If there’s one Trump rant that’s guaranteed to make your brain melt, it’s the one where he gushes about fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter. Praising the Silence of the Lambs villain is now a regular part of Trump’s stump speech, but most people only noticed in May because he went on and on about it.
Trump does sort of have a reason for bringing up Lecter: He’s invoking the movie villain to demonize migrants. But Trump’s tale is all wrong, both factually and dramaturgically. Here’s why:
• Trump says many migrants have been in mental institutions like the one shown in Silence of the Lambs, but there is no evidence that criminals and mentally ill people are flooding into the U.S.
• Trump has repeatedly said that Hannibal Lecter is a “great man’ who deserves our “congratulations” — so why keep him out of the U.S.?
• Trump seems confused about whether Hannibal Lecter is a character or the man who played him. He’s remarked, “Hannibal Lecter, how great an actor was he?”
• Trump has said he loves Lecter because the actor once said “I love Donald Trump” in a TV interview. It’s unclear who he was referring to, but all the actors who have portrayed Lecter — Anthony Hopkins, Mads Mikkelsen, and Brian Cox — have said they dislike Trump.
• Trump often refers to “the late, great Hannibal Lecter,” but the character does not die in any of the book, TV, or film adaptations.
• By the end of The Silence of the Lambs, Lecter has escaped from the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane and is stalking his next victim in the Bahamas. So this is an example of the United States unleashing its inmates on a foreign country, not the other way around.
As the supercut below shows, Trump isn’t stressing about any of these details. The once-and-possibly-future president of the United States just loves yelling “Hannibal Lecter!” at his rallies, even if it doesn’t make any sense.
