My Beloved Little Weird Murder Husband Show
October 27, 2016 11:39 AM   Subscribe

A sizable video essay on Hannibal, the embrace of The Other, and the fascination with death, courtesy of Shannon Strucci of So You Wanna Be A Film Nerd.

(Hannibal previously, previously.)
posted by Peevish (31 comments total) 24 users marked this as a favorite
 
How timely! I just ordered the complete box set on blu-ray this morning, for watching now that the nights are long, dark and cold.

I miss you, Hannibal, please come back
posted by soren_lorensen at 11:58 AM on October 27, 2016 [5 favorites]


I confess that when I saw the "Bryan Fuller no longer show-runner on CBS Star Trek reboot" article today, my immediate reaction was GOOD THAT'LL LEAVE HIM MORE TIME TO GET HANNIBAL SEASON 4 ROLLING AS SOON AS THE AMAZON STREAMING RIGHTS EXPIRE IN SEPT 2017, PLEASE UNIVERSE PLEASE, IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT'S HOLY, she said, perusing TFA while sipping Dr. Pepper from a Murder Husbands mug.

At least my cancellation grief has subsided to a manageable level, most of the time.
posted by FelliniBlank at 12:43 PM on October 27, 2016 [9 favorites]


I misread, and clicked expecting Cannibal, the Musical.

I don't know why.
posted by rokusan at 1:01 PM on October 27, 2016 [3 favorites]


A pair of well done essays there. I wouldn't have minded if Strucci had slowed her speech down a bit in the Hannibal essay, a little tough to take all that in at speed, and both essays have a mix of things I'd, at least, raise some questions on, but I'd be thrilled to actually be able to do that with someone who obviously cares a great deal about the subjects as she does. As she say in the second video essay, disagreement isn't a problem, the goal is to share enthusiasm and learn more about the things you like.

Still though, Truffaut better than Godard? Please...
posted by gusottertrout at 1:01 PM on October 27, 2016


I could talk about The Hunger's influence on Hannibal all the live long day. I noticed it almost immediately and was very gratified when I later heard Fuller confirm. I had about the same reaction to that movie has he did when I was 15.
posted by soren_lorensen at 1:04 PM on October 27, 2016


Related info for Fullerphiles: Bryan Fuller has already left Star Trek: Discovery.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:34 PM on October 27, 2016


Also related: Star Trek: Discovery has left the realm of things I really care about.
posted by Artw at 1:42 PM on October 27, 2016 [3 favorites]


Agreed. Fuller bailing takes me from mild, grudging interest straight to DGAF.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:43 PM on October 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


While it wasn't mentioned as an influence, to me, the most similar films to Hannibal would be some of Peter Greenaway's. Hannibal doesn't only look like some Greenaway films, the concerns are the same, death, decay, psychological strangeness, and the undermentioned topic of art itself.

There is, I think, an interesting article to be written about the show Hannibal's view of art and criticism, or more aptly, analysis. Considering a huge portion the characters in the show are professional analysts of some sort, forensic, psychoanalystic, detective, critics and writers to name some of the most obvious, with the audience given the perspective of Hannibal towards the "art" he and others create. Likening art to violence, and having Will as a unschooled apprentice in this form who grows to want to master it on his own carries some suggestions about art that are tied to how one views Hannibal and his elitism. The other main characters all move towards Hannibal's way of viewing the world as the show progresses, even if they, like Will start out as more identified with rural, outdoor settings and "simple tastes".

Since the heightened realism of the show includes removing most "ordinary" people from the surroundings, leaving a strangely depopulated feel to many episodes, particularly noticeable in season two, the show starts to become something like a seduction coaxing the audience into seeing art and murder/cannibalism as intrinsically linked. What this says about the audience and/or the show's perspective is fascinating and perhaps more than a little disturbing.
posted by gusottertrout at 1:52 PM on October 27, 2016 [6 favorites]


He chose, in part, a reboot of Amazing Stories over Star Trek: Discovery? Hmm.
posted by gusottertrout at 1:55 PM on October 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


Also related: Star Trek: Discovery has left the realm of things I really care about.

Per Ars Technica, he's written the first two episodes and will still be involved as an executive producer. He seems to be stepping back from the showrunner role due to overcommitment with other projects.

