The Silence of the Lambs was released and created a sensation. The following year, it swept the five major categories at the 1992 Academy Awards while queer activists protested in droves outside the venue over its depiction of its serial killer Buffalo Bill/Jame Gumb.
Now the CBS series Clarice us about to introduce a storyline featuring trans actress Jen Richards (also a consultant on the show) to counter and reframe the dangerous narrative that painted Buffalo Bill as “transsexual,” although “not a real transsexual,” Anthony Hopkins’s Hannibal Lecter tells Jodie Foster’s Clarice Starling in the film.