What’s up with cannibalism in media and why does it leave us hungry for more?
By Audrey Elwood, Staff Writer
“I am hungry / I have been hungry.”
Those lyrics from Mitski’s “Abbey” have recently flooded TikTok slide shows alongside poems and prose focused on love and devouring. But what is this hunger in question? What are all these writings about?
What is it about eating other people that has captured the media’s attention? In the last three years, we have gotten a plethora of new movies, TV shows and books on this topic. From Yellowjackets to that one scene in Saltburn, it begs the question: Why now? And why can’t we look away?
In Ethel Cain’s 2022 Preacher’s Daughter album, we are told a story about how a young, fictionalized Ethel runs away from home, is seduced by a man and is ultimately killed. In the final song, “Strangers,” we hear the grotesque depiction of Ethel being eaten by her past lover.
“Freezer bride, your sweet divine / you devour like smoked bovine hide / How funny, I never considered myself tough.”
The song is about longing for the approval of the lover and is told through the symbolism of cannibalism.
Romance and cannibalism have been linked heavily in modern media. In the movie Bones and All (2022), we see the main character eat her love interest. So, why is there such a romanticization of cannibalism?
In my opinion, it is the desire to be needed so deeply by another person that you literally sustain them. You are their sustenance. What is love, but the consumption of your partner’s love and entire being? Like an obsession gone wrong, cannibalism signifies just how consumed one is in a relationship, by the consumption of human flesh.
Harkening back to the vampire mania of the early 2010’s, people want to be needed by a partner on the deepest level, and within the context of these stories, are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for their partner. It plays into the toxic relationship roles people love to consume but don’t love to live (if you don’t think Bella and Edward were toxic, I am genuinely concerned, and yes drinking blood is cannibalism). Cannibalism as a trope, in a way, is just extreme people pleasing, but this only applies in cases of consensual cannibalism.
I also must remark on how in most cannibalism media centered around romance, the eaten is usually a woman being eaten against her will. In the movie Fresh (2022), a woman goes on a date with a charming man, only to later find out that he eats and sells the meat of women he goes on dates with. With this in mind, one can also make the argument that cannibalism is symbolic of the loss of women’s bodily autonomy, with greed being represented by the men who are taking from the women’s body.
The 2017 novel Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica follows a woman, Jasmine, who is literally bred to be eaten by other people. The way in which women like Jasmine are farmed for their body is evocative of how women today can be used for male pleasure and then discarded once their use is up. Many of these themes tie back to the disposal of women after their use to society is gone, because they’re too “ugly” or “old.”
Cannibalism is used as a political act within the media, and it almost always involves the destruction of female bodies. The spike in cannibalism is not a random media trend, but one that relates to current societal pressures. With Roe v. Wade being overturned, many women feel stripped of their rights. Their bodies have been taken away just like a carcass in a slaughterhouse.
The rise of normalization of violence in relationships could be another reason this media has become so prevalent. From the objectification of women through social media “alpha males” and incels, cannibalism is the objectification of a person as consumable, which often is what a person is reduced to, especially in the age of social media.
So maybe cannibalism is less about love and more about desire. After all, deep desire can’t be expressed as well as through the carnality of cannibalism.
The rise in cannibalism media is a reflection of ourselves and our deepest, darkest desires… guts and all.