America Elected the Late, Great Hannibal Lecter
Trump's references to the cannibalistic killer take on a new light after his recent presidential victory.
During his (unfortunately successful) reelection campaign, Donald Trump spent a strange amount of time talking about Hannibal Lecter. Trump’s rallies frequently invoked the cannibalistic serial killer made famous by Sir Anthony Hopkins in Jonathan Demme’s 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs, based on Thomas Harris’s novel of the same name. Trump almost always referred to him as “the late, great Hannibal Lecter,” suggesting Hannibal is both real (he is not) and deceased (he is not).
Much was written about Trump’s peculiar fixation, which evolved over the campaign: Was he conflating refugees seeking asylum with serial killers who eat people? Was he just havin’ a laugh? Was it a sign of the near-octogenarian’s cognitive decline? Will Trump expect Hannibal Lecter and RFK Jr. to duke it out for control of the Department of Health and Human Services? No one can know for sure, but what I do know is that, once I found my druthers, I kept returning to this talking point in the wake of Trump’s reelection. (You must understand by now I can only make sense of the world through pop culture.)
Harris’s books sold well in the 1980s, and his first, 1981’s Red Dragon, was adapted into the excellent 1986 Michael Mann film Manhunter with Logan Roy Brian Cox. Hannibal Lecter, however, was not a ubiquitous cultural figure until The Silence of the Lambs. The film grossed $272.7 million in 1991 dollars and won five Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Actor for Hopkins, who portrayed Hannibal in two early-2000s sequels. The character continued in a prequel book and film, both titled Hannibal Rising, and was further immortalized in the exceptional and underseen 2013-2015 NBC series Hannibal starring Mads Mikkelsen, that greatest of Danes.
An internet adage about the myriad Hannibal performances is that Cox’s is a psychopath, Hopkins’s is Dracula, and Mikkelsen’s is Satan. I found that true when watching both Manhunter and The Silence of the Lambs last month. In particular, there’s something otherworldly about Hopkins’s Hannibal, largely due to Demme’s unwavering camera forcing us to stare deep into Hannibal’s still, unblinking eyes. Hopkins’s Hannibal speaks with the vaguest European lilt and does not move or emote, appearing inactive and unalive. Essentially, Hopkins’s Lecter is profoundly inhuman.
Yet he’s nevertheless compelling. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. Some of that is because my eyes have nowhere else to look, as Demme and cinematographer Tak Fujimoto shot the film in extraordinary closeup with actors looking right into camera. But Demme’s film is obsessed with Hannibal; the film’s portrayal of a psychopath and its methodical investigation of serial killers led to our fascination with true crime. While he’s in roughly a quarter of the 118-minute film, Hannibal looms over every scene he isn’t in, lurking behind each frame and gnawing at (on?) every character’s brains. The Silence of the Lambs confronts a great many ideas – gender politics and sexual identity, compulsion, the nature of evil, the damage of unbelonging – and Jodie Foster’s Clarice Starling is ostensibly the main character; none of it escapes the shadow of Hopkin’s Lecter.
Which brings us to Donald Trump, a man who has haunted practically every waking moment of American life for nearly a decade. Trump is too narcissistic to substantively equate himself with a psychopath who eats people. (Not to mention that Hannibal famously despises “the rude,” and he certainly would find Trump among “the rude.”) Nor do I mean to suggest Trump is a cannibal or serial killer; the US government only has room for one serial killer, and Ted Cruz claimed that title years ago. I do, however, mean both are just kinda not human. Can you picture either Hannibal or Trump chilling with their friends at the bar? Strolling through a park? What do they talk about? Do they even have friends? They’re both just friggin’ weird but are bizarrely, dangerously captivating, possessing an unholy grasp on their audience.
Like Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs, pretty much everything has been or will be about Donald Trump. Whether physically present or not, Trump will be the centrifugal force of life, lingering over all – which, ultimately, is what Trump and Hannibal want. They yearn for everything to be about them and to turn the object of their affections into their mirror image. For Hannibal, it’s Clarice, as he goads his new plaything into a deranged mentorship; for Trump, it’s America writ large, as he warps its citizens, institutions, and ideals into a twisted reflection of his bitter, depraved psyche.
Midway through The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal Lecter escapes custody, slaughtering guards in a ballet of blood, peaking when he wears a guard’s face. At the film’s denouement, Hannibal ends a call to Clarice by saying he’s “having a friend for dinner.” We see Hannibal stalk his therapist, Dr. Frederick Chilton, so he can, y’know, have him for dinner (a line Trump reverentially repeated throughout his allusions to the late, great Hannibal Lecter). Like Hannibal’s implied revenge, his escape is violent and brutal, all orchestrated by a beast unshackled. This will be the next four years under Donald Trump.
I won’t pretend to know what will happen. (That’s for smarter people to address, and I link to some throughout.) But I know Trump’s second term will be very, very bad: policies ensuring American’s health and safety will weaken; rights of minorities and underprivileged people will gradually be taken away; the climate will only get worse; Trump will enrich himself and his acolytes off the backs of the working people who voted for him; democracy itself with will be shaken, maybe irreparably. Like Hannibal breaking out, Trump is unmoored and vengeful. The only difference is Hannibal hasn’t reshaped the federal courts, Congress, and state and local governments in his image.
I also don’t have anything to say to make this better. Put simply, this entire thing feels really fucking bad. There’s solace in community and loved ones, in being kind to each other, and finding small ways to weather this shitstorm. Trump and his cronies will try to turn us against each other, and we can’t let them. Instead of sharing that Instagram post, maybe volunteer to an advocacy organization, support your local newspaper, or read a book on antifascism. Hunker down, be good to your community, and resist like nothing before.
Because we need to be ready. The monster is unleashed, and he’s having a friend for dinner.
P.S. I typically do some semblance of culture criticism but had some things to get off my chest so here we are! Since this is BS Reviews, I suppose you could call this “BS Reviews the 2024 Election” and it’s two thumbs way down. Anyway, maybe you’re wondering where I’ve been and aren’t you very nice for asking! I’ve been busy with work, class, and life, but, also, I was trapped in the Dark Place with Alan Wake. Hopefully I don’t go missing for another 11 weeks!