Hi Pia I really love all your works and omg I started from one of your jack frost × pitch stories and is now a humble follower who jumps at every chapter. Just want to say I really love what you write. And it got me thinking if you've ever watched Hannibal? ̶I̶ ̶w̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶k̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶r̶e̶a̶d̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶t̶a̶k̶e̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶H̶a̶n̶n̶i̶b̶a̶l̶
I have watched Hannibal. I actually am a big fan of Thomas Harris, and The Silence of the Lambs is one of my favourite films.
Since I have very mixed opinions about Hannibal, I’m putting my thoughts under a cut.
My thoughts about Hannibal are this, the first season is its best, and well shot and has good cinematography. Over time Fuller got more leeway and less editing and the show spun out of control and deserved to get cancelled before it did. This was, at the time, ‘covered’ with Fuller pandering to fandom and talking about how - especially towards the end when everyone talked about it being cancelled - Hannibal and Will were clearly in love, despite a) never talking about this much before when the show was doing well and was a clear critical darling and b) the relationship clearly being abusive within the show.
Hannibal deserved to get cancelled when it did (frankly I’m surprised it didn’t get axed a season earlier), and was a critical darling that kind of ended in a conflagration of flames because the storytelling became messy, the cinematography became unhinged (80s music video bisexual makeout montage using lazy kaleidoscopic techniques designed for the male gaze, anyone?), and the scriptwriting made classic gothic scriptwriting look more like dog barf. And that’s saying something, because some of my favourite actors are in that show (in particular, Hugh Dancy and Gillian Anderson).
I watched all of it and regretted watching all of it, but by far and away, the fandom has been the most disappointing part of Hannibal and was one of the reasons I pretty much formally yeeted myself out of the fandom at the speed of light about midway through season 2 (I did still watch it all, I just didn’t talk to people about it, lol).
Though definitely not as disappointing as the fact that antis have infiltrated the fandom (for which I am very very sorry, no fandom deserves that).
The part of me that did media studies is just... oof. Very oof about that show, lmao. I also love Bryan Fuller, so I was ready to be a superfan. But alas, it was never to be. Tbh as soon as a creator kind of unironically calls an abuser and their victim two people who are very in love, and doesn’t think to disclaim that (fans don’t have to, but a cis male creator really fucking should), I jettisoned myself out. I understand there’s things you do to make your fandom love you, but that was a step too far, for me.
