Hannibal Lecter straight up says in the movie that Buffalo Bill isn't trans, I thought it was actually kind of progressive considering it was 1991.

Literally just watched this movie in a small private cinema like an hour ago! I'm trans, I've always loved the movie. It really has never felt to me like the movie or cast or anything was trying to be transphobic in fact quite the opposite. They explicitly say there is no correlation between being trans and being violent and that trans people are passive. They're very clear that they don't think Bill is trans. There could be something to be said about externally prescribing if someone is trans or not but that's more a general "they didn't understand psych well on a lot of fronts then". They put in decent effort to try and say trans people aren't inherently bad. I consider it to be relatively progressive in intent but they didn't know how to tell the story in a way that wouldn't be taken in the wrong way.

Also when I was first transitioning I'd periodically naked sideways shuffle through the house with a tuck and yell "would you fuck me" at my spouse which was fun.

I think this is nice

The guy did something back in the day when we didn't really know better. He now knows better and reflects on that and now is better.

Isn't that great?

And about the movie, I think its still an awesome movie. I never took it as "uuhh, trans people are monsters!!" This was just one single deranged guy who thought he was trans (it was explained in the movie that he wasn't, by lecter himself even)

I think we should just enjoy the movie and remember that it wasn't produced in 2026,it was produced somewhere in the 90s. We don't need to throw babies outnwitg bathwater

Not sure if I will catch heat for this, but…

Silence of the Lambs is in my top 5. I’ve always interpreted Bill as someone who is not trans, but rather part of his pathology is a misplaced identity issue. He wanted to become what he coveted; he did not feel that he was a woman, but that he wanted to transform into a woman. A point without distinction? Idk, it’s hard for me to verbalize it properly. He tried to get GCS, because that was what many trans folks aspire to, and when they turned him away, he pulled a “Fine, I’ll do it myself”. He sees killing as just another step in the process of constructing his own transformation. There does seem to be some sort of sexual gratification involved, but I think that is just a bonus for him.

This is just my interpretation of it. I could be off base, but it still remains in my top 5. I can definitely understand why others would think that my take is spicy at best. I think we all have some piece of media that we are willing to overlook problematic aspects of it.

most media/books from the 80s and 90s are full of sexism/misogyny, bigotry, racism, and everything else. there was progress from the horrors of previous decades, but they weren't there yet

to this day we have incel troglodytes whining about "wokeness" in media, which means if it's not casting straight white male christian type A characters as superior to everyone who isn't all of those things, then it's DEI and unamerican and communist

a lot of my favorite books/films from those years, it turns out, are deeply problematic, but no one realized it at the time. that's why i consume all the "wokest" things i possibly can now

It’s unfortunate that the film vilified that...

I'm not sure I understand that thought. In that sense it's just about one fucked-up individual, not any kind of systemic thing, right?

There is no need to change the movie again. We all know that Clarice shot first.

(Non-native English speaker here—used AI to help clean up my grammar and phrasing!)

Honestly, I kind of view this the same way as the disclaimers on old Looney Tunes cartoons or the intros Whoopi Goldberg does for classic media. They basically explain that the content features harmful stereotypes of the past, but keeping it available is important so we don't erase history or pretend those attitudes didn't exist.

It’s great to see people look back with a mature perspective and realize how problematic certain portrayals are. But at the same time, it is very much a product of its time, and acknowledging past mistakes is part of growing up as a culture.

If you read the piece about The Silence of the Lambs, both the director and the actor explain that they were trying to portray a deeply disturbed heterosexual man who was looking for an escape—they genuinely didn't intend to vilify trans people back then. But what matters most is that they're now much more aware of the real-world harm, they own up to it, and they've actively grown and started speaking out against it.

I still love the film, it will always be a masterpiece in my eyes.