In Hannibal news, we may not have the seven seasons, but Janice Poon's cookbook is out, and sounds amazing.
posted by figurant at 1:58 PM on October 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


Per Ars Technica, he's written the first two episodes and will still be involved as an executive producer. He seems to be stepping back from the showrunner role due to overcommitment with other projects.

I'll catch those two on non-CBS streaming wiener they finds their way to there, I'm sure.
posted by Artw at 2:07 PM on October 27, 2016


He chose, in part, a reboot of Amazing Stories over Star Trek: Discovery? Hmm.

Shortly before they changed release date someone pointed out they were still advertising for someone to do VFX for them. Nobody has heard zip about casting. I suspect it's a bit of a troubled production.
posted by Artw at 2:09 PM on October 27, 2016


Janice Poon's cookbook is indeed amazing! I just got my copy, and it's beautifully crafted, funny, and substantial. Janice clearly is tapped into the realm of tumblr fannibals, which is very endearing. For example, she name checks Scarf Dad in a recipe, which is all kinds of hilarious. Here's a very enjoyable podcast where she's interviewed by The Canadian Crew. She's led an eclectic, zesty life, and it's very interesting to find out how she ended up doing this, and what else she's working on.

I haven't watched the video essay yet, but I will. Thanks for the link!

Anyone else excited to see Mads in Dr. Strange and Rogue One?
posted by the thought-fox at 2:20 PM on October 27, 2016 [3 favorites]


Ooh yeah this touches on a lot of conversations fans have been having about the overarching nature of the show, cycles of abuse and cycles of grief, the horror we 'tolerate' , and even what avoiding aspects of yourself can warp your persaonlity. (There's the vampire metaphor sure and the closet metaphor, but there's also Insitualized abuse in there, what happens when people decide you're not a person but a Problem)

The engement with horror tradition and concepts is full in. You could spend hours (and we have) discussing the repeated use of cycles and reflection and doubles. For a show dripping in blood and gore it often came off as one of the more moral takes on TV.

One thing I've always had half a mind to write is Hannibal's status as a fan work, as it shares a lot of unique traits with fanfic, exploring undrametized parts of a story, pulling from a large and diverse 'canon', fixing parts of the existing story ...for example very few people bought Clarice's seduction in the end of the Hannibal book, it felt like a forgone conclusion without the work to back it up, whereas the seduction on the show feels earned ..and also why I don't think there will be a season 4 cause if you ...undo that last action it takes a lot of the morality out with it.

(And yes the cookbook is fantastic, I'm making Cumberland sauce right now actually!)
posted by The Whelk at 2:26 PM on October 27, 2016 [6 favorites]


Also...if you haven't seen Mads in this literally auto-erotic Ford commercial, you need to clickety-click on this link right now. Seriously. Your life will be enriched. It's weird and over the top and beautifully atmospheric, and could easily be scenes from Hannibal Season 4 at certain points.
posted by the thought-fox at 2:27 PM on October 27, 2016 [4 favorites]


Reminder that canonically Hannibal Lecter is a gear head (it's the one skill Clarice can beat him in, she Knows All About Cars)
posted by The Whelk at 2:28 PM on October 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


I have Plans for lomo saltado from the cookbook this weekend.

(It's nice to see you all again, Cannibal Club members. <3)
posted by Stacey at 2:48 PM on October 27, 2016 [2 favorites]


I think I shared this with the Whelk when I heard he was coming to Toronto and was doing a Hannibal tour, but here it is for interest: I work in a wardrobe rental house for film and tv productions, and this is what it looked like when Hannibal's costume department called.
posted by peagood at 9:02 PM on October 27, 2016 [4 favorites]




I confess that when I saw the "Bryan Fuller no longer show-runner on CBS Star Trek reboot" article today, my immediate reaction was GOOD THAT'LL LEAVE HIM MORE TIME TO GET HANNIBAL SEASON 4 ROLLING AS SOON AS THE AMAZON STREAMING RIGHTS EXPIRE IN SEPT 2017, PLEASE UNIVERSE PLEASE, IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT'S HOLY, she said, perusing TFA while sipping Dr. Pepper from a Murder Husbands mug.

