Words by: Sofia Peralta
Graphic by: Shota Pinko
Cannibals have been on our screens and pages for a very long time, from the infamous Hannibal Lecter to the twisted fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel. But what about cannibalism is so enticing to us?
There’s many different answers.
The taboo has contradictingly always been popular. We are drawn to the unusual, often seeking to be disgusted and excited at the same time. Bill Schutt, author of Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History tells The Hollywood Reporter, “I’d say cannibalism is titillating in much the way vampirism has been — though the former is even more extreme. And once again, these topics only produce that effect if they can be viewed through a filter of fictionalization. Food — which is often viewed as sexy — plus taboo equals fascination.”
I think as a culture, we have grown to have this constant need to be consumed by our special interests, at least online. With the contributions of social media apps like Instagram and Twitter, pop culture is easily digestible at our fingertips. Like Brittany Broski said in her recent Pedro Pascal & Irish Smut video, “I don’t know how not to be a fan…I don’t know how to like something normal.” So, perhaps audiences resonate with the fictional cannibals' need to literally consume human flesh.
I’ll be brave and say what clearly a lot of us are afraid to say: I love depictions of cannibalism in entertainment. Not because of the actual “eating humans” of it all, but more so for how versatile the trope can be. I adore how creative individuals keep finding new and innovative ways to incorporate the trope into their art, so I’ll be looking at my favorite recent works and observing how they use cannibalism to explore different themes.
LOVE
Bones and All2022 | Directed by Luca Guadagnino
Bones and All (dir. Luca Guadagnino) is a movie adaptation of the novel of the same name written by Camille DeAngelis.
It follows Mareen, a young girl whose father abandons her after tasting her first bite of human flesh, sending her on a search for her mom, as she meets Lee, a drifter who has the same craving for human meat, which leads to her discovering that there is a whole community of people who feel the same as she does who call themselves “eaters.”
It is a love story unlike any other.
The best part of watching Bones and All for me was the tension that simmered, then boiled throughout the whole movie, as I held in my breath, in fear that the next scene would include either Mareen or Lee being consumed by the other. In a way, that’s what we fear in every romantic relationship, isn't it?
We constantly tip-toe, take it slow, never allowing ourselves to fall too madly for someone in fear of getting hurt by the other. Bones and All looks this fear and pain in the face and serves it up on a plate for the audience to enjoy.
In the end, Lee’s dying wish is for Mareen to consume him “bones and all,” to truly be one with each other, becoming whole. The cannibalistic nature of Mareen and Lee is used to represent these two individuals who are not like the people around them, who feel different and isolated, and ultimately find wholeness in each other, no restraints.
This use of cannibalism is striking as it ignites the yearning to fall in complete and total love with someone, a love where you feel the urge to be as close as humanly possible you can get to each other. And what is closer than your partner literally residing inside of the deep depths of your stomach?
In a way, when you’re deeply in love, you want nothing more than to eat or be eaten by your lover. You want to consume every single part of them, you make mental images of how they look in the morning when they just wake up, you memorize the sound of their laugh, and after making love you cuddle still naked, bodies pressing against each other until there isn’t even an ounce of physical distance left, begging to swallow as much of each other as you can.
Yellowjackets
2021-present | Created by Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson
Another favorite of mine in the category. Yellowjackets is a show that centers around a high school girl’s soccer team whose plane crashes in a forest in the middle of nowhere, leaving the girls stranded, fending for themselves for nearly 2 years. Once winter rolls around, one of the girls, Jackie, freezes to death and the other girls eat her corpse due to there being no food available.
A reading of the cannibalism of this show is the well known trope of survival cannibalism, eating humans as a last resort to survive. However, I’d like to explore a queer reading of the relationship between Jackie and her best friend and teammate Shauna, who is the first one to eat her.
Throughout the show, Shauna and Jackie are inseparable from one another. If one is without the other, their first instinct is to find out where the other is. Oftentimes, the camera lingers long after a moment has passed to show Shauna still staring at Jackie. Shauna sleeps with Jackie’s boyfriend before they leave for their trip, and as heterosexual as that may seem, I believe she does this because it’s as close as she will get to being Jackie, or being with Jackie (“Do I want to be her or do I want her?” situation).
Once Jackie dies, Shauna keeps her corpse hidden in the shed of the cabin the girls are staying at for a couple days and not only talks to it on a regular basis to get through her day, but puts makeup on it as if she was still there with her and they were just having a sleepover.
