Hannibal

Hannibal Lecter was well known for being a cannibal and was highly feared at a time when people were just learning about cannibalism of past cultures. The media portrayed him as a highly intelligent psychopath who looked and acted like everyone else yet dissected and ate people. This instilled fear upon people because they didn’t know whether their neighbor was who he said he was or had a dark side to him. They had no idea why people would kill and eat someone else. The media helped spread the knowledge of cannibalism and the thought that it exists through the movies The Silence of the Lambs, and Hannibal. The movie Hannibal Rising explains why Hannibal was a monster who ate and dissected people, he witnessed it as a small child when his family was brutally murdered and his sister eaten so his captors could stay alive. In light of research into why cultures used cannibalism the movies provide only a glimpse of a reason for it. There are other reasons but the media only portrayed the one of war, murder, and hardship that the boy endured. There was only one victim, a little boy who grew up to kill and eat people.