Yeah, I mean, I've been meaning to eventually try to get into Star Trek, and a Fuller-helmed Trek would have bumped that upwards on my priority list, but American Gods & especially any hypothetical future Hannibal-related things are definitely More Important for me.

In any case, totally watching this when I have more time this weekend. And possibly considering getting the cookbook! You guys are pretty convincing, and damn do I miss that show...
posted by ubersturm at 1:31 AM on October 28, 2016


While it wasn't mentioned as an influence, to me, the most similar films to Hannibal would be some of Peter Greenaway's. Hannibal doesn't only look like some Greenaway films, the concerns are the same, death, decay, psychological strangeness, and the undermentioned topic of art itself.

Another thing they share is my personal kink with the show - what I call (pace Angela Carter, sort of, though looking back at her work she uses the term slightly differently) the Sadeian. That is to say, it discusses morality by inverting the moral order (when I was at college there was a full-on reinterpretation and reclamation of Sade as a sort of social satirist going on, and I half absorbed it as I did everything else. But I will continue to witter on in my ignorance). The most explicit example of this in Greenaway is Drowning By Numbers. In a tie-in/promo documentary, Greenaway said that at its root was the notion that the bad are rewarded and the good punished. The obvious thing to play alongside Hannibal is The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, but I'd definitely schedule Drowning By Numbers with it.

(Anything else for the Hannibal film season? Saló, anyone? Un Chien Andalou? La Grand Bouffe? Something giallo?)

I must confess, I have terrible problems with the last section of Hannibal the series as it stands now. On the one hand, the way the ending interacts with the adaptation of Red Dragon feels to me like a betrayal of the Red Dragon characters - by largely stripping Dolarhyde of his backstory and then ultimately turning him into purely plot function (firstly the function of freeing Hannibal, secondly of turning up and threatening Hannibal and Will and then simply allowing himself to be killed by them) it turns the narrative into something hollow - it is a characteristic of Harris' villains that they do have an essential but broken humanity that they are aiming to transform into something almost supernatural - Lecter being the chief demon. The Dolarhyde of the end of Hannibal is just a threat doll, and this diminishes Lecter, too. Reba is always diminished and fobbed off - even in the novel - but it didn't have to be so, and Richard Armitage and Rutina Wesley are so good, I feel annoyed on their behalf.

The need to give the Fannibals what they want de-fangs Lecter (a character who introduces himself to us by murdering a randomly-chosen teenage girl by ripping out her lungs, which he then has for dinner, all to get the attention of a cute boy) and turns the implied fate of Alana and Bedelia into something tawdry and misogynistic - after all, they need to be punished because they opposed the murder husbands. Ideally, the narrative turnaround would involve Hannibal's destruction because they learned to embrace the amorality (or anti-morality) he introduced into the world. Similarly, the interest he took in Will should be the thing that leads to his downfall, the spark of human sentimentality that is the chink in his demonic armour and causes his unbecoming. I'm sure that if it does (or could) go to another season, Fuller could do something like that, or something equally as narratively satisfying. Leaving it here, though, feels simultaneously nasty and sentimental. I suppose I'm concerned that Fuller's background in continuing series means that he's superlative at takeoffs and aerobatics, and never really gives landings any clear thought at all until he's just about to run out of fuel, while the interesting area of television is changing into something much more novelistic rather than open-ended.

I suppose there's something of my growing irritation with fandom in there, which I'm attempting to dignify with some specious pseudo-academicism. But, still.

Not to harsh anyone's buzz or anything.

I'll get my coat.
posted by Grangousier at 3:42 AM on October 28, 2016 [3 favorites]


No buzz harshed here. I liked Hannibal for a number of reasons already much discussed, but there are a number of real issues one might take with it too. For one, the whole interplay between fanfic and the show leads to some choices that may be pleasing, in a sense, on-screen, but are so more in the meta realm, where shows are about themselves and previous media more than anything outside.

It's something I tend to think about in terms of prescriptive vs descriptive art, where even in its broadest application of fantasy or heightened realism, as claimed for Hannibal, there is some necessary connection to the world as it is and/or the world as we'd wish it to be. (These two things inform each other of course, it's more the amount of play between the poles is where I'm focusing.)

