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The reason why NBC’s Hannibal found such a huge female audience is because Fuller’s/Mads’ Lecter is not a male power fantasy: he’s a female power fantasy.
He’s not a broody snippy git whose appeal is assumed apriori and who in real life would drive away absolutely everyone he met (e.g. any sad manboy ever trotted out as a lead by Moffat).
He’s not an “aspirational” over-muscled hulk.
He’s not a fighter for ‘truth’ or ‘justice’ for whom bodies are just collateral on his path to heroic self-actualization
This Hannibal is the Head Bitch In Charge.
He is independent to the n-th degree. He lives to please himself and no one else. He is fabulous. He shamelessly geeks out over obscure and refined pastimes and shares them with friends. He is the Queen Bee of his social circle. He takes any excuse to treat himself, but he also has perfect self-discipline: gym is not optional. His time-management skills are superhuman. He can decorate and keep a house like Martha Stewart, hold down several jobs, and practice multiple hobbies daily.
(And what are his hobbies, aside from slaughter? Cooking, foreign languages, drawing, playing musical instruments and composing. And clearly clothes shopping. He is probably on first-name basis with the best tailors and cordwainers in town. Contrast with Will, whose hobbies are stereotypically masculine: fixing motor boats, fishing, playing outside with his dogs.)
Hannibal is not young, but he wears his age gracefully. He regrets nothing, like an embodiment of Piaf’s “Non, rien de rien”. His hair is perfect because he clearly spends time in front of the mirror styling it, not because the show’s producer wanted him to look effortlessly cool (*cough*Sherlock*cough*).
He never, ever loses his temper in public, as if he knows that the world/audience will not fawn over him for trying to assert himself through vulgarity, posturing, or volume - all the typical ways in which men like to hijack and dominate conversations.
He can dispatch a creepy stalker like Franklyn with a single neck twist, with no consequences. A sweet fantasy, indeed. If only real life stalkers were so easy to dispose of.
Hannibal’s victims - those who were not killed in self-defense or as ‘murder presents’ for Will - tend to fall into two categories: other killers who act like *they* are the baddest bitches in town (Gideon, Tobias, the mural guy) and people who disrespect him. Of those, there are surprisingly many. In fact, it seems like the very esteemed pillar of Baltimore society Dr. Lecter goes through life constantly being dissed. This is rather puzzling. Hannibal is a tall good-looking white gentleman who speaks like a professor, dresses like a count, and drives a Bentley that costs more than people’s houses. And yet something about him prompts many people, especially in the service industry, to be rude to him.
But he doesn’t confront these “pigs” (already a gender-loaded term, even though it gets applied to victims of both sexes) in a head-on, macho way. Instead, he bides his time and dispatches his prey through some kind of a sneak attack. His preferred philosophy of fighting is “feminine”: assume your opponent is physically stronger and don’t try to out-muscle them. (Even if his opponent is much smaller and weaker, like Chilton.) Subterfuge, ambush, sedatives - Hannibal wins his fights by fighting on his own terms. Nevertheless, if a man should come at him with a weapon, he defends himself with perfect adroitness: Tobias, Jack, Mason’s henchmen, etc.
Even some aspects of Hannibal’s relationship with Will would make more sense if he were female. In particular the issue of, well, issue. Hannibal is clearly Not Okay with Will having children with anyone but him. This is somewhat odd for a man, especially one who seems to have never wanted kids before this. But it makes sense for a woman just past menopause: fate finally delivered her dream partner, but it’s too late to have a family. And so Hannibal sets up the dominoes for Margot’s pregnancy to be terminated practically as soon as he learns of it. If he can’t have Will’s kids, then no one can. They may be adopted, but they have to be *theirs*.
It also makes sense that when Hannibal discovers Will’s treachery, he goes full Medea on him. Killing the man’s children is common to cultural narratives of wronged women all over the world. It’s often the only leverage they have over the men, the only way they can exact revenge. Hannibal can take much more than Abigail from Will, but she is the only thing he can take that truly matters.
Bonus exercise for the reader: imagine a version of the show where everything is the same, but Hannibal is played by Meryl Streep.
Or even just swap Mads Mikkelsen & Gillian Anderson places. Let her be Hannah Lecter; let him be Dr. Bennett Du Maurier, her wary shrink. Both the characterization and plot still work almost 100%.
I wrote this before season 3, and I just want to point out something that happened on the show afterwards. We saw Hannibal engage in more stereotypical male combat: protracted, hand to hand, with improvised weapons. Once against Jack and once against The Great Red Dragon.
Both times, Hannibal was smaller and physically weaker. In Mizumono, he only got to Jack through cleverness; physically, Jack could throw him around like a rag doll. When they met again in Italy, Jack kicked his ass so thoroughly Hannibal had to save himself by falling out the window and hobbling off. Same with the Red Dragon: had they gone head to head, Hannibal would have been thoroughly pwned.
Bryan Fuller described Hannibal and Will fighting to “two jackals trying to take down a rhinoceros”. He might as well have said “two women trying to take down a man”.
So are you saying that they are a gay couple who is in the same time a lesbian couple
yes.
