I was going to let this all go, and then I saw a Hannibal gifset with the words “Trust me, I’m the Doctor” on it, AND NOW I GIVE YOU NO QUARTER.
(Yes, I’m putting this in the Hannibal tag. Why? Because it honestly needs to be seen. I watch this show and I like it, A LOT. But the fandom scares me.)
Um, yeah. I see what you’re after here, and sure, I’ve read Fannibal posts that make it sound as if Hannibal’s a misunderstood soul with a disorder of the gustatory species barrier, but your thinking’s, well, a little whack here. I’m with you until you say, “And I guarantee, if this show was about a serial RAPIST, no one on tumblr would like him. It’s stupid, it’s hypocritical, and it needs to stop.” That’s where I think maybe you jumped the rail, because we live with rape and the threat of rape, but very few of us (I hope) worry about being eaten. To equate the threat of rape and the threat of cannibalism is at best wrongheaded and at worst trivializes rape. Most of the people watching an episode of Hannibal are or know victims of sexual assault; the threat of rape is real. Almost nobody watching the show has eaten someone, or knows someone who’s been eaten. See? Even saying it sounds like a joke, because rape is a literal reality in our lives, and cannibalism simply isn’t.
The possibility of someone watching Hannibal actually thinking cannibalism is okay and doing something about it is vanishingly small. It feels like you’re willfully erasing the line between the fantasy (of which fandom is made) and the real world. You say fans “have turned cannibalism into an acceptable practice because you like Hannibal Lecter.” Reality check: nobody’s turned cannibalism into an accepted real world practice. I understand that hearing people talk about it as a fantasy can be mystifying and squicky, but to tell those people they need to see a doctor is, well, offensive.
Agree with all of professorfangirl’s response.
And additionally:
“I would highly suggest that all of you examine your reasoning behind liking Hannibal and consult a psychiatrist, because seriously. It’s getting to the point where cannibalism is almost being fetishized, and that makes me want to puke until there’s nothing left in my stomach.”
This whole post, and this part in particular, stinks of assuming the fans as mindless, helpless consumers of media. Which is really dehumanizing and (when couples with the reality that a majority of the fangirls- as is with all of fandom - are women ) really fucking sexist. Do you really think that a large amount of fans are unable to separate fantasy from reality? Like, I am seriously not able to comprehend this right now, how much autonomy being removed from such a large group of people is blowing my mind right now.
Literally no one is condoning cannibalism with this. By liking Hannibals character, no one is becoming a cannibal apologist with this, like professorfangirl said, cannibalism is not a systematic threat in our society (like rape) and therefore is not at risk of creating narratives that disguise its true nature (like it would for rape). Everyone knows cannibalism is wrong, everyone knows what cannibalism is, i legit cannot believe we are having this conversation. This is made obvious by the fandom’s dark and hilarious humor, were they actually excusing the cannibalism, these jokes wouldn’t be being made. Dark humor seems to be being mistaken for ‘fetishization’ here. And also, watching the damn show: The writing is all about disguising cannibalism from us and making Hannibal fool you into empathizing with him. That is literally a major point of the show.
There is literally so many complicated problems in shaming fans for liking villainous characters. This meta overviews a big part of it better than I could.
Also:
“I don’t know what all this Hannibal/Sherlock wank is about, but it needs to stop.
I’ve seen the posts with Fannibals going on about inaccurate terminology and yeah, sometimes it is. But WHEN THE SHOW ITSELF USED INACCURATE TERMINOLOGY, and it did, YOU CANNOT BLAME THE FANS FOR FOLLOWING SUIT.”
Ha.
Yes. Yes you can. Just because media feeds something out to fans, it does not absolve them from the responsibility to observe it critically. You are literally excusing them from what you just (rudely) accused the Hannibal fandom of.
There is a portion of fandom, and it is most obvious in a portion of the Sherlock fandom, that needs to be called out on their sexist, racist, abilist, elitist and downright rude behavior, and I am glad that is finally damn time for it.
(note: I honest to got tried to make this post as non-confronational as possible, but as the original post was so confrontational I found it dificult. I do not wish to personally attack with this piece, only dismantal problematic ideas.)
This.
But I also find it interesting how much Hannibal fans are drawn to hannibal, as well as the extent that they are willing to defend him.
It means he’s well written, and is doing what hannibal quite literally does, that is, pulling the veil over our eyes to his true nature. And manipulating us into believing that he is human.
Even when we are allowed the perspective of understanding who he is and what he does, his character is still so alluring that the idea of him being actually just misunderstood, the idea of him really just being human, is a lie preferable to truth.
Perfect character is written perfectly to the point of the characters influence extending past fictional world, but into fandoms.