Wouldn't it have been more practical and efficient to just kill and skin one or two women and use their skin to fashion a suit? Killing so many women just to take a sliver of skin for the suit kind of felt like a waste of time and resources...
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My impression is that Buffalo Bill imagines an "ideal" form for his woman suit, and he wants specific parts that fit that ideal. For example, in the book, he wants Catherine Martin specifically for her breasts (though the movie doesn't go there and suggests instead that he really likes the skin on her upper back).
Also, his motivation goes far beyond the practical matter of finding "ideal" parts for his woman suit, because, as Lecter notes, he has developed a taste for killing.
>>> For example, in the book, he wants Catherine Martin specifically for her breasts
My impression from the book was that he wants all the women for that purpose.
As Hannibal tells Clarice in the book:
"He wants a vest with tits on it."
Buffalo Bill tried to get transsexual surgery, because he wanted to look like a woman.
When they refused him, this was his way of accomplishing it.
Thinking about it now, however, he could have taken hormone pills which would have given him the big tits he craved....
Scariest words in English: We’re from the federal government and we’re here to help. R. Reagan
In the book, Lecter follows the killings closely, and it seems to me that when he says that Buffalo Bill wants a vest with tits, he is anticipating Bill's next move (i.e., wanting to take breasts from his next victim, who turns out to be Catherine Martin) just as he was able to predict that Bill had scalped a previous victim.
Also, the book doesn't indicate that Bill took breasts from any of his previous victims. He scalped one victim specifically because he wanted her hair. The book also makes a point of noting that another victim had relatively small breasts that (presumably) didn't interest him enough to take.
In my opinion, you are completely wrong, and you are completely misreading the book. His interest in all of the women was for tits. Here are the reasons I believe that.
1. There is no anwyhere indication that Lector's statement that he wants a vest with tits was limited to one woman. That was what Buffalo Bill was seeking. Period.
2. BB's wanting a vest with tits had a clear purpose: to look like a woman. Why would he want other pieces of a woman?
3. Furthermore, logistically, what would he do with a whole bunch of women's different parts? The book explains explicitly how he would put on a vest. Please explain how he would use other parts.
4. BB had originally sought sexual reassignment. This makes it explicit that what he is seeking is to have the body of a woman. That means tits, not other body parts. BB's goal is to look like a woman. Taking other body parts has absolutely nothiing to do with that.
5. In the scene where he dances, he hides his penis between his legs, further evidence that he is trying to hide his maleness.
6. In one scene, he starts fantasizing about how great he'll look with his vest with tits.
7. Lector guesses, correctly, that the victim who was shot through the chest was flat-chested. This pretty much proves beyond dispute the exact opposite of your theory. He shot her through the chest because his whole goal was her chest, and since she had a flat chest, she was useless to him, hence he shot her chest out of frustration.
8. Your theory would require that Lector had sufficient knowledge about Martin to know that BB wanted her for her tits. There is no evidence of this, nor is there any discussion of any connection between Martin specifically and the desire for tits.
9. The fact that the book doesn't indicate that he didn't use the previous women for breasts proves nothing. All Crawford and Starling knew was that he was skinning the women, and so that's all they discuss. Nobody knew what he was using the skin for.
10. He didn't scalped any of the other women for a simple reason: he shot them in the head.
11. According to your theory, BB presumably would have skinned each woman in a different place. Crawford and Starling have a conversation in which they discuss the differences between the various women. If your theory were correct, then they would have mentioned how this victim was skinned in one part, that victim was skinned in another part.
12. Read the following description of BB. It is clear that his goal is to look like a woman.
In the shower was Jame Gumb, white male, thirty-four, six feet one inch, 205 pounds, brown and blue, no distinguishing marks. He pronounces his first name like James without the s. Jame. He insists on it.
After his first rinse, Gumb applied Friction des Bains, rubbing it over his chest and buttocks with his hands and using a dishmop on the parts he did not like to touch. His legs and feet were a little stubbly, but he decided they would do.
Gumb toweled himself pink and applied a good skin emollient. His full-length mirror had a shower curtain on a bar in front of it.
Gumb used the dishmop to tuck his penis and testicles back between his legs. He whipped the shower curtain aside and stood before the mirror, hitting a hipshot pose despite the grinding it caused in his private parts.
"Do something for me, honey. Do something for me SOON." He used the upper range of his naturally deep voice, and he believed he was getting better at it. The hormones he'd taken--- Premarin for a while and then diethylstilbestrol, orally--- couldn't do anything for his voice, but they had thinned the hair a little across his slightly budding breasts. A lot of electrolysis had removed Gumb's beard and shaped his hairline into a widow's peak, but he did not look like a woman. He looked like a man inclined to fight with his nails as well as his fists and feet.
The material is lying on her side, curled like a shrimp. She seems to be asleep. Her waste bucket stands beside her. She has not foolishly broken the string again, trying to pull herself up the sheer walls. In her sleep, she clutches the corner of the futon against her face and sucks her thumb.
Watching Catherine, playing the infrared flashlight up and down her, Mr. Gumb prepares himself for the very real problems ahead.
The human skin is fiendishly difficult to deal with if your standards are as high as Mr. Gumb's. There are fundamental structural decisions to make, and the first one is where to put the zipper.
He moves the beam down Catherine's back. Normally he would put the closure in the back, but then how could he don it alone? It won't be the sort of thing he can ask someone to help him with, exciting as that prospect might be. He knows of places, circles, where his efforts would be much admired--- there are certain yachts where he could preen--- but that will have to wait. He must have things he can use alone. To split the center front would be sacrilege--- he puts that right out of his mind.
Mr. Gumb can tell nothing of Catherine's color by infrared, but she looks thinner. He believes she may have been dieting when he took her.
Experience has taught him to wait from four days to a week before harvesting the hide. Sudden weight loss makes the hide looser and easier to remove. In addition, starvation takes much of his subjects' strength and makes them more manageable. More docile. A stuporous resignation comes over some of them. At the same time, it's necessary to provide a few rations to prevent despair and destructive tantrums that might damage the skin.
It definitely has lost weight. This one is so special, so central to what he is doing, he can't stand to wait long, and he doesn't have to. Tomorrow afternoon, he can do it, or tomorrow night. The next day at the latest. Soon.
I honestly don't know where you get the idea that I'm arguing against the notion that Buffalo Bill is trying to hide his maleness. I never said that, I don't believe that, and your assumption that I do is puzzling. Nearly everything you wrote in the post above appears to be based upon this (completely false) premise.
Also, I'm not sufficiently invested in this to go through your laundry list point by point, but you are ignoring some facts stated in the book. For example, he didn't shoot all of his previous victims in the head. He hanged some of them (hence the emphasis on his two-story house). He DID scalp one victim for her hair.
SnoozeAlarm, are you just bored and looking to start fights? No one is arguing with you. And in the film, as well as the book, Buffalo Bill is shown making a WHOLE suit out of women's skin, that is, vest, leggings, arm sleeves, etc. He wanted to cover himself completely with women's skin.
share>>> And in the film, as well as the book, Buffalo Bill is shown making a WHOLE suit out of women's skin, that is, vest, leggings, arm sleeves, etc.
I think you're wrong. Please show me a reference from the book. I don't think you'll find one.
http://www.gyxsqex.com/tushu/book/book56/20098306242216.pdf
Scariest words in English: We’re from the federal government and we’re here to help. R. Reagan