and it hinges on the idea that
trans is scary, yeah, anddangerous and dangerous.
And we've talked before about,like, if you have representation
, generally no one has a problemwith the fact that Anthony
(46:42):
Hopkins is a white man playing apsychopath, you know, because
that's not the only white man wesee.
Like that's no problem, okay,because there's plenty of white
characters out there.
We make a big deal of the factthat Clarice Starling is not
sexualized, because that's whathappens with all of the women
(47:05):
and like, even though there'salways roles for white women,
but we don't have anyrepresentation of trans
characters other than as thebutt of the joke through the 80s
and 90s and 2000s or as thishorrific villain in this case A
monster, an actual monster.
(47:26):
Yeah, and you know, as the moviesays, he's not actually trans,
but that also feels likegatekeeping in a way Totally
Like who gets to decide who istrans and who is not?
Speaker 2 (47:40):
yeah, yeah, it's that .
That doesn't feel good yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
So like that was the attempt to be like oh no, no,
you don't actually have to worryabout trans folks, because it's
not really not one of them yeah, that's very.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
No, that feels very problematic it's.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
Yeah, I also feel like I'm not fully equipped to
grapple with this movie.
Sure, sure, but it is.
I mean, it's a masterpiece of afilm.
And Foster, when she won theOscar for portraying Starling,
like, said she was so gratefulto be able to play this strong
(48:16):
woman.
Speaker 2 (48:17):
Mm.
Speaker 1 (48:18):
And like embody this, this what it means to be a good
investigator, what it means tobe both a team player and
someone who knows when to strikeout on her own, and all of that
because that was the otherthing they were talking about
Prior to this.
If you had a story about apolice officer or someone in law
enforcement, they were a rogueand she's by the book, and so
(48:42):
that kind of led to policeprocedurals.
You could claim this ispropaganda as well.
I have a lot of mixed feelingsabout this film.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
Yeah, any final original thoughts before I see
if I can reflect back to what Iheard?
Speaker 1 (48:56):
That's everything I brought.
I wanted to bring to the table.
Speaker 2 (49:05):
Okay, so let me see if I can reflect back to you
what I heard about this 1991Silence of the Lambs.
So I'll start with ClariceStarling, who I think you laid
out in several reasons why thischaracter is so powerful and so
feminist character is sopowerful and so feminist.
One of the things that I reallylike that you brought is the
way in which the filmmaker madeclear that she is an attractive
young woman, that she is anattractive woman without sort of
(49:32):
relying on the male gaze.
So we as the viewer do not seeher in sexualized positions.
Rather, the director showsother people reacting to her and
that allows us to see theeffect that she has, the fact
(49:53):
that others are sexualizing herwithout the director being
guilty of sexualizing her, whichis pretty cool, and we don't
see that very often.
Speaker 1 (50:03):
It was remarkable in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2 (50:06):
Because it's important to the storyline.
It's part of who she is andwhat she's contending with.
And to show it to us withoutsort of forcing us to also be
guilty of it, is really reallypowerful and in some ways makes
us an ally, and I like that alot.
So thank you for sort ofarticulating that in that way
(50:26):
and, on the feminist track, likethis does pass the Bechdel test
.
So, per Alison Bechdel, thereare at least two women with
names and they talk to eachother about something other than
a man or a boy, and so and thathappens in multiple ways Not
only does Clarice talk to eachother about something other than
a man or a boy, and thathappens in multiple ways.
Not only does Clarice talk toher friend from the academy, she
also talks to Catherine, who isthe victim she saves.
So that's pretty cool.
(50:54):
We witness Starling kind of pushback against her boss and
mentor and teacher for casualmisogyny in the workplace in a
way that is strong, unqualified,unequivocal, but also
respectful because, as you pointout, she didn't bring it up.
(51:17):
But also respectful because, asyou point out, she didn't bring
it up, she waited for him tobring it up, but then, once it
was up, once it was in theconversation like once it was
like conversation topic she gavehim the what for she didn't
pull any punches and that'spretty remarkable, like as a
role model, like for us it givesa a like a script.
(51:37):
Yeah, it gives a very clearscript for, for how to push back
about, against, against momentslike that.
Then the victim, the victim whogets saved.
Katherine also gave us likelike a whole human right.
She was a whole person.
So we saw that she was kind.
We saw that she cared aboutanimals.
(51:57):
We saw that she cared aboutanimals.
We saw that she recognized theanimal lover in her abuser, in
her would-be killer, and usedthat to her advantage.
She was resourceful, she justkept going, she did not lose
hope and she kept doing what sheneeded to do in order to try
and get out of the situation.
So she also was a prettyremarkable character.
(52:19):
So that was also really cool.
The not so cool is there's acouple of things in that column.
One is the suggestion of aromance between Clarice and
Hannibal Lecter which, though itmakes sense that Hannibal would
be into her, the idea thatClarice would reciprocate feels
(52:42):
anathema to the character that'sbeen created.
