Based on Thomas Harris's book of the same name, The Silence of the Lambs is a horror-thriller movie. Clarice Starling, a young federal bureau of investigations agent, is charged with locating a serial killer who harvests the skin from his victims after they have been slain. The youthful FBI cadet must ask another crafty serial killer who is housed in a maximum security facility for assistance in order to locate him. The serial killers in this movie are examined in this article, with particular attention paid to their type, level of organization, and motivation. The mental illness or psychopathy the killer cold have, and finally a comparison of the killer to the profile of the average serial killer.
Short synopsis of the film
Clarice Starling, a young FBI agent, is sent to interview an incarcerated cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter who is believed to have valuable information on the identity and whereabouts of another serial killer, Buffalo Bill who has been involved in the murder of several women. The aim is to gain insights into the mind of a serial killer through the incarcerated Hannibal Lector. Buffalo Bill targets large women, who he starves, kills and skins their corpses (The Silence of the Lambs, 1991). The young agent was chosen because she is a woman and could trigger some emotional response from the prisoner. Hannibal Lecter, who is also a respected psychiatrist, proves hard to interrogate as he starts playing psychological games with the FBI agent. She has to reveal details about her past in exchange for information that could help the agency identify and catch Buffalo Bill, the serial killer.
Meanwhile, a sixth body, believed to be a victim of Buffalo Bill is discovered, putting the FBI under intense pressure to find Buffalo Bill. More scrutiny from the media and public, in this case, comes after the serial killer abducts the daughter of a senator. Clarice Starling now has to match wits with the infamous cannibal if she is to find the senator’s daughter alive. She offers Hannibal a deal, in which he is to be transferred from the current facility he is being held at in exchange for information about Buffalo Bill. Starling is finally able to figure out Buffalo Bill's identity from Lecter’s annotations and travels to Ohio to make the arrest (The Silence of the Lambs, 1991). She manages to trace the serial killer, whose name is Jame Gumb, and kill him before he could attack her. In the end, she is able to save the senator's daughter while Hannibal Lecter manages to escape from prison.
Modus operandi
Buffalo Bill’s way of executing murders was to approach the victim, all overweight women, pretending to be injured and asking for help. By pretending to be injured, he was able to work knock them out, overpowering them, and then kidnap the women and take them to his basement. For the first three victims, Gumb he would lead them upstairs and slip a noose around their necks before pushing them over the stairs so as to hang. He did all this by himself and did not have an accomplice even when disposing of the bodies which he would dump into a river so as to destroy the evidence.
Type of killer
Serial killers can be categorized as visionary, mission, power control, or hedonistic type of killers. Visionary serial killers often believe that they are another person or that they have been mandated to take the lives of their victims by God or the devil. Mission oriented serial killers are driven by the aim to rid the world of certain types of people they deem undesirable. In the past, they have targeted gays, lesbians or people from a certain ethnic group. Unlike visionary serial killers, they are generally not psychotic. Hedonistic serial killers are those that kill in pursuit of the pleasure they derive from taking the lives of their victims (Walsh & Ellis, 2007). They are further divided into three subtypes; lust, thrill, and comfort serial killers. Sexual gratification from the victims, whether dead or alive, is the main motivation for lust killer. Comfort killers are motivated by material gains such as being paid for killing someone. Thrill killers are driven by the gratification they get from inflicting pain and terror on their victims. Finally, power control serial killers are driven by the desire to exert control over their victims because it makes them feel powerful and in control.
Jame Gumb can be said to have been a hedonistic serial killer, specifically lust killer, who also exhibited some characteristics similar to those of a power control serial killer. He did not consider his victims as humans, but only a means to an end. His primary objective in killing the women was to harvest their skin so that he could make himself a woman suit. He never considered their pain or the suffering of their families but was only concerned with getting what he wanted from them, their skin. He seems to gain pleasure from hunting them down, starving them so as to loosen their skin and also enjoys the part where he has to kill them. Such traits are similar to those of a hedonistic or lust type serial killer. He is motivated by sex change in harvesting the skins of his victims. He also liked to have absolute control and dominance over his victims by first starving them such that they were powerless and then eventually killing them. Also, he kept the victims alive just long enough
Buffalo Bill as an organized killer
Bill can be categorized as an organized serial killer because he stalked his victims and calculated precisely when he would strike so as to draw as little attention to himself as possible. He would hide behind bushes, watching his prey for some time and only approached them when the time was right by pretending to need help so as to lure them into his van where he would then strike. This was a well-calculated maneuver by Buffalo Bill, and he did not act out of impulse. The first victim he killed was personally known to him while in the case of the senator’s daughter, he had watched and stalked her at her home and apartment before kidnapping her. Another practice that shows Bill was an organized killer is dumping the bodies of his victims in a river. Although the murders took place somewhere else, he always ensured he got rid of any traces of evidence by disposing of the body in a river. Buffalo Bill as an organized killer can also be seen in how he preyed only on women of a specific size and body size. All his killings were carefully planned from the beginning, hiding any weapons and tools, and eventually disposing of the bodies.
