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history of portraying trans and gen-
der non-conforming people as evil, as
victims or as freaks to be laughed at
and ridiculed. Decades of those false,
stereotypical characters have created
a culture that harms trans people.
It’s important to acknowledge that
Silence of the Lambs, whether inten-
tional or not, is a part of that history.”
“It’s not that having a queer villain
is a problem. It’s only having queer
villains, that’s the problem,” says Sam
Wineman, a filmmaker behind the
horror-streaming service Shudder’s
upcoming documentary on queer
horror films. “We only have characters
who are the killer, or we have charac-
ters who died before the end of the
film. So we don’t have queer heroes.”
Wineman notes that the criticism
by queer audiences of Lambs isn’t new,
“When Jodie Foster was getting the Best
Actress Oscar, there were protesters. It
was not that Silence of the Lambs was
a bad movie, it’s that we as queer peo-
ple had to stand up and say, ‘We need
more, this isn’t enough.’”
“If we were to eliminate all of our
quote, ‘bad examples of queer repre-
sentation,’ we wouldn’t have queer
representation. The reason why it’s
important to be able to contextualize
something like Silence of the Lambs is
that we can’t just throw it away. We
have to look at it and say, ‘How can
we do better?’”
Criticism aside, there’s no doubt
that The Silence of the Lambs was a
groundbreaking piece of cinema,
which obviously has had a big impact
on many of the critically acclaimed
horror films that followed in its path,
like The Others (2001), Get Out (2017)
and Hereditary (2018).
“It really did feel like there was
something magical about it. It was
just magical,” says Foster. “I don’t
know that any of us will ever reach
that again.”GOLDMINE
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in 1992 for its director
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and stars Hopkins and
Foster as well as for best
picture and best adapted
screenplay. Its success
led to several sequels and
prequels including CBS’s
new TV series Clarice,
with Rebecca Breeds
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