Silence of the Lambs star Ted Levine says he regrets film’s trans depictions: “Having gotten aware and worked with trans folks, and understanding a bit more about the culture & the meaning of gender… It’s unfortunate that the film vilified that, and it’s fucking wrong. And you can quote me on that.”
But the movie explicitly states that Buffalo Bill is not trans, and explains why.
Demonizing male gender nonconformity isn’t great either.
Right, they should have focused on demonising the nonconforming super intelligent neurodiverse Eastern European man-eating psychiatrist only. Or perhaps the abusive greedy mental hospital owner. Or the cops who are too stupid to keep a single man locked up. 🤦♂️
I used to watch “Monk” and there was no way I’d initially believe that Captain Stottlemeyer was the guy from Silence of the Lambs but wow, holy crap!
My book club read the book about a year ago and from what I remember it devoted a scene to clearly explaining that Buffalo Bill did not meet the criteria for gender reassignment surgery and was just kinda sick in the head. We were impressed with how it was handled for the time that it was written. Unsurprisingly this scene did not translate well when rewritten for the movie.
I just finished the book last week and the part where Lecture and Clarice discuss Bufaalo Bill being trans, they basically say “He isn’t trans, he’s just crazy and real trans people are not violent usually and keep to themselves”. I’m not defending the passage, it is still not great when reading it today, but for being from the 80s it was pretty dang respectful, mostly.
While I definitely get it and don’t disagree in the slightest, I also would just like to point out that upon seeing the film (even at what most people would probably consider way too young an age lol) did I ever think that Bill’s plan to make himself a new skin by murdering and sewing together the skin of his victims was being portrayed as an accepted, reasonable path toward gender reassignment… I mean, dude is literally what you would expect to see pictured on the Wikipedia article for ‘crackhead serial killing psycho’ lol I feel like that should be one of your first indicators that a character isn’t like a ‘good dude’ or something. 😋
In all seriousness, tho, it trips me out that there are absolutely people out there who would be more than happy to engage in the mental gymnastics necessary to twist reality into whatever fucked up pretzel they need to push their narrative.
Right? I actually find it really pandering when a marginalized group is consistently depicted as infallible. They stop being characters and become stand-in caricatures.
Obviously, its a worse issue when it happens the other way around.
Look up ed gien, was literally the inspiration for most serial killer movies all wrapped into one but job
When I see such a film (Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho is another example) I take it as an indicator how far we’ve come.
Is Psycho seen as transphobic? In the big exposition at the end of the movie
Tap for spoiler
someone accuses Norman of being a transvestite and the psychologist interrupts to clarify that Norman didn’t dress as his mother to “achieve a sexual change or satisfaction,” but specifically because he was “doing everything possible to keep alive the illusion of his mother being alive.”
Contrast that with The Silence of the Lambs, where the character’s sexual “deviancy” is actually portrayed as a motivating facet of his murderous, perverted mind. Psycho seems pretty nuanced by comparison and even progressive by the standards of 1960.
Especially since Silence of the Lambs only came out like, what, 15 years ago.
fact checks himself; sees it is 35 years old
Well fuck.
Yes, it was a different time. Not defending it, just saying that people did not have the same insights and viewpoints as we have today.
Judging past people by today’s standards is not fair. You can judge their modern-day image by today’s standards, but not their past selves.
To a degree.
It’s not always so black and white. Take for example child marriages where little girls were betrothed to older dudes. Or how some cultures would treat people based on race, gender, etc.
Some things can, and should, be judged critically (holocaust, “comfort women”). Some things can get a pass (movies like Silence pf the Lambs).
TL;DR history should be judged on a case by case basis and we should avoid blanket judgement.
That’s a very good nuance
I’ll argue that Fatal Games is bad, was always bad, and forever will be bad, and it’s not because times were different. It’s because they picked a lazy bigoted trope to build the killer off of.
This is a good take.
Recently finally started watching Star Trek (the original) and holy shit it is some misogynistic bullshit, like so many plots are built on “woman bad” and even when it isn’t they take time out of virtually every episode to make sure the men have a chance to demean the women a bit.
I sure am glad that isn’t as easily accepted today.
On the bright side, at least TOS was trying to push other social norms the right way, and they did some good. They didn’t get everything right but they got the ball rolling.
And on Trek: TNG started out with some pretty questionable episodes (especially the borderline racist planet), but it also gave us Measure of a Man, that reverse-sex planet with Riker, and introduced species like the Binars and that androgynous race which I tried to push some more boundaries. Then DS9 went ahead and gave us DAX, who I think in the early seasons did a good job kind of introducing some of the issues with identity that pertain to gender transitioning (I loved the Klingon approach: Dax, my old friend!).
Yeah it’s a gradual progression but it’s still shocking to see by today’s standards. Like, a totally normal scene will be playing out and then the camera will focus on Kirk and some male crewmate so they can belittle one of the women for like no fucking reason.
I’m trying to get through the show because I started with TNG and never went backwards, but I know my late dad loved the show and I want that connection to him… it’s hard to get through sometimes. I just watched the episode where they find Apollo and the whole thing centers around how the one female crewmate just instantly fawns over him. He like forcibly changes her outfit to “barely there” and she’s like “oh my god it’s so pretty thank you” where any real person would not react that way.
The Klingon thing is indeed one of my favorites. I’m glad ST got its shit together on this haha.
I still think it’s an absolutely hilarious, and likely unintended, stroke of genius with the Binars.
They take the Hat to the extreme, where every single aspect of their very being involves binary in some way, to the point of always working in pairs.
Except their gender.
This is sadly a common trope in horror and slasher movies (which I do love as a genre). TV Tropes calls it a Fraudien Excuse.
You’ve got Psycho as probably the most famous, Sleepaway Camp and sequels (not great representation), Insidius for some reason, Dressed to Kill, Fatal Games (this one was especially egregious and of the worst type of bigotry).
I just watched Joe Bob’s Last Drive In Show where this season he did a section on Slasher movies and talked about this exact trope (See Intruder and In a Violent Nature).
Never would have guessed that the guy from Monk was Buffalo Bill.