A big criticism of Game of Thrones, for example, is in how the women on the show are treated, with power unequally shared and rape a common trope. Hannibal takes pride in avoiding that sort of thing, and for media as media that is certainly a welcome change. At the same time though it is working against the world as it is, where women indeed are treated terribly and rape is all too common. Game of Thrones works off that paradigm in creating its fantasy world, with some success and some big problems.

Hannibal works more off a world as people would like to see it shown in film, but that necessarily removes some of the real psychological features that make our world so different. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, and nothing inherently better about the Games of Thrones method, particularly when matched by how it is often filmed and the fact it is a fantasy and thus unavoidably unreal to begin with, but Hannibal's method does have some cost and can create alternatives perhaps only better in being different and appealing to new audiences than working through its art to capturing something more meaningful.

And I'm sure I've probably now annoyed Hannibal fans, Games of Thrones fans and haters and likely fan-fic writers too so I should stop there for now.
posted by gusottertrout at 4:05 AM on October 28, 2016 [1 favorite]


I must confess, I have terrible problems with the last section of Hannibal the series as it stands now.

Yes. The first two seasons of HANNIBAL are very good. The last season is garbage.

The main problem is that the series started taking Hannibal at his own estimation. It was much better when the show simultaneously showed Hannibal as - in Mikkelsen's fantastic phrase - "Lucifer tempting you with the apple of your own psyche" - and a hollow, somewhat pathetic narcissist who destroys better people than himself in order to reassure himself that he is superior rather than broken.

Collapsing that ambiguity into "Hannibal is great and if you don't think so you are homophobic" was a ghastly decline in artistic quality. One that the real Hannibal would probably punish with some very elaborate murders.

And the treatment of female characters in the third season was just vile. I quite liked Alanna. Sigh.

Ideally, the narrative turnaround would involve Hannibal's destruction because they learned to embrace the amorality (or anti-morality) he introduced into the world. Similarly, the interest he took in Will should be the thing that leads to his downfall, the spark of human sentimentality that is the chink in his demonic armour and causes his unbecoming.

Personally, I think that the story needed to come to a view on whether or not Hannibal was correct about the world. To be honest, the only ethical stance I can see it taking would have been to condemn him for his own utter self-delusion.

In the first couple of seasons it is perfectly possible to see Hannibal as basically a vainglorious twerp cosying up to someone far more talented than he is (Will Graham) in order to flatter himself that they are "just alike" - a bit like a critic making friends with an artistic genius and then saying, unselfconsciously, "we are both artists, aren't we?". And, also, to punish Graham for not thinking about him and contemptuously referring to Hannibal's work as "field kabuki" - a kind of stalkerish spite.

But your version would have been a perfectly fine direction they could have taken. It would at least have entailed an interesting evolution or reversal of character relationships and kept the door open for some kind of ambiguity or complexity.

Instead, we got... Well... That thing...
posted by lucien_reeve at 5:19 AM on October 28, 2016


I don't think Hannibal is removed from reality at all. Not even in a "oh but it's dream logic" kind of way. It's removed from fridge logic because that turns out to be just another convention which had to be held over a flame and burned away to get to the essentials.

The contrast with Law and Order: Sports Utility Vehicle was spot on. That show is the prototypical procedural, and purports to be an abuse narrative, and is flat and unimaginative enough to pass as "realistic" even though it (shock and amazement) bears no relation to the way the legal system actually operates. Along comes Hannibal and chucks out all pretension to realism in its procedural aspects, but by playing up the way institutional/procedural logic is no match for the human flaws of the people operating in that system? That is nothing like people want to believe the world operates, but try having a major crisis where you are forced into reliance on these systems, and you'll find that everyone involved is... all too very human.

Likewise with abuse, and the commitment to getting to the heart of the experience of abuse: season 1 is the main character coming to realize that he has been abused and who done it; season 2 is the main character convincing others that he has been abused and that something must be done about it (only to have all official systems withdraw support again, leading to total disaster), season 3 is an attempt to return to normal life in the face of knowledge of how the world really works. Meanwhile, you have various perspectives from the audience, which... really make me feel pessimistic, but that's another tangent.

