A lot of my Final Girls the past few weeks have been defined by their roles as narrative foil to the villains who they defeat. I believe that is what makes a final girl so interesting. The way that they reflect and contrast the people who they are set against. The villain looms so lofty in the narrative that they become the center that the entire story and all the characters in it revolve around, including the protagonist. What is interesting about The Silence of the Lambs is the fact that Hannibal Lecter has less than ten minutes of screen time and yet he is the one who is associated with the film. He’s not even the main villain of the story, Buffalo Bill is. And though it is his conversations with Jodie Foster‘s career defining Clarice Starling that remain so clear in memory, she resists reflecting his evil. Clarice is iconic because she resists the seductive evil of this character and uses her empathy and bravery to triumph over the monsters in her story, even those that remain unseen.
Clarice isn’t the first character that comes to mind when you think of a final girl, which makes sense because the majority of the main character in The Silence of the Lambs do survive. Clarice is also one of only about four named female characters and the only one who has a major role in the story. However what makes this film is special is the way that the entire story revolves around that very fact. In the FBI (especially at that time) women weren’t considered competent or important. They weren’t given very much power or responsibility and they certainly weren’t the ones who were pegged as the hero of the story and yet Throughout the film it is made clear that it is in fact Clarice’s female identity that is her greatest strength.
In The Silence of the Lambs it is women who are preyed on by Buffalo Bill, but although he is the main villain of the film, the FBI is used as a mirror as to how women are overwhelmingly oppressed even by those who are supposedly the good guys. Clarice is constantly talked over, ignored and hit on even as she is racing to save the life of a young girl while going head not head with a man who is considered one of the most vicious psychopaths in the US if not the world. But Clarice is smart and she is a woman who can understand the mindset of Buffalo Bill’s victims, if not Buffalo Bill himself. She uses her experiences as a woman to track down the very first victim of Bill and therefore find her way to Bill himself.
In the meantime, Clarice has a series of intense and intrusive conversations with jailed serial killer and cannibal Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins). Right off the bat Hannibal is depicted as a sadistic, highly intelligent psychopath who barely views other people as people and has no qualms about cutting right into the meat of another person’s brain both literally and figuratively. However Hannibal develops both respect and fondness for Clarice almost right off the bat. Ironically, many of the reviews of the film included speculation that this was because Hannibal had become attracted to Clarice which is also the opinion of most of the men in the movie but I don’t believe this to be the case. It’s not attraction so much as it is admiration for her candor and self possession, that she is not afraid to confront her own fears and so doesn’t allow for Hannibal to use them against her. He also responds to the fact that Clarice is at this point the only person who treats him like a human being. Hannibal has been shut away and treated like an outsider, and in the FBI Clarice is socially excluded and disrespected as well. In Dr. Lecter’s case that is because he has proven himself to be monstrous. In Clarice’s case, it’s because she is a woman.
Clarice Starling defeats Buffalo Bill and rescues Catherine Martin, however Hannibal Lecter escapes prison alive and the film ends with an ominous phone call he places to Clarice. “Do not worry, Clarice, I think the world is much more interesting with you in it.” Ultimately Clarice is triumphant and there is truly not a single moment where she falls for the villain’s seductive evil. In fact, the opposite happens, even the big bad would prefer Clarice stay alive. The director of the sanatorium where Hannibal was incarcerated spends the majority of the film sexualizing Clarice — when he finds out that Dr. Lecter has escaped he gets out of the country fast. We are shown an image of Dr. Lecter in Italy on the phone with Clarice. He tells her he would love to chat but, “I am meeting an old friend for dinner.”
In the case of final girl Clarice Starling, you better show her some respect, because she has friends in high and low places.
