The Reason Why NBC’s Hannibal Found Such A Huge Female Audience Is Because Fuller’s/Mads’ Lecter

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%.

More Posts from Wierduff and Others

wierduff

2 years ago

That feeling when you post a fic on a completely new account after a couple years of no writing:...

And yet this feeling of trepidation hits the same...

Welp, some things really do not change.

Anyway, the link to the first chapter:

archiveofourown.org

We are Stars, to cross the sky and crush, and burn anew - wiertuff - 原神 | Genshin Impact (Video Game) [Archive of Our Own]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

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wierduff

2 years ago

The world began with the spontaneous generation of four beings: first arose Khaos (Chasm); then came Gaia (Earth), "the ever-sure foundation of all"; and "dim" Tartaros, in the depths of the Earth; and Eros (Desire) "fairest among the deathless gods". From the Chasm came Erebos (Darkness) and Nyx (Night). And Nyx "from union in love" with Erebos produced Aether (Brightness) and Hemera (Day). From Gaia came Ouranos (Sky), the Ourea (Mountains), and Pontos (Sea).

From Gaia’s union with Ouranos, she birthed the twelve Titans: Okeanos, Koios, Krios, Hyperion, Iapetos, Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, Tethys, and Kronos. The Titans each represent qualities of their divine parents, the male Titans being gods of the sky and time, the female Titannes being goddesses of earth and prophecy. Gaia also produced the three Cyclopes, as well as the three Hekatonkheires (“The Hundred-Handed”).

Ouranos, fearing that one of his children would betray him, hid his brood within the body of Gaia, causing her great pain and discomfort. Gaia gave an adamantine sickle to her youngest son, Kronos who, with the aid of his brothers, restrained and castrated the Sky as he bent to mate with the Earth. Ouranos’s blood fell onto the Earth, and the Erinyes (Furies), Giants, and Melial (Ash nymphs) sprang from that union. Where Ouranos’s genitals fell into the sea, foam developed and Aphrodite was borne from the foam.

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Absolute beginner adult ballet series (fabulous beginning teacher)

40 piano lessons for beginners (some of the best explanations for piano I’ve ever seen)

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Pre-Free Figure Skate Levels A-D guides and practice activities (each video builds up with exercises to the actual moves!)

How to draw character faces video (very funny, surprisingly instructive?)

Another drawing character faces video

Literally my favorite art pose hack

Tutorial of how to make a whole ass Stardew Valley esque farming game in Gamemaker Studios 2??

Introduction to flying small aircrafts

French/Dutch/Fishtail braiding

Playing the guitar for beginners (well paced and excellent instructor)

Playing the violin for beginners (really good practical tips mixed in)

Color theory in digital art (not of the children’s hospital variety)

Retake classes you hated but now there’s zero stakes:

Calculus 1 (full semester class)

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Learn a language:

Ancient Greek

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Japanese (grammar guide) (for dummies)

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Russian (pretty good cyrillic guide!)

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wierduff

2 years ago

Can you explain anything about Poseidon’s Mycenaean version? I’ve heard some say he ruled the sky, sea, and the Underworld but I wasn’t sure since I couldn’t find much on him.

Knew I saw one of these in my inbox! Okay so uh...

We don’t actually have much information on this Poseidon, on Posedao (or Posedawone). We know for example that he was worshiped in Crete, in the Minoan Era, and was almost certainly a bull God at the time and the most important.

We know that there are Linear B tablets talking about him, and many of the other Olympians (Atana Potiniija=Lady Athena is also mentioned).

We know he has been portrayed in tablets as ruling the Underworld, while still having command of the Sea. We know Zeus (diuja) is portrayed as a lesser elemental deity of the Sky, which Posedao as the supreme God of the time would have command over.

We know he was extremely prominent as a Sea deity, and in a land which is surrounded by water with a very large coast line that makes sense.

We know he has been known as the Earth Shaker (Enesidaone) for a very very long time (and as this area is where tectonic plates have shifted, this makes sense).

But we don’t have enough information to be certain on him.

We don’t know what his name means, only that it has several possibilities. He could be known as the Husband of Earth (Posis Da), which would mean he was actually secondary to his wife (Posidaeja (Persewa) or Da (Potinija) (Matere Teija) maybe, there are Two Goddesses associated with marriage to him) (we have records of offerings to the “Sito Potinija” which is most likely Demeter (along with Da, or Potinija, or Matere Teija), associated with Poseidon in this time but not in later times so much, these offerings were to the two queens and the king (or the two queens and Poseidon) (wanasoi, wanakate).

Though Posis meant Husband, Lord, or Master, so it could also be calling him Lord of Earth, and Ergo ruler of the Earth as well as the Sea and Underworld. It may also be a reference to him being the Earthshaker, and ergo Lord of Earth, as that is his most common title (Enesidaone) at the time.

His name may also mean Lord of the Waters (Posei-dawōn), which is supported by most of his shrines being by the sea, and most of his notable mentions in later mythos being as the Sea God. But in the Bronze age he was not referenced as a Sea God nearly as much as the Earthshaker (Enesidaone) so... hard to say. It was a popular later translation though.

We know Poseidon was the Wanax, but that simply means King or Military leader. Indeed we do not know if there was a title for high king, as many of the individual city states of the time had a Wanax (but there is implications that can imply they also had a high king, but we have no proof of such unfortunately).

He was venerated at Pylos and Thebes, and well noted in Knossos (as the Earthshaker specifically). His partners (and many other Goddesses) were called Mistress of the Labyrinth (dapuritojo potinija) in Knossos, which as theorized by some that the actual palace of Knossos at the time was named Labyrinthos or something of that nature, would make sense as the deities being Patron Gods of their palace.

Now if one goes to Arcadia, then Poseidon was a horse God who was a river spririt of the underworld. He persued Demeter (Sito Potinija) who became a mare and from the union Arion and a Daughter “Despoina” are born (and once there were animal headed portrayals of the Gods, Demeter included, in Arcadia). It is quite possible this is part of the origin of t he Minoatur myth, the portrayal of the Gods with animal heads, and later worshipers with animal masks.

(Notably Artemis or Atemito or Atimite is a child of Demeter (Sito Potinija) here, and closely associated with Poseidon (Posedao).

A lot of what we “know” is theory, or conjecture. We do not have enough record to hold accurate knowledge of Posedao, or any of the Mycenaean Gods. So much has been lost in the Bronze age collapse, and unfortunately we may never hold enough information.

Maybe one day, if Linear A is translated, we can learn more. But as of right now we are limited by our knowledge, and Linear B does not hold enough information.

Sources: The Greeks (Roderick Beaton), History Hub, EarthAndStarryHeaven, Mythopedia, Live Journal, Wikipedia

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wierduff

1 year ago

download+play proverbs of hell here

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wierduff

1 year ago

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wierduff

1 year ago

I just discovered foodtimeline.org, which is exactly what it sounds like: centuries worth of information about FOOD. If you are writing something historical and you want a starting point for figuring out what people should be eating, this might be a good place?

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