One of the absolute dumbest things about NBC’s Hannibal is the assertion that Hannibal has exquisite taste. He most certainly does not have exquisite taste.
Hannibal surrounds himself with beautiful things, yes, but those beautiful things are Bach chorales, fine wines, bespoke suits, antique furniture, classical art. These are radiant, exquisite, wonderful things, to be sure, and I am willing to argue that some part of the reason they are so good is precisely because one does not need taste to feel their beauty and see it, right on the surface. They are good all the way through, if one is of a mind to get analytical with them, but one doesn’t have to dig to see their perfection. It is somehow, magically, ingeniously, self-evident.
So self-evident that we kind of all know it’s good, and respond to the goodness. You might find someone who doesn’t like a particular bespoke suit, but they’ll like another one if the details are nicer. The excellence resonates.
Hannibal only likes what has been predetermined by others to be exquisite. He may have some genuine love of these things for themselves, but it’s hardly a consequence of any genuine epicurean palate (never mind that Hannibal himself is a joyless hedonist and probable Nihilist). Hannibal’s attraction to these things is just a consequence of his particular education and exposure. It is what he should like, so he likes it.
Taste happens when unique preference and personal peccadillo become active collection, curation, and refinement. Taste is a risky, subjective proposition. Hannibal takes no risks with taste, and while it could serve to drive home a sense of his inhumanity (or, gag, suprahumanity), I think that’s at best an extremely boring story and at worst a fundamental flaw in the conception of the character. It plays against him on every count: if he doesn’t like some shitty stuff, how can we believe him to be really human, and therefore scary? And hot on the heels of that: if we never see that he likes some shitty stuff, why would we think his supposed attraction to excellent things is any more genuine?
And if that attraction is not genuine, why would we ever fear him for anything but what he so ruthlessly does on a physical scale? At which point we do not have Hannibal Lecter, no, but some void, vapid brute with a plastic suit and a Le Creuset Dutch oven.
This is an odd argument, tbh. If I put it in music criticism terms, for instance, it would be “Hannibal only loves albums that are great, and we know they’re great because everyone recognizes they’re great, therefore Hannibal plays it safe with his musical taste and hasn’t put any thought or personality into it at all.”
I just don’t think any of that follows.
First of all, if taste is “unique preference and personal peccadillo” (I agree), then there is no such thing as excellence that is evident to all. Not everyone loves the Beatles or Beethoven, or will wear a bespoke suit, or agree any of that is worth the money you’d spend on it. Furthermore, the category of “fine dining” or “bespoke suiting” is too large for taste to operate in. The whole *point* is that of two bespoke suits, you’d wear one but not the other. Over the past few years, I’ve seen a fair number of people post saying they couldn’t stand Hannibal’s suits, that they were not well-cut and didn’t fit Mads Mikkelsen’s physique, et cetera – not uneducated opinions.
I feel like what you’re actually responding to is the fact that everything Hannibal surrounds himself with is a *class signifier* – that they are things that are rare and expensive and stereotypically enjoyed by the upper classes. Not “he would never have a secret taste for KFC because it’s shitty food,” but “he would never have a secret taste for KFC because it’s not classy enough.” The argument would therefore be that his taste was formed by his class (and therefore safe and unconsidered), or that he only surrounds himself with these things *because* they are class signifiers (and therefore his taste is not genuine to his personality). At least, IMO you can *make* those arguments, but you’d still have to prove them. I’m personally leery of the “you only like that because you think you should like that” argument (the TL;DR formulation of which is “you’re a fake fan”): it’s not a provable stance IRL, and I don’t think it’s the creators’ intended takeaway.
Thing is, Hannibal likes *some* things that are masterpieces universally acclaimed to the point that they’re entirely signifier – like Botticelli’s Primavera – but if you took the suits or decor or food as Hannibal’s in-universe choices, then they are not uncontroversial “good taste,” even or perhaps especially from the perspective of rich opera-attending North American WASP boomers. Alana’s and Chilton’s spaces are generically tasteful, in different ways. Hannibal’s is flamboyant, morbid, ostentatiously Europhilic, and *definitely* gives off the sense of a curating mind at work: speaking just to his taste in Western painting, he’s actually kind of so-square-as-to-be-ironically-hip. The *weird* thing is that characters on the show don’t question his taste more (hence why it’s so delightful when Will or Chilton punctures him). Further to that, others have pointed out that Hannibal, well, eats people. And makes art installations from their bodies. And appreciates art murder installations made by others. That’s not changing the terms of the argument, because from Hannibal’s POV it’s all aesthetics, all a matter of taste.
Ok so I don’t agree with op’s conclusion about what Hannibal’s tastes mean in regard to storytelling but…
It wouldn’t surprise me if Hannibal was a “fake fan” of some of those high class things he has, just because what he really loves is performance. I think he is drawn to things that are rare and coveted because he enjoys the feeling of having possession of them, and also because he enjoys impressing others with the fact that he has them. I think he likes feeling “classy” and it fuels his love of classy things.
Mmm, you can argue that, sure, the same way you can argue that for any given person: but personally, speaking as someone who dabbles in media criticism conversations (not on this blog), I would like the idea of “fake fan” to die in a fire, and I know a lot of critics in various spheres feel the same. The reasons for that are 1) taste never exists in a vacuum, and therefore considerations of status and prestige are ALWAYS tied up in a taste judgment,** 2) no one can read someone else’s mind esp. over the Internet to determine whether they’re faking visible enthusiasm, and 3) what you’re describing – enjoying possessing the thing, enjoying performing one’s taste, enjoying impressing ppl of similar taste, and feeling that what you like marks you out to be a person of good taste – are not fake, but aspects of REAL fandom. For instance, I spend money on Hannibal DVDs, fanbooks, etc., I may “flaunt” that fact by posting photos on Tumblr, I enjoy it when other fans are impressed by my Hannibal meta and fic, and believe I am demonstrating publicly that I have good taste in TV shows. None of that makes me a “fake fan” of Hannibal, I hope, so why would it make Hannibal a “fake fan” of Francois Boucher?
All it comes down to is, Hannibal is suspect because he’s spending too much money on his taste, too easily. And the idea that good taste should take effort is a class consideration, not an aesthetic one per se.
** If you are a punk kid, are you reacting against a perceived populist mainstream taste? Or are you seeking approval from the *punk* mainstream? Which of those is the more authentic motive? Are you consciously aware of these motives? If you did possess these motives, does it make your enjoyment of the music less “pure”? Measured against what? Man, I was not a foot soldier in the poptimism wars to fight it over again. XD
Yeah, most people teach themselves to like something that isn’t automatically enjoyable because it fits into a vision of the sort of person they want to be (which is often as simple as ‘grown-ups drink coffee’), but that doesn’t mean that their appreciation isn’t real. Discovering the beauty in something that’s initially off putting is a pleasure in itself, maybe even the main pleasure of this very show.
Hannibal’s taste makes perfect sense for a guy who spent his adolescence in a Soviet orphanage and then read À Rebours.
Mooncustafer 