I love this. It’s a woman’s show in so. many. ways.
For me (apropos of nothing), the scene in Antipasto when Prof. Sogliato humiliates Hannibal is EVERYTHING. In that moment, Sogliato is every dick who name checks a badge at an academic conference and dismisses you with a glance. Who doesn’t take you seriously because you’re ‘just’ a woman. And when he turns around and starts reciting Dante… in that moment, he is me and I am not prepared to get too worked up about Sogliato’s inevitable demise.
#this is fascinating #meta #hannibal #definitely a different perspective #but ever since Javert in BTDATW I’ve loved amz’s perspectives #often different and new but so fitting #I love this one too
holy shit my fandoms are colliding XD thanksmerphslaw
I’ve been thinking about this for a while and it’s interesting when you look at Hannibal’s interactions with the other creeps in the show, he often falls into the woman’s role while they fall into archetype of scumbag guys that harass women.
Franklyn is the “friendzone” guy - he follows Hannibal when he’s shopping, he follows him to the opera, he wants more from their relationship than Hannibal wants to give. He steps over the clear boundaries Hannibal sets. Franklyn has two therapy sessions in Sorbet. Below is their usual seating arrangement. During the second, he tries to force the friend issue again through shared interests and he touches Hannibal (Honestly, it’s amazing that Hannibal didn’t nope the fuck out of there back to Europe when Franklyn called them “cheesefolk”. Anyway, I digress)
This is the seating arrangement in the following session. Hannibal’s moved the chairs so Franklyn can’t touch him.
Tobias is the guy that buys you an unwanted drink and thinks you owe him sex. He turns a terrible musician into a cello and “serenades” Hannibal. He tries to impress him and force a friendship.
Gideon is the co-worker that takes credit for your work and at the same time thinks he has a shot at a date. He’s “peacocking” for the Ripper when he murders the guards. Hannibal, hilariously, is like “nope” and tells the FBI where to find Gideon.
Francis. God, Francis puts Hannibal on a pedestal with the intention of treating him like he treats the mothers in families he murders, he wants to record Hannibal “melding” with the Dragon - just like he does with the mothers.
Each of these creeps end up murdered by Hannibal, through his own hands or by proxy. Female power fantasy indeed.
I love this meta and fully agree, although I also think it’s fantastic that Hannibal is, also, masculine, and for that matter so is Will who is often couched in ‘feminine’ roles/modes. Because it’s so important for us to see male characters who break the classic masculine stereotypes. This is the good kind of writing which illustrates that gender is not relevant to the story being told.
prairie-grass:
zecurlyone:
axmxz:
tea-and-liminality:
axmxz:
nirvana-war-queen:
axmxz:
axmxz:
The reason why NBC’s Hannibal found such a huge female audience is because Fuller’s/Mads’ Lecter is not a male power fantasy: he’s a female power fantasy.
He’s not a broody snippy git whose appeal is assumed apriori and who in real life would drive away absolutely everyone he met (e.g. any sad manboy ever trotted out as a lead by Moffat).
He’s not an “aspirational” over-muscled hulk.
He’s not a fighter for ‘truth’ or ‘justice’ for whom bodies are just collateral on his path to heroic self-actualization
This Hannibal is the Head Bitch In Charge.
He is independent to the n-th degree. He lives to please himself and no one else. He is fabulous. He shamelessly geeks out over obscure and refined pastimes and shares them with friends. He is the Queen Bee of his social circle. He takes any excuse to treat himself, but he also has perfect self-discipline: gym is not optional. His time-management skills are superhuman. He can decorate and keep a house like Martha Stewart, hold down several jobs, and practice multiple hobbies daily.
(And what are his hobbies, aside from slaughter? Cooking, foreign languages, drawing, playing musical instruments and composing. And clearly clothes shopping. He is probably on first-name basis with the best tailors and cordwainers in town. Contrast with Will, whose hobbies are stereotypically masculine: fixing motor boats, fishing, playing outside with his dogs.)
Hannibal is not young, but he wears his age gracefully. He regrets nothing, like an embodiment of Piaf’s “Non, rien de rien”. His hair is perfect because he clearly spends time in front of the mirror styling it, not because the show’s producer wanted him to look effortlessly cool (*cough*Sherlock*cough*).
He never, ever loses his temper in public, as if he knows that the world/audience will not fawn over him for trying to assert himself through vulgarity, posturing, or volume - all the typical ways in which men like to hijack and dominate conversations.
He can dispatch a creepy stalker like Franklyn with a single neck twist, with no consequences. A sweet fantasy, indeed. If only real life stalkers were so easy to dispose of.
Hannibal’s victims - those who were not killed in self-defense or as ‘murder presents’ for Will - tend to fall into two categories: other killers who act like *they* are the baddest bitches in town (Gideon, Tobias, the mural guy) and people who disrespect him. Of those, there are surprisingly many. In fact, it seems like the very esteemed pillar of Baltimore society Dr. Lecter goes through life constantly being dissed. This is rather puzzling. Hannibal is a tall good-looking white gentleman who speaks like a professor, dresses like a count, and drives a Bentley that costs more than people’s houses. And yet something about him prompts many people, especially in the service industry, to be rude to him.