Mental illnesses and paraphilia
The main antagonist, buffalo Bill, clearly illustrates a number of mental disorders such as antisocial personality disorder, autogynephilic transsexualism, histrionic personality disorder, and transvestic fetishism. People with antisocial personality disorder disregard and violate other people’s rights through violence and exhibiting other antisocial behaviors without any remorse or guilty feelings (Simons, 2001). Buffalo Bill was very withdrawn and did not keep many close friends. He was also quick to anger and displayed no realization of guilt for the people he hurt in pursuit of his goals. He also violated social norm by kidnapping and taking the lives of women. Bill used false names and occupied a house that was not his. He has no regard for the safety of his victims as long as he satisfies his need for skin. Antisocial behavior can also be seen in his aggressiveness and impulsiveness. An example of this is how he rushed to his basement and prepared to attack Starling once he realized Starling was suspecting him.
Histrioninc personality disorder is characterized by excessive attention seeking, emotional instability, and self-dramatization (Novais, Araújo & Godinho, 2015). The quest to become a woman as well as kidnapping the daughter of a senator show that Buffalo Bill was hungry for complete attention. Also, in the scene “it rubs the lotion on its skin. It does this whenever it is told. It puts the lotion on its skin, or else it gets the hose again. Now it places the lotion on the bucket”, he is extremely dramatic. He displays excessive emotionality in the scene where he also cried when Catherina started screaming and crying.
Transsexualism is marked by a strong desire for cross-identification as well as a persistent discomfort with one's biological sex or the gender roles of that sex (Tosh, 2015). Bill could not stand being a man and desired to be a woman to the point that he started killing women in order to make himself a skin suit. He also spent a lot of time cross-dressing and trying to change his appearance to that of a lady. He had fantasies being a lady as can be seen in the scene where he danced with his manhood tucked between his legs.
Transvestic fetishism is marked by a sexual desire to dress in clothes of the opposite sex. Buffalo Bill was fond of cross dressing and applying makeup. His basement was filled with women’s clothing including the human skin dress he was making from his victims. He also had a fetishism for women skin. An example is how he sighed with ecstasy from touching and feeling Catherine’s skin at the back of his van after he had knocked her out. This obsession with women’s skin suggests that he got some sort of recurrent sexual arousal from it.
Comparing Buffalo Bill to the average serial killer
Buffalo Bill is portrayed as the stereotypical serial killer who lives an isolated life, in his dark basement and only enters public space when there is a need. According to Clarice’s profiling, Bill fits the stereotypical serial killer because he is white, living in a home rather than an apartment, and in his thirties or 40’s. He also had a difficult childhood, depicted as an unwanted kid. Many serial killers are believed to have suffered horrific traumas during childhood. Bill’s mother failed in her attempt to be a beauty pageant after she found out that she was pregnant with him (The Silence of the Lambs, 1991). She then turned into a drunkard, and he had to grow up in an orphanage because his mother could not afford him. It would, therefore, be right to assume that he had a rough childhood, which could be the cause of his mental instability.
The stereotypical white serial killer is believed to prey on attractive white women leading to the emergence of the phrase “missing white woman syndrome.” Buffalo Bill’s victims were all women from whose skin he aimed to fashion a skin suit for himself. As mentioned, Bill selected overweight ladies who he would first starve in a well in order to loosen their skin before killing. At the start of the film, Buffalo Bill has already murdered five of his victims, the first three through strangling, and shooting the other two. He would then skin parts of their body and dispose of the remains in a river. Mobility can be seen in how these murders were done in a home for privacy reasons, but the killer took the time to transport the bodies to a river for disposal.
This movie shows a hedonistic killer whose main motivation for killing was to create a skin suit from his victims’ bodies. He is an organized killer who took time follow his victims around before deciding on the most opportune time to strike. His method of disposing the bodies of his victims in a river in order to do away with evidence also shows that he was an organized killer (The Silence of the Lambs, 1991). Buffalo Bill displays some mental illnesses such as antisocial personality disorder, histrionic personality disorder, and antisocial personality disorder, histrionic personality disorder, and autogynephilic transsexualism. He also presents transvestic fetishism as can be seen in the scene where he was aroused from touching the skin of one of his victims. Compared to the average serial killer, Buffalo Bill fits most of the stereotypes such as having a difficult childhood, antisocial behavior, and the signature of skinning his victims.
References
Jones, C. (2016, Dec 30). The Silence of the Lambs. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlD6xzshihg
Novais, F., Araújo, A., & Godinho, P. (2015). Historical roots of histrionic personality disorder. Frontiers In Psychology, 6. http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01463
Simons, C. (2001). Antisocial personality disorder in serial killers: The thrill of the kill. The Justice Professional, 14(4), 345-356. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1478601x.2001.9959630
Tosh, J. (2015). Perverse psychology : the pathologization of sexual violence and transgenderism. East Sussex, England ; New York, New York: Routledge.
Walsh, A., & Ellis, L. (2007). Criminology. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications.