And at the time I had thereaction when I saw it which was
not in 91, but I had thereaction.
You just gave that sort ofshudder and the fact that
original author like wrotefuture and or was it the author
or was it other people in thefranchise?
Speaker 1 (53:02):
harris.
Yeah, harris, actually, likethat was his intention was to
create this romance betweenthese two people to create a
romance between them yucky.
Speaker 2 (53:11):
So that's, that's really gross.
Speaker 1 (53:13):
The other he actually has, like clarice, also eat
people in later books, which isjust like why, did you create
this character if you were goingto abuse her in this way?
Speaker 2 (53:26):
That's not who she is .
She's totally Harley Quinn.
Yeah, so he wanted a notcartoon version of Harley Quinn.
But sorry, harley's a cartoon.
Speaker 1 (53:34):
That's part of the reason why I say he's a man
writing women.
Yeah, is that that kind ofthing?
Speaker 2 (53:38):
It's say he's a, he's a man writing women, yeah, yeah
.
Speaker 1 (53:39):
Is that that kind of thing, like it's like you're
forcing your character intosomething?
Speaker 2 (53:43):
yeah, I want a really strong woman who defends her
boundaries, who also, like,makes herself become the thing
she hates.
Yeah, because she thinks sheloves him.
What?
Speaker 1 (53:53):
no, anyway, and I I don't know if the age difference
in the book is what it isbetween, between the character
Between the characters, betweenthe actors I should say Actors
and Jodie Foster, but it's alsolike not that that's the most
egregious difference betweenthem, but just in so many ways
it's like that's a no.
Speaker 2 (54:11):
Because she's in her 30s and he's in his, or she's in
her 20s.
She's in her late 20s, likeshe's, I think, jodie Foster was
like 28 or 29.
Speaker 1 (54:15):
And he was in her 20s .
Speaker 2 (54:16):
She's in her late 20s like she's, I think he's in his
foster was like 28 or 29 and hewas in his 50s.
Speaker 1 (54:23):
now there is like again harris kind of sets this
up where there is in the filmyou can definitely see there's a
suggestion of not improprietyor anything like that, but the
the hero worship of crawford andthe fact that her father died
young, like there is thissuggestion that she is attracted
to older men.
Speaker 2 (54:41):
Okay, yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:42):
So, and I know that Lecter is supposed to be older
than her- yeah.
Speaker 2 (54:46):
But, it's okay.
Another thing in the not socool column came from the book.
But you threw the book acrossthe room when it said that that
145 pound long body could onlybe katherine.
And katherine had beendescribed as zoftig and round
(55:06):
and fat throughout the wholebook and and then she's
identified as 145 pounds, whichis just inaccurate, frankly, and
sort of baked into like.
So as a result of the book andthat source material, though the
film in general seems to avoidfat phobia mostly, there is at
least like a suggestion or ahint that maybe some of these
(55:30):
victims it wouldn't happen tothem if they'd been thinner,
because Bill was looking forwomen with greater surface area
of skin.
So that was another sort ofthing in the not so great column
.
But the biggest thing in thenot so great column is this
elephant in the room which istransphobia and transmisogyny in
this film, which, thoughthrough exposition would sort of
(55:52):
suggest is not accurate becauseBill wasn't trans insofar as he
had gender dysphoria we weren'tusing that phrase in common
parlance in 1991, but thesuggestion is that this person
did not in fact have genderdysphoria and was a different
gender than their biological sex, but rather just wanted to be
(56:16):
someone completely differentthan who they were, and the
opposite gender, opposite sexwas as different as he could
imagine.
And so there's this expositionto suggest that he is not quote
unquote, really trans.
Speaker 1 (56:31):
That also is exhibiting the binary thinking,
like the most different thingyou can think of is to be a
woman.
Speaker 2 (57:00):
I'm like really, and then that's the binary and sort
of not make this into a weaponwith which culture would
bludgeon trans people.
But he wasn't actually capableof doing that, because it has
become a weapon with which tobludgeon trans people.
Speaker 1 (57:17):
Well, there was not a single trans person in the room
Right right For any part ofmaking this movie.
Speaker 2 (57:24):
There's so clearly a straight line between Buffalo
Bill and the freak out overbathrooms that we see, today
it's a straight line.
We don't need to kind of likecarefully trace the circuitous
route we can see it.
This movie helped to sort ofdefine transgenderism as
(57:48):
monstrosity and something to benot only feared but but
protected against, becausethey're going to kill you and
steal your skin.
So that's like the really bigthing.
That like is true, it's there,we can see it.
And also, this is a brilliantpiece of storytelling, a
(58:13):
brilliant piece of media, likethe use of the medium of film in
beautiful ways.
We have amazing performancesfrom some of the key actors,
notably Jodie Foster, whosemonologue about the lambs being
slaughtered made the on-locationflashback completely
unnecessary because she's sofucking compelling.