I tend to agree with Whelk that if there were a season 4, it would undo the morality of the ending; but if you watch the whole thing at face value with no metacommentary taken into consideration, Bedelia's leg scene alone is enough to undo the morality of the ending UNLESS you interpret it, as I did, that she cut off her own leg in anticipation of Hannibal's arrival. Which would fit in character with Bedelia as someone who moved towards the threat by running off with it to Europe. But hey, there are objections to that view, and (resorting to commentary) Fuller himself said it wasn't so. I mean, we've been actively encouraged to rely on metacommentary to interpret the final scene: Reichenbach Falls means Hannigram are still alive, the table settings around Bedelia's leg mean Hannigram are still alive, MM himself says Hannigram live a quiet life together and then go on the hunt, everyone says they were honestly expecting a 4th season and got upset when they found out it wasn't happening, and on and on.

And given that the metacommentary *is* an essential part of the show, it does cheapen the moral impact of the ending, because (for now) we don't really know the meaning of the Bedelia leg scene, and (for now) Will *killed himself and Hannibal because he accepted the necessity of sacrificing his own life and his own attachment to Hannibal in order to remove Hannibal from the world*. And you know how people interpret that? They interpret that as "Will chose Hannibal". *As if* the show ended with Hannigram running off together, as if the main character's heroic sacrifice were really a selfish romantic choice. If we're going to rely on metacommentary, why not rely ob what HD said when he said in Will's mind, it was a murder-suicide - that that's what Will thought he was doing? If that's what HD says Will was thinking, then that's what Will was thinking. And yet the audience has been actively encouraged to negate that in favour of "Will abandons his sham marriage to Molly for a life of crime with his Hanni-bear". Of course, maybe Hannibal did have some cunning plan, but it is not known to us at this point and we can take it on good authority that Will didn't know about it when he decided to shove them both over a cliff. Like people were asking Hettienne Park at the London con, what would Beverly say if she knew that Will chose Hannibal at the end of season 3. UM? IT'S AS IF THE CLIFF JUMP NEVER HAPPENED IN THE MINDS OF THE AUDIENCE, SHEESH.

But then, if there weren't going to be a season 4, wouldn't we the audience be in the same position as the rest of the world and the rest of the characters, thinking they'd appeared to have died but believing they were still out there and would come back for us some day? Of course. That's an argument in favour of there not really being a season 4 except in our own heads. But then... we have to believe Hannibal is invincible and will always win every game of "now get out of that", so the point at which to reduce him to the mere human he (already) evidently is, is to actually defeat him in a way he can't come back from, including but not limited to character death. Since they haven't done this yet (because of how they encourage the audience to keep believing) that makes me think there will be a season 4 because Hannibal's character development doesn't end with him living forever as the invincible supervillain he grandiosely thinks he is. If he indeed got out of this one, there HAS to be more.
posted by tel3path at 5:42 AM on October 28, 2016 [1 favorite]


And just to repeat myself (stop me if you've heard this) I did not like Alana in S1 or S2, because she was indeed the "perfect woman" in Hannibal's patriarchal system: perfectly trained to perceive things as benign that really were not, perfectly trained to be superficially supportive of the underdog while her actions consistently supported the upper-dog/villain/patriarchy, throwing her fellow women under the bus the moment she had to choose between them and the patriarchy/Hannibal, that's if she noticed her fellow women's suffering and death at all. Make a lot of noise, show a lot of emotion to prove you're not a psychopath (like you can accuse Abigail of being if she ever gets inconvenient), but always always always make sure The Man stays in charge. Because The Man is the one she can count on to look after her interests, right? That illusion got shattered and it never came back together again.

S3 Alana? She shows Mason how Hannibal sets his table, detailing the silverware while she herself is wearing a silver metallic blazer, the one and only time she is seen in that colour. She is showing her awareness that she herself was a decorative object at Hannibal's table. At the time, this was the highest aspiration she could see for herself, until she found out how expendable and interchangeable she really was.

S3 Alana overthrows the patriarchy, saves the patriarchy's abused little sister not because she wants to make a big noisy fuss about how compassionate she is, but because she recognizes their common cause. Then she and Little Sister do to the patriarchy what patriarchy has done to them, enact a revolution, and take power. The show ends with them flying off to safety with their little boy, who presumably they will raise to not be a destructive asshole like Big Brother.