And on the day that she and the girls all eat her, Shauna leads the pack with a smile on her face as she devours her best friend, ripping her decaying body limb from limb.
To me, the use of cannibalism in this context isn’t solely to show how hungry and desperate these girls are, but to demonstrate what it’s like to be a closeted teenage girl.
I remember sitting in French class and feeling my body fill with tingles as the pretty girl across the room waved hi to me from her seat. My body waged a war against itself as it tried to shove down the raging desire that had ignited inside me.
In the same way, the excitement to eat Jackie is representative of the love inside of Shauna that had been boiling beneath the surface, and truth be told, you can only suppress the desire for another person for so long. In the end, she had no other option but to devour the subject of her love, no longer being satisfied with the little bites of her that had defined their relationship for so long. After all, a girl’s gotta eat.
CAPITALISM
Tender is the Flesh2017 | Written by Agustina Bazterrica
This Spanish novel by Agustina Bazterrica is set in a future society where humans are bred, processed and served for meat after a virus infects all animal meat.
Bazterrica fills this book with comparisons to the real world, for example, now that humans can be bred to be eaten, they can also be hunted for sport, reflecting how those in control of businesses and corporations are always seeking to capitalize more, more, more.
The novel’s use of cannibalism also represents the form of oppression the marginalized live in under capitalistic society, as those with less power are devoured by the people who are in a higher status.
It’s a harrowing look at our own reflections, as we are forced to address how we as a society refuse to put people over products, consuming them without any remorse. Many have said it before, but capitalism is a machine that chews us up and spits us out at will.
Bazterica explains to The Guardian, “Tender Is the Flesh is a meditation on what capitalism is – it teaches us to naturalise cruelty. Capitalism is a system into which we are all born, we have it inside of us, and patriarchy is part of that system...With women it’s so obvious, because you can talk about human trafficking, war and the way women are made invisible in different spheres. Here in Argentina, they kill women every day. Capitalism and cannibalism are almost the same, you know?”
COMMODIFICATION OF WOMEN
Fresh2022 | Directed by Mimi Cave
Moving on to my favorite and most innovative use of cannibalism as a trope: to discuss how women are viewed and treated in society. There has been a wave of female creatives taking over and headlining the cannibalist craze (every single piece listed so far has been created by a woman, or is an adaptation of work created by a woman), and what they have to say leaves me with a good taste in my mouth.
Fresh tells the story of a woman named Noa who starts going out with a guy who lures her back to his cabin in the woods and keeps her as a prisoner to sell her body for parts for rich elites who have a taste for human meat (women apparently taste better).
We immediately find out that there are two other women imprisoned with her, and multiple who have already been murdered.
Fresh is intended to be commentary on the modern dating scene, and especially the dangers of it.
To me, the exploration of the dangers are far more captivating. My big takeaway from the film was how commodified women’s bodies are in society.
For starters, let’s consider the craze with the “BBL” and the obsession with a small waist and all these beauty and fitness companies and brands that solely rely on selling women an image of who they should be to profit off of them.
In another sense, this can be interpreted as the way men objectify women’s bodies, whether it’s online comment sections or in person. But even deeper than that, Fresh sheds a light on the sex trafficking industry that preys on women and girls through many seemingly innocent tactics, like falling in love with a man who was lying to you about who he was the whole time. Women are never safe in a world where they are not valued as people.
In our day and age, women’s bodies are consumed with the same ease as buying a slab of meat at the grocery store.
A Certain Hunger
2022 | Written by Chelsea G. Summers
This novel from Chelsea G. Summers follows food critic and (exclusively) man-eating cannibal Dorothy Daniels as she reflects back from prison on her crimes.
The novel starts off with Dorothy eating a man she had been on a date with and then setting his house on fire, as she describes her affinity for men in the same way boys engage in so-called “locker room talk,” explaining how she uses them for their bodies, objectifying them the same way men do to women all the time.
As I was reading, I found myself growing increasingly disturbed with how she continued to sexualize the men, not seeing them as anything other than sex or meat.
On the surface, there is an imagery of her going on these dates with these men, with a charming smile on her face as they fall into her trap, being lured by her seemingly sweet exterior. When she suddenly devours every inch of their body with no care in the world of who they are as people or any acknowledgment of their qualities outside their tender flesh, it is a harrowing perspective on the normalized misogyny in the dating scene.