And also, like all of thesethings are true, which is a hard
(58:36):
thing for our brains to holdI'm including you and me, and
like listener, maybe you too,but like we've been expected to
sort of say like this is a goodone, this is a bad one, and like
not the same film, same film,same film.
So I think those are the bigthings that I heard.
(58:58):
Is there anything that I forgotthat you want to lift back up?
Speaker 1 (59:02):
just one like notable thing.
So brooke smith, who playedkatherine martin, and ted levine
, who played jame gum, wereactually became friendly off
camera and, and you know,enjoyed spending time together
like just just as friends.
And so there were points where,because of how Levine had to
(59:24):
treat her character when he wasacting like he had it to
separate himself, part of thereason why I bring this up is
this is not where we we startedour like obsession with serial
killers, right, no, but, and ina lot of ways that there is the
attempt to make this about likethe victims, like they really do
(59:44):
humanize the victims, but whatwe remember, the serial killers
we have like this long line ofmovies and tv and true crime and
stuff like that it's not justthat I I feel like this goes
back from the obsession withJack the Ripper and maybe even
before, but certainly that's apre-20th century.
(01:00:06):
The idea of the reallyintelligent serial killer, I
think came from this Sherlock.
Speaker 2 (01:00:11):
What about Moriarty?
Speaker 1 (01:00:14):
He only actually appears in the story in which
he's destroyed.
So it's not like he's battlinghim, the story in which he's
destroyed.
Oh, so it's not like, you know,he's battling him the whole
time, like he is in the BBCversion.
And so the reason like one ofthe things that I read was Mandy
Patinkin, who was in that TVshow, criminal Minds, quit after
two seasons because of thepsychic damage it was causing
(01:00:35):
him to be.
He's like it's the biggestmistake I ever made was to be on
this show because it was about,you know, profilers trying to
to catch serial killers, andevery night it's women being
raped from being abused.
And so mandy patinkin quit, tedlevine, having to to separate
from a friend because of how hehad to treat her on camera Like
(01:00:56):
is this like that psychic damageof like engaging with this
ugliness?
That, yes, that's human, it'svery human to be interested in
this sort of thing.
But I think that we can be, Idon't know like.
I don't have an answer for it,because I feel like Demi, in a
lot of ways, did the best hecould, and better than Harris
did, to make this about thehuman element of the victims,
(01:01:23):
the humanity of Starling, andcomparing it to the inhumanity
of both Lecter and Bill.
But there is psychic damagefrom playing these characters
and there's psychic damage fromlike bathing our brains in them
and I'm not sure how we dealwith that, that real human
impulse to be interested,because I feel it, like I.
(01:01:46):
I saw this when I was like 13.
They considered a horror movie,which I never did because at
that 13 I wouldn't have watchedsomething that I thought of as a
horror movie.
I thought of it as apsychological mystery.
Yeah, yeah, I am veryinterested in like these kinds
of puzzles but at the same time,like recognizing that there is
(01:02:07):
staring into the face of thiskind of ugliness not only allows
us to push it off onto amarginalized group, you know,
and decide that the uglinessbelongs over there because it
was a trans person in this story, but it also, like causes
long-term psychic damage to us,I think, and I don't know how
you solve that.
Speaker 2 (01:02:27):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:02:29):
Well, this was a deep one.
This is a movie I think I couldtalk about for even longer.
Speaker 2 (01:02:35):
We have been talking for actually quite a long while,
so I'm going to actually wrapus up.
Speaker 1 (01:02:40):
So I'm not saying I want to, but I'm saying yes,
it's deep because there's a lotto it and there's a lot of like
bigger issues that come up as aresult of it.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:02:49):
So next time, em for something completely different.
I'm going to bring you my deepthoughts about SpongeBob
SquarePants Completely different.
Speaker 1 (01:03:01):
I'm going to bring you my deep thoughts about.
Speaker 2 (01:03:02):
SpongeBob SquarePants I'm ready.
Speaker 1 (01:03:04):
I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready.
I'm just thinking like HannibalLecter and SpongeBob
SquarePants.
Who kills in a pineapple underthe sea, hannibal Lecter and a
pineapple under the sea,hannibal Lecter.
Speaker 2 (01:03:20):
Well, if that happens , we'll talk to you about it
next time.
Yes, look forward to it.
This show is a labor of love,but that doesn't make it free to
produce.
If you enjoy it even half asmuch as we do, please consider
helping to keep us overthinking.
You can support us at ourPatreon there's a link in the
(01:03:41):
show notes or leave a positivereview so others can find us and
, of course, share the show withyour people.
Thanks for listening.
Our theme music is ProfessorUmlaut by Kevin MacLeod from
incompetechcom.
Find full music credits in theshow notes.
Thank you to ResonateRecordings for editing today's
(01:04:02):
episode.
Until next time, remember popculture is still culture, and
shouldn't you know what's inyour head?
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