Popular Culture Review Vol. 2, No. 2, July 1991 | Page 52
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The Popular Culture Review
themselves in groups (the men exercising, the sheriffs officers, etc.).
Clarise is alone either by choice or because she has been purposely
excluded. She relates her discoveries regarding Buffalo Bill to
Crawford who cuts her off by telling her that he already knows the
identity of the killer as well as his whereabouts. After all her work
on the case, she is denied participation in the actual bust by
Crawford. He has assembled an all-male force to capture Buffalo
Bill. All this information is exchanged over a telephone line.
Clarise is calling from the home of the first victim, while Crawford
receives her, cruising overhead in a special military aircraft. This
emphasizes his control, his access to the machinery which keeps the
society in check, under his surveilance. But for all his seemingly
omnipresent control wielded from the top of the social machine, he
cannot solve a mystery which Clarise solves alone, using the
sensitivity and intuition of a victim and, most importantly, the
guidance of Dr. Lector.
Lector is always at the center of this film. Clarise is reminded
by Crawford, in her last scene, that she has a telephone call waiting.
It is Lector. He has escaped to a tropical isla nd. Clarise, in a panic,
looks to Crawford (her source of acceptance into a masculine world of
reason and law) who is ascending the stairs to leave. The camera
cranes up above her as she repeats, "Dr. Lector", into a telephone
receiver. This last image of Clarise reminds us not only of danger
posed by Lector but also of the danger lurking behind her own facade.
The camera shifts to Lector as he stalks his former tormentor, Dr.
Chilton. Once again Lector has stolen the fire from Clarise.
By ending with Lector, any question as to whether Clarise is or
is not a strong female character is moot. No truly positive images of
women are shown-women are either victims of a male world or, as is
the case of Clarise, assimilated into a male world. And Buffalo
Bill's attempt to assimilate himself into an imaginary female world
is repulsive and regressive. Time and time again Clarise is shown to
be trapped in a male world—seeking approval from the very world
which trivializes her strengths.
The psychological games, the loaded imagery are all woven far
too intricately to detail in this short analysis, but the theme of false
identification is central. Both Clarise and Buffalo Bill are striving
for an externalized unity with their surroundings. Where the true
images of men and women are to be found is not addressed in this film,