I mean I still don't actually *like* Alana, but seeing as how she overthrew the patriarchy I can't stay mad at her. Jolly good, I say.
posted by tel3path at 6:02 AM on October 28, 2016 [2 favorites]


If he indeed got out of this one, there HAS to be more.

I agree. The full arc may or may not include the salvation of Will Graham (doubtful, it's hard to envision any storyline that ends well for him, and Fuller just enjoys fucking him over way too much), but it certainly would continue and complete the fall of Hannibal Lecter.
posted by FelliniBlank at 6:02 AM on October 28, 2016 [1 favorite]


Whereas, if the whole Imagining And Fanficcing The Murder Husbands thing is just something to keep us amused until we DO get season 4 because BF actually means what he said about wanting to pick it up again and so does everyone else...

Well, THEN if we DO get S4 we will get more than we bargained for and they'll show us what Murder Husbands REALLY means and we'll all be like "Noooooo! This is just what we asked for, but not what we want!"

So yeah all this stuff about how we're being encouraged to think about S4 really suggests to me that a S4 is intended. If the people involved were not at least on some level holding out hope, we'd be getting "yeah, Will made the ultimate sacrifice there" and it would've probably closed with the ambiguously ghostly deleted scene in the chapel, not with Bedelia's leg scene.
posted by tel3path at 6:17 AM on October 28, 2016


Well, THEN if we DO get S4 we will get more than we bargained for and they'll show us what Murder Husbands REALLY means and we'll all be like "Noooooo! This is just what we asked for, but not what we want!"

Well yeah, it should be amply clear to us all that any S4 will surely not be what anyone (except Hannibal) would want for Will Graham, but at the same time, it is what I want in terms of Fuller staying with his vision of this world and these characters. It was never gonna be That Kind of Party.
posted by FelliniBlank at 6:35 AM on October 28, 2016 [2 favorites]


It was never gonna be That Kind of Party.

"Not with that attitude"
posted by The Whelk at 4:03 PM on October 28, 2016 [6 favorites]


I don't think Hannibal is removed from reality at all. Not even in a "oh but it's dream logic" kind of way. It's removed from fridge logic because that turns out to be just another convention which had to be held over a flame and burned away to get to the essentials.

Well, there are a couple different kinds of logic at work here. One is the narrative logic of the serial killer vs detective story and the second is a more symbolic or metaphoric emotional logic that people respond to that informs their evaluation of the surface layer.

In Strucci's video she briefly likens Hannibal to David Lynch in relation to both evincing something of a queer perspective, and this strikes me as reasonably true, but the way they obtain that perspective and how it plays out other than just being "queer" could be looked at more closely.

With Lynch, for example, his movies can be read as queer in part due to their refusal to follow conventional narrative tropes regarding relationships and gender, to some extent. The men and women of his films don't follow the usual patterns of relationships we might normally expect, while at the same time the emotions are pitched at an even higher level than normal. So the symbolic logic of the films has heightened emotional cues, but ones which don't correspond to the usual cause and effect rules. This gives the films a unique feel and can draw in a sympathetic viewer as much by dint of difference and excess as where that excess is coming from. In changing the usual male/female dynamic but keeping the heightened emotions, Lynch is moving those feelings from conventional love and the fears associated with it to another set of fears and desires.

In his case, I'd suggest there is a strong element of gynophobia present which acts to queer the relationships, but also acts to do so in a way that can be diminishing to the women in his movies. (By gynophobia in this instance I'm referring more to a sexual fear of women rather than a hatred or more generalized dislike since I don't see that in nearly the same measure.) Lynch's heroes, at least up to Mulholland Drive, which I haven't seen, are often driven or haunted by a women's sexuality. In removing the emotional force from an expected area and placing it in a non-conforming one, Lynch may be giving his movies more narrative force through that unexpected shift, but in doing so, I'd argue he isn't necessarily queering the films in a more progressive sense.

With Hannibal the shift perhaps isn't quite so dire, but its still present and should be unpacked a little more. What people respond to with Hannibal is similar to that which they respond to in Lynch, a heightened emotional state generated in part through visual excess, compared to conventional television or films, a surface narrative excess in the details of what is shown and described as relating to characters and plot, and character emotions which do not follow expected pathways. In a an overall narrative sense this gives the show a feeling of unusual queerness because it doesn't correspond to the usual sets of motivations and actions we'd expect to see in a thriller of this sort. That makes the show enticing to those who are in sympathy with that perspective of difference. So on the surface level we are rewarded by getting a story we haven't really seen before, which can draw us in and it works in a similar fashion to that of fanfic, where a straight show is queered by pushing the characters to act in ways they wouldn't in their original, conventional context, towards actions which viewers found to be at least somewhat present in subtext or through reading against the grain of normal viewership.