Dorothy exhibits qualities that we often see in many men’s psyche, effectively flipping the script of the patriarchal treatment of women.
This reversal reminds us of how horrifying the way men are allowed to speak about and treat women. And once we get over the initial shock, a feeling of dread creeps up on us as we are confronted with how normalized it is.
Truly, the cannibalizing of the female body is ingrained in our language: “A fine piece of ass,” “Eat her out.”
I think this resonates so much with women because after years of being treated like animals, it’s thrilling for us to see the situation play out the other way around. On some level, we root for her, not because what she is doing is right, but because there are years of dormant resentment of how men have dehumanized women living inside of us.
But what's most important to understand is that Dorothy is the villain. Her actions are not justified. The novel certainly doesn’t let us forget it, making it increasingly clear how twisted her mind is. And honestly, many of the thoughts that lie in her mind reflect the view misogynists hold of womanhood in itself.
FEMALE SEXUALITY
RAW2016 | Directed by Julia Ducournau
This french film follows vegetarian-since-birth Justine through her first week of veterinary school as she tries meat for the first time and grows an insatiable taste for human flesh.
At one point, we see her engage in steamy makeout in a party bathroom, only for it to turn sinister as she takes a chomp out of the guys mouth, which we see as he runs out of the bathroom to the other party goers with a missing chunk of lip and a streak of blood running down his body.
In another very pivotal scene, we see Justine finally have sex for the first time, which results in her quite literally devouring her partner, as she wakes up the morning after to find him lying dead and limp, with pieces of him missing and scattered around, bite marks to be seen on his remaining corpse.
We find out later that this is a familial thread that affects both her sister and her mother.
And in a similar fashion to Justine’s final victim before she comes home from school, Justine’s parents sit down and her dad slowly unbuttons his shirt to reveal years of bite marks along his chest and abdomen left by her mom.
I felt for Justine, having come from a family that did not discuss sex and living in a community that pushed abstinence throughout my prepubescent years and beyond. Seeing how her family held this secret from her for so long in hopes that it might stifle the inevitable spoke to the experience of being raised absolutely clueless about sex or any healthy way to deal with what feels like this emerging monster of lust inside you, not being told anything about what these sexual urges are except that they’re supposedly wrong.
After the first taste, Justine couldn’t stop. Never knowing moderation, she craved for more, wishing to satisfy her new and unfamiliar craving.
In the same vain, the first time I got in a sexually-charged relationship, I lost my fucking mind. I was obsessed with wanting and being wanted by my partner. I wanted to fuck them every second of the day. I was a wee virgin and they were an experienced veteran, and I threw myself into situations I had no knowledge about, being fully led by my sexual desire. It was like someone else was controlling my mind, clouding my thoughts with these new feelings I never let myself explore before.
Our culture has a unique way of treating women when they express any sexual intentions.
We scold, we condemn, we shun. We tell them that they are whores and sluts and whisper about them in the halls, we point and laugh when they beg us to see them as people and disregard them as “ran through,” “used,” and “loose,” at times calling them “damaged goods.”
We judge them when they have the audacity to be proud of their sexual freedom while celebrating and admiring men who do the same.
This slut-shaming culture does not solely affect those who engage in consensual sex either. We hear whispers in the hallway just the same when women fall victim to questionable experiences at best and detrimentally harmful experiences at worst at the hands of men.
In our culture, female sexuality is the monster that lives under our bed, female sexuality is the shadowy figure we see in the dark, female sexuality is the creature at the end of an empty hallway. Female sexuality is our own personal boogeyman.
Raw looks at this cultural fear of female sexual expression and charges at it full-force.
In a way, we created the flesh-eating monster we see in Justine, you cannot starve out your sexual urges, they will just grow more hungry.
I am waiting in anticipation for what the next cannibalist allegory that hits our screens and pages will be. I think cannibalism can be used to very vividly illustrate what it is like to be consumed by something, whether it’s an obsession of some kind or some dreaded feeling that looms over, consuming our every mind. It makes a girl wonder, what are you starving for?
“I am hungry
I have been hungry
I was born hungry
What do I need?”
Mitski, "Abbey" from Lush
I have been hungry
I was born hungry
What do I need?”
Mitski, "Abbey" from Lush