#Jame gumb

[kobblesdoll]

LONGLEGS || SILENCE OF THE LAMBS

[denjoust]

Silence of the Lambs - Thomas Harris

[libbydd]

some hannibal tetralogy characters

[purvurs]

i am. probably not finishing this. at least not anytime soon. just take it anyways

[zephhhhh]

cringetober 29. hot villain (bonus points if woman)

i 👏 support 👏 women's 👏 right to make a skinsuit if denied healthcare wrongs 👏

[brokehorrorfan]

Bottleneck Gallery will release The Silence of the Lambs 18x24 giclee prints by Readful Things today, July 18, at 12pm EST. The hand-numbered edition of 125 costs $50.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis: Buffalo Bill

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

Back in 2019, I started Psycho Analysis with a review of one of cinema’s most overshadowed and underrated villains. Now that I’m better at this, I've decided I'm redoing those old reviews, giving them a fresh coat of paint, fitting them into the modern Psycho Analysis style, and updating the scores. I figured there’s no better place to start than with good ol’ Jame Gumb.

Jame Gumb (yes, Jame, he doesn’t have an “S” in his name) is the enigmatic serial killer from The Silence of the Lambs known as Buffalo Bill. He’s left a trail of flayed women in his wake, his motives unknown, and it’s up to Clarice Starling to stop him with a little help from a smarmy cannibal asshole. He’s the perfect sort of twisted, perverted freak you’d hope to find in a grim, gritty detective story. In fact, he almost seems a bit uncontroversial and unremarkable in terms of villains, doesn’t he?

Oh, if only. Unfortunately, there are aspects of Bill’s character that have made him the second most controversial villain of 90s cinema after Ray Finkle from Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. And we’re going to discuss all of that, because the big question when discussing Bill ultimately isn’t whether he’s good or bad, but is he good despite the unfortunate implications he ends up carrying due to what is and isn’t adapted from the book?

Motivation/Goals: Bill just wants to play dress up. Unfortunately, his idea of dressing up involves skinning women and then sewing said skin into a woman suit he can wear to dance about in his underground dungeon, penis tucked between his legs. To accomplish this Ed Gein-esque goal, he uses the playbooks of other killers like Ted Bundy to lure in unsuspecting women of considerable girth, traps them in a well in his basement, and forces them through a strict skin care regiment until it’s time to kill and skin them.

All of this is just incredibly fucked up, and also isn’t elaborated on to quite the degree the novel does due to Bill not being a character we focus on to gain real insight into. The full reveal of his plan is a shocking twist, but we don’t have the full psychological scope of his actions that was laid bare in the novel; while it doesn’t diminish Gumb in my opinion, it does leave the door open for some… problematic readings of what he’s up to, which we’ll discuss later.

Performance: While I don’t think I could possibly say he is an actor who manages to achieve the lofty heights of Hopkins, Ted Levine is still absolutely fantastic in his role. He’s an actor who always manages to inject his characters with a sort of unsettling air; just look at his brief appearance in Shutter Island if you need proof of this. Those skills are put to good use here, as he manages to make Gumb truly unnerving, and arguably far more realistic in his depiction of a serial killer than Lecter is.

Final Fate: After stalking Clarice Starling through his blackened basement while wearing night vision goggles, the tables are turned on Bill and the hunter becomes the hunted as Clarice unloads her gun into him. It’s a rather fitting death; as he preyed on women at their most vulnerable, it only makes sense that a woman strip him of all his power when he appears to be in control.

Evilness: I really don’t think there is any good argument against Bill getting the full 10/10. I mean, the man skins women so that he can wear their skin as a suit. How much fucking worse can a person even be in a story like this? It says a lot that Lecter comes off as more reasonable and less evil than the guy (even though this is decidedly not the case).

Best Scene: You know what it is:

And it’s even Jay and Silent Bob approved!

Really gotta compliment the song choice here; Q Lazzarus’ ominous dance tune “Goodbye Horses” forever had its image altered by its use here, but it really heightens the mood and feeds in to the unsettling nature of Bill’s dance. You can’t hear the opening notes of the song without this scene immediately coming to mind. And to think, its inclusion was all because she happened to pick up director Johnathan Demme in her taxi during a blizzard and showed him her demo tape.

