Love devours, and sometimes ᅳ on screen ᅳ it does so quite literally…
Cannibalism is an age-old object of affection in media, the depiction of the act itself as fascinating as it is pervasive. When confronted with it, we cannot look away, and we find ourselves craving more of this transgressive act. Historically, cannibalism has been used to portray the manifestation of gratuitous violence. It’s seen as one of the most animalistic urges one can have and is often attributed to villains ᅳ like the witch in Hansel and Gretel who plans on fattening the children before devouring them. But what happens when cannibalism is used to parallel love, or desire?
In Yellowjackets, despite cannibalism being an ever-present theme, it’s the exploration of female relationships and girlhood — particularly through Jackie and Shauna’s relationship — that takes centre stage. Their relationship is tense at best; Shauna’s been sleeping with Jackie’s boyfriend for months, while Jackie, unaware, sees Shauna as her follower. For Jackie, where Jackie goes, Shauna follows — until the crash shifts the dynamic. Their relationship reaches a breaking point in the season finale, when Jackie learns the truth and chooses to sleep outside and freeze to death, rather than share a space with Shauna.
In S2E2, Jackie becomes the object of Shauna’s impulses, who has — in a scene straight out of a messed up version of the Barbie movie — been keeping her corpse in a shed, talking to her, posing her, going as far as to put makeup on her. When Shauna tries to cremate Jackie, snow falls on the pyre, cooking the body instead. The smell lures the girls out of the cabin and they gather around Jackie like worshippers to an altar until Shauna says, “She wants us to” and they descend upon her like wild animals. The scene, which jumps between the consumption of Jackie and a hallucinated bacchanal, is described by writer Jonathan Lisco as tender, cruel, yet erotic: “The eating of a person is the ultimate way to dignify that person and keep her with you forever, while at the same time destroy her and dominate her”. Shauna had always resented her role as Jackie’s sidekick; eating her, a way of reversing that dynamic while also keeping Jackie inside her forever. Lisco adds, “it’s very intimate. There’s like an even slightly erotic component to it, […], that’s both about friendship but also almost a quasi-sexualized love in a way”.
This erotic component materialises in the show Hannibal through the relationship between Will Graham and serial killer Hannibal Lecter, who is fascinated by Will’s “pure empathy”. For Hannibal, consuming his victims represents an act of dominance, but with Will, it takes on a deeper significance ᅳ the idea of “consuming” Will, not an act of violence, but a way to understanding him, fusing their identities. Will is equally drawn to Hannibal. Their relationship is rife with erotic tension, and cannibalism becomes the manifestation of the love which consumes them ᅳ they are unable to stray from one another and cannibalism is partly a representation of that.
Similarly in Yellowjackets, 25 years later, Shauna can’t get away from Jackie. Her remains are forever with Shauna, serving as a reminder. We see this manifested in Shauna’s life since then; she’s married to Jackie’s boyfriend, still visits Jackie’s parents, thus almost posing as her former best friend in their house and their life. She never went to college, and is a stay-at-home mom to a daughter so similar in looks and personality to Jackie that Shauna hates her for it. She’s inherited the life Jackie would have lived — driven by a desire to be both everything Jackie was and wasn’t, resulting in a constant reminder of her guilt.
“It’s the easiest thing, Maren, love. Just love me and eat me.” In Bones and All, cannibalism is used to convey love, however, it also parallels feeling out of place. Maren stands out as a character because she is constantly battling her nature as a cannibal, struggling to be “good”, and rejecting the urge to feed on others. Unlike other cannibals, Maren wrestles with shame and self-loathing over this. Her journey to self-acceptance begins with Lee. Unlike Shauna in Yellowjackets, who carries her guilt for consuming Jackie, Maren’s love for Lee allows her to fully embrace herself — ending in her consuming him, as he wishes, in the final scene.
In short, can cannibalism be a metaphor for love? Yes. But it also amounts to something so much more visceral, obsessive, and profound, that love seems an almost reductive way to put it.
“Embracing Skeletons” by billolen is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.