But he doesn’t confront these “pigs” (already a gender-loaded term, even though it gets applied to victims of both sexes) in a head-on, macho way. Instead, he bides his time and dispatches his prey through some kind of a sneak attack. His preferred philosophy of fighting is “feminine”: assume your opponent is physically stronger and don’t try to out-muscle them. (Even if his opponent is much smaller and weaker, like Chilton.) Subterfuge, ambush, sedatives - Hannibal wins his fights by fighting on his own terms. Nevertheless, if a man should come at him with a weapon, he defends himself with perfect adroitness: Tobias, Jack, Mason’s henchmen, etc.
Even some aspects of Hannibal’s relationship with Will would make more sense if he were female. In particular the issue of, well, issue. Hannibal is clearly Not Okay with Will having children with anyone but him. This is somewhat odd for a man, especially one who seems to have never wanted kids before this. But it makes sense for a woman just past menopause: fate finally delivered her dream partner, but it’s too late to have a family. And so Hannibal sets up the dominoes for Margot’s pregnancy to be terminated practically as soon as he learns of it. If he can’t have Will’s kids, then no one can. They may be adopted, but they have to be *theirs*.
It also makes sense that when Hannibal discovers Will’s treachery, he goes full Medea on him. Killing the man’s children is common to cultural narratives of wronged women all over the world. It’s often the only leverage they have over the men, the only way they can exact revenge. Hannibal can take much more than Abigail from Will, but she is the only thing he can take that truly matters.
Bonus exercise for the reader: imagine a version of the show where everything is the same, but Hannibal is played by Meryl Streep.
Or even just swap Mads Mikkelsen & Gillian Anderson places. Let her be Hannah Lecter; let him be Dr. Bennett Du Maurier, her wary shrink. Both the characterization and plot still work almost 100%.
I wrote this before season 3, and I just want to point out something that happened on the show afterwards. We saw Hannibal engage in more stereotypical male combat: protracted, hand to hand, with improvised weapons. Once against Jack and once against The Great Red Dragon.
Both times, Hannibal was smaller and physically weaker. In Mizumono, he only got to Jack through cleverness; physically, Jack could throw him around like a rag doll. When they met again in Italy, Jack kicked his ass so thoroughly Hannibal had to save himself by falling out the window and hobbling off. Same with the Red Dragon: had they gone head to head, Hannibal would have been thoroughly pwned.
Bryan Fuller described Hannibal and Will fighting to “two jackals trying to take down a rhinoceros”. He might as well have said “two women trying to take down a man”.
So are you saying that they are a gay couple who is in the same time a lesbian couple
yes.
I love this. It’s a woman’s show in so. many. ways.
For me (apropos of nothing), the scene in Antipasto when Prof. Sogliato humiliates Hannibal is EVERYTHING. In that moment, Sogliato is every dick who name checks a badge at an academic conference and dismisses you with a glance. Who doesn’t take you seriously because you’re ‘just’ a woman. And when he turns around and starts reciting Dante… in that moment, he is me and I am not prepared to get too worked up about Sogliato’s inevitable demise.
#this is fascinating #meta #hannibal #definitely a different perspective #but ever since Javert in BTDATW I’ve loved amz’s perspectives #often different and new but so fitting #I love this one too
holy shit my fandoms are colliding XD thanks
merphslawI’ve been thinking about this for a while and it’s interesting when you look at Hannibal’s interactions with the other creeps in the show, he often falls into the woman’s role while they fall into archetype of scumbag guys that harass women.
Franklyn is the “friendzone” guy - he follows Hannibal when he’s shopping, he follows him to the opera, he wants more from their relationship than Hannibal wants to give. He steps over the clear boundaries Hannibal sets. Franklyn has two therapy sessions in Sorbet. Below is their usual seating arrangement. During the second, he tries to force the friend issue again through shared interests and he touches Hannibal (Honestly, it’s amazing that Hannibal didn’t nope the fuck out of there back to Europe when Franklyn called them “cheesefolk”. Anyway, I digress)
This is the seating arrangement in the following session. Hannibal’s moved the chairs so Franklyn can’t touch him.
Tobias is the guy that buys you an unwanted drink and thinks you owe him sex. He turns a terrible musician into a cello and “serenades” Hannibal. He tries to impress him and force a friendship.
Gideon is the co-worker that takes credit for your work and at the same time thinks he has a shot at a date. He’s “peacocking” for the Ripper when he murders the guards. Hannibal, hilariously, is like “nope” and tells the FBI where to find Gideon.
Francis. God, Francis puts Hannibal on a pedestal with the intention of treating him like he treats the mothers in families he murders, he wants to record Hannibal “melding” with the Dragon - just like he does with the mothers.
Each of these creeps end up murdered by Hannibal, through his own hands or by proxy. Female power fantasy indeed.
I love this meta and fully agree, although I also think it’s fantastic that Hannibal is, also, masculine, and for that matter so is Will who is often couched in ‘feminine’ roles/modes. Because it’s so important for us to see male characters who break the classic masculine stereotypes. This is the good kind of writing which illustrates that gender is not relevant to the story being told.