The Silence of the Lambs : Were all the male characters in the book

also flirting with Starling?

One thing that always sticks out for me when I watch the film is that most male characters actively flirt with Clarice or to some extent show her a sexual/romantic interest. Was this something that transferred over from the book?

I only ask because personally I've never found Jodie Foster to be that attractive to begin with, but the wardrobe and make-up department here seems to have gone the extra mile to make her a very plain looking lady. Her hair covers most of her face, her clothes are professional and loose fitting making no reveals of her figure etc.

In short, the character and actress appear to have not been sexualised in any way, shape or form, yet so many male characters are after her.

I have the book, but I never finished reading it. Due to lack of time. But just because a character looks a certain way in the film, doesn't mean they look like that in the book. For example: Hannibal Lecter's looks is described to have maroon eyes, dark slicked-back hair with a widow's peak, has 6 fingers in his left hand, and is slightly younger. All features that Anthony Hopkins lacks in the film. So if you don't find Jodie Foster attractive, you can always imagine someone else has her that is more attractive in the books.

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Was this in the book? I watched the movie last night and she doesn't sleep with anyone.

Yes, it's in the book, the book ends with her asleep in his arms, no longer dreaming of the lambs.

In the book, it's more overt that she ended up with the bug guy (Dr. Pilcher).

In the movie, you just get a brief little nod at the end, when Dr. Pilcher is taking a picture of (Rodin? Rudin?) the other bug guy with Ardelia, at Clarice (and presumably Ardelia's) graduation ceremony. It's a blink and you miss it moment, but it's very sweet, and it's a shorthand that says Clarice and Pilcher became friends, if not lovers in the film.

I thought it was more to show the roadblocks she has as a woman in her field. She's trying to be as professional as possible, but no matter how she looks or behaves, the men around her see her as a sex object.

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I only ask because personally I've never found Jodie Foster to be that attractive to begin with, but the wardrobe and make-up department here seems to have gone the extra mile to make her a very plain looking lady. Her hair covers most of her face, her clothes are professional and loose fitting making no reveals of her figure etc.

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The flirting had nothing to do with Foster's looks. It was more about the obstacles and discrimination she faced as a woman working in a male-dominated field (in this case, FBI) They were basically being unprofessional just because she was a women; her looks had nothing to do with it

Death Awaits (Horror forum)
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Yes, in the book her beauty is mentioned several times. There's a description of her being remote and glorious, a winter sunset of a girl; something like that. Jame Gumb says to her before he dies, "What is it like to be so beautiful?"


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I don't come from hell. I came from the forest.

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One thing that always sticks out for me when I watch the film is that most male characters actively flirt with Clarice or to some extent show her a sexual/romantic interest.

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This is one aspect of the movie that really irritated me. Jodie Foster was a decent-looking but average woman at the time, yet almost every single man in the movie would stop to drool over her. We see it in the airport (guy stops pulling his luggage to gawk), in the Quantico elevator (every man in the elevator stares), not to mention Chilton and the Smithsonian entomologist. It's as though Demme was so dead-set on creating a feminist film that in his universe every man except Crawford and Lecter (who are themselves taken with her, albeit more respectfully) always stops dead in his tracks when an average woman walks by, and where every single social or professional interaction between a man and a woman involves trying to get into her pants. One such episode would have been realistic, a dozen was absurd.

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In short, the character and actress appear to have not been sexualised in any way, shape or form, yet so many male characters are after her.

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Hate to break the news dude but having a hot body and beyond gorgeous face needs no "sexualizing" to do the old as time itself trick.

A guy shot the president of the United States for that lady and she was just thirteen then.

That's hot in a burka.







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having a hot body and beyond gorgeous face needs no "sexualizing"

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I can't argue with your opinion on the gorgeousness of her face as it's all subjective. I never found her facial features anything other than 'plain', but if the film was written and directed so as to have all the male characters see her as such I have to put it down to an artistic choice.

However, her 'hot body' is an entirely different issue. While I accept that being pretty is subjective and so is having a hot body (to a lesser extent), I don't see how even from a deliberate artistic stand-point anyone can make the assumption that her body was meant to be hot when she wore the least revealling clothing possible. She could have a beer gut and whale-thighs under all that and you couldn't tell, so I do call 'foul' on this particular point.

A previous poster expressed the opinion that the director was trying to over-state the sexist influence and nature of the job during those days, and in retrospect, I think that makes the best sense as far as plausible explanations go.

The notion of all men stopping in their tracks (as literally happens in the airport scene) when a woman who looks like Agent Starling walks by is ridiculous. Jodie Foster's Starling was a woman of decent but not especially striking appearance, who, as you say, dressed and acted conservatively.

John Hinckley's obsession with Foster was on account of her character being sexualized as a young girl in Taxi Driver. In Hinckley's mind, he was stalking "Iris". Most lunatics who stalk celebrities are attracted and obsessed with the fictional characters actors portray, since that's all they know about them. As an even more bizarre case in point: I read an interview with Tim Curry once where he stated he was being stalked by perverts with transvestite fetishes, all of whom assumed (or fantasized) that Curry was like his character in Rocky Horror Picture Show in real-life.