Best Quote: From the above scene, Bill drops one of the most famous serial killer quotes in cinematic history:

“Would you fuck me? I’d fuck me. I’d fuck me so hard.”

Final Thoughts & Score: Buffalo Bill is horrendously underrated as a villain, though clearly there are some out there who appreciate him (Seth Green for example, who based Chris Griffin’s voice in Family Guy off of Buffalo Bill’s). That being said, the movie unfortunately ends up dipping into problematic territory as by excising most of the elaboration from the novel, Bill can unfortunately be read as an unflattering depiction of a trans woman.

Now you and I know that isn’t true, and anyone else who has read the book knows it isn’t true, but do you really think the average moviegoer in the early 90s cared about that? They see the freaky man dancing around with his schlong tucked away, wearing a woman’s skin, and find it unsettling and grotesque. It is incredibly easy to see how someone could see this as something akin to a villain in a crappy JKR detective novel, and it really didn’t have to be that way because the book really goes out of its way to not demonize trans people; while a bit outdated by modern standards, the book explains that trans people are not inherently violent and that Gumb is merely deluding himself into believing he is trans as some sort of warped justification for his actions. It even pointing out he was rejected for gender reasignment surgery. The movie has a few lines, but that’s kind of disappointing compared to the original novel, isn’t it? Then again, perhaps over-explaining would lead to the same criticisms the ending of Psycho gets, where laying things out for the audience in a way that tries not to demonize marginalized individuals is seen as tacky and unneeded.

Considering that Gumb was inspired by real life killers and their motivations (particularly Ed Gein, who has a higher number of fictional characters inspired by him than he does victims) and because I read the book, I don’t necessarily find his portrayal all that offensive, but I am a cis guy. If you do find his character tasteless, I won’t exactly blame you. It’s a rather unfortunate side effect of the transition from book to film that we lost the details that would ameliorate the problematic image of the character. With all that said, I still think he gets an 8.5/10. He’s certainly not as iconic as Lecter is and he’s too problematic to score any higher, but he is a very effective villain for the film he’s in and Levine’s performance is chilling and entrancing.

If nothing else, his existence led to the greatest open RP of all time. That’s gotta count for something.

[wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee28374728]

Pt 3 'memes that let you know the characters without interacting the media'

Who wants a dumb, poorly drawn weekly comic based off these ridiculous interpretations of these characters?

Probably going to do it with or without appreciation

[burnt-cheese-toastie]

Dragon Moth

the strangest comfort ship

two ponies that don't feel comfortable in their own skin, learn and explore their identities and sexualities. together, they feel at least a little comfortable around each other. an AU where these two haven't gotten far in their murders before getting caught. and taken to be rehabilitated cuz they tried to kill people, with their therapist being the well-known dr.lecter, though he is still the cannibal killer he is in the original, he hasn't been caught yet. this AU was randomly created by a what if scenario. but genuinely very comforting for me, as gender and sexual exploration wasn't so easily accessible to me. plus my obsession over the Hannibal series.

🪡buffalo bill/jame gumb/jane gumb🦋 goes by she/they/he as their still trying to figure herself out.

🐉red dragon🩸 goes by he/him but doest like being referred as francis, dolarhyde is fine though

im sorry if this isnt comfortable for some viewers ill be tagging anything that has to do with this #dragonmothAU

[voodoopriestess9999]

[kobblesdoll]

they hate it when you serve pale androgynous killer with a beautiful voice

[nervytumbleweed]

Hannibal Teratology if the characters had Twitter pt 2!!!

[cnaaawd]

if you wanna be a woman we're gonna have to change your name to jame DUMB because girls are (removed for hate speech)

[purvurs]

goodbye hoooooorses

[soldateins]

drew a cute lil jame and precious whilst i'm sick :)

[liminsendhelp]

Troye Sivan as Buffalo Bill when?

Troye Sivan, one of your girls/ Ted Levine, silence of the lambs