By putting its queerness up front, Hannibal removes that kind of subtext, since the grain no longer runs towards normal viewership, and replaces that subtext with one of its own by giving the characters a much heavier symbolic weight. Doing that runs counter to not only the expectations of convention, but many of the expectations of reality. On a surface level, Hannibal's characters simply do not conform to any reasonable expectation how of people would behave or how the world works. That's of course fine, there is a long history of symbolic art or art working in a heightened reality.

Some of the ways Hannibal does this seem to be by working off something of a Freudian template where the character actions might be better understood as working through responses to Thanatos and Eros, death and life drives. But in doing this, the show adopts some perspectives that can be hard to match with "real" human actions. For example, the show seems to dislocate the sex drive or desire from its "real" enacted behaviors. In a basic example, things like making sure to alternate between killing men and killing women in the different episodes. That's a push to have improved prescriptive fictional reality in a meta-context, but it moves the narrative farther from the real, where women are more often victimized in sexual crimes, and moves the symbolic towards a notion of fluidity of desire that is hard to balance between narrative and reality.

Desire in Hannibal as aimed at Lecter as something of an embodiment of the death drive makes some symbolic sense, so all characters being so taken by Lecter can work on that level at least reasonably well. But by allowing that, the show also opens all the characters up to this same sense of fluidity of desire for their other relationships. One could read it as a sort of universal bisexuality in that way, but as deployed in both Hannibal and fanfic more generally, it becomes something closer to desire by choice, where the characters, definitely in a meta-sense, are unencumbered by a history of desire, gay or straight or whatever variation, and instead are subject to the narrative demand for dramatic effect. Their sexuality is determined, not by birth, but by story or "our" desire for their choices.

On a symbolic level this can lead to some conflicts with the demands of the surface narrative. As a sow about a serial killer, Hannibal demands that Lecter be stopped or thwarted by Will, while on the symbolic level the show is suggesting Lecter and Will shouldn't stop at all. The ending does an admirable job of trying to square that circle, but can't quite get there since it, almost by necessity, equates Lecter's relationship with Will as not only queer in the positive sense, but perverse, rendering the queerness as itself something that needs to be dealt with. Contrasting their relationship with Alana and Margot only makes this seem more clear, though depending on how one wants to look at how death and desire correspond, you could see either couple as the more preferred. (Once you add in Bedelia and other characters it becomes further complicated in ways I won't even try to go into here.)

As in many conventional horror films, seeing this as perversity can be appealing. Who, for example, is the main audience for slasher films? The people those movies predominantly getting slashed, young adults. In Hannibal's case then, people with an affinity for queerness would not necessarily be put off by it carrying a added measure of perversity attached, but may be more drawn to it for that. Yet while that might help answer, in a sense, something about the Lecter/Graham relationship, it doesn't alleviate the problems it causes for all the other relationships in the show and thus the overarching symbolic/real/narrative construct remains unstable or incoherent in a number of areas.

This may not effect our appreciation for the show on all levels, I mean one could be taken by its surface narrative and look without needing to "make sense" of it on any further level, or one could find the incoherence itself resonant in a way that corresponds to our deeper sense of the many contradictions of reality, I'm just not sold that is the case for myself due primarily to its overall looseness in symbol, and fluidity of its meta-construct. It's an impressive show, one which I quite enjoyed watching for much of its run, but looking back on it, I don't find that it ultimately holds together in an entirely satisfying way queerly or conventionally when I look back and try to see it as a whole instead of as only a one way ride from start to end.

That's a sort of ungainly condensed version of some of my thinking on the show. I initially was going to add some mention of Law and Order and Sherlock, but, well, I probably shouldn't make book length replies my standard. I am a wee bit prone to wordiness as you can see...
posted by gusottertrout at 2:08 AM on October 30, 2016 [2 favorites]


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