Jame Gumb

Jame Gumb (aka Buffalo Bill) is a fictional character and the main antagonist in the 1988 novel "The Silence of the Lambs" by Thomas Harris, and its 1991 film adaptation, in which he was played by Ted Levine.

Character overview

A serial killer, he murders overweight women so he can remove their skin and fashion a "woman suit" for himself; he believes himself to be transsexual but is too disturbed to qualify for sex reassignment surgery. He becomes known as "Buffalo Bill" during his murder spree because of an off-color joke by Kansas City homicide detectives; upon discovering his first victim, the detectives say "This one likes to skin his humps."

Character history

The novel reveals that Gumb was abandoned by his alcoholic mother — who misspelled "James" on his birth certificate — and raised by his grandparents, who became his first victims when he killed them impulsively as a teenager. After being released from a juvenile facility, he went on to serve in the Navy. He begins the "Buffalo Bill" murders by killing a girlfriend named Fredrica Bimmel. Bimmel's is the third body found and the only one Gumb attempts to hide, by weighting it down in a riverbed.

Gumb's "modus operandi" is to kidnap a woman by approaching her pretending to be injured, asking for help loading something heavy into his van, and then knocking her out in a surprise attack from behind. Once he has a woman in his house, he starves her until her skin is loose enough to easily remove, then shoots and skins her, and dumps the body. He then places a Death's Head moth in her throat; He is fascinated by the moths' metamorphosis, a process he wants to undergo by becoming a woman. In one of the film's more infamous scenes, he dances around with his penis tucked between his legs, wearing a silk cape which he flourishes like butterfly wings. Gumb thinks of his victims as "things" rather than people, often referring to his victims as "it", e.g., "It rubs the lotion on its skin, or else it gets the hose again."

The FBI intensifies the manhunt for Gumb when he kidnaps Catherine Martin, the daughter of U.S. Senator Ruth Martin. Then-FBI trainee Clarice Starling enlists Hannibal Lecter's help in tracking Gumb down, as Lecter had met Gumb while treating Benjamin Raspail, Gumb's one-time lover. Lecter gives Starling a series of cryptic clues to Gumb's identity, but never reveals his name in hopes that Starling would figure it out for herself. She eventually deciphers one of the doctor's riddles — "We covet what we see every day" — and realizes that Gumb knew his first victim, Bimmel.

Starling convinces her mentor, FBI Director Jack Crawford, to allow her to follow up on the lead. She travels to Belvedere, Ohio, Bimmel's hometown, to question her family and acquaintances. Over the phone she is informed that the FBI has learned the name of the killer and is deploying to Chicago with the FBI Hostage Rescue Team to take him down.

Starling, meanwhile, goes to the house of a Mrs. Lippman, Bimmel's elderly employer, only to find Gumb himself, calling himself "Jack Gordon." Gumb had killed the old woman, and is living in her house and using it as a torture chamber for his victims. Starling realizes who he really is when she sees a Death's Head Moth flutter by, and orders him to surrender. Gumb flees into the basement with Starling in pursuit, and then cuts power to the basement and stalks her with night vision goggles. As he cocks his revolver, Starling instinctively fires at the sound, killing him. With his dying breath, Gumb asks Starling how it feels to be beautiful. Martin is rescued, and Starling becomes a hero, as well as a full-fledged agent.

Character notes and controversy

The movie screenwriter Ted Tally does not delve too deeply into Gumb's pathology, but, in the movie, Lecter summarizes his life thus: "Billy was not born a criminal, but made one by years of systematic abuse."

The film adaptation of "Silence of the Lambs" was criticized by some gay rights groups for its portrayal of the sociopathic Gumb as bisexual and transsexual. [http://www.commonsensemedia.org/movie-reviews/Silence-Lambs.html] A Johns Hopkins sex-reassignment surgeon, present in the book but not the film, protests the exact same thing; Crawford pacifies him by repeating that Gumb is "not" in fact transsexual, though he believes himself to be. In the film, a similar scene is shown with Starling and Lecter in the same roles as the surgeon and Crawford, respectively. Also controversial was the swastika-laden quilt Gumb had in his bedroom. It is never directly stated that he is anti-Semitic. In the director's commentary for the 1991 film, director Jonathan Demme draws attention to various Polaroids taken of Buffalo Bill in the company of strippers; these are visible in Gumb's basement in the film.

Influences

Harris based Gumb on five real-life killers: [Bruno, Anthony. [http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/weird/lecter/2.html "Buffalo Bill" page 2 - "All About Hannibal Lecter - Facts and Fiction"] @ Crime Library.com] Bowman, David. [http://www.salon.com/books/feature/1999/07/08/profiler/print.html "Profiler"] Interview with John E. Douglas @ Salon.com July 8, 1999.]

* Jerry Brudos, who murdered women and would dress up in their clothing and would use their skin to make items that he kept around his house.
* Ed Gein, who murdered two women and dug up several graves to make a "woman suit" for himself.
* Ted Bundy, who pretended to be injured and asked his victims for help, and then incapacitated and killed them.
* Gary Heidnik, who kidnapped five women and held them hostage as sex slaves.
* Edmund Kemper, who, like Gumb, killed his grandparents as a teenager "just to see what it felt like".

In popular culture

* "Clerks II" features Jay (of Jay and Silent Bob) in a direct parody of the scene where Gumb dances in front of his mirror with his penis tucked between his legs.
* Seth Green stated on "The Late Late Show" that Gumb's voice was his inspiration for the character of Chris Griffin on "Family Guy". [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001293/bio]
* In the "South Park" episode "Bebe's Boobs Destroy Society", Eric Cartman is shown playing 'Lambs' in his basement. Cartman lowers a basket to a doll at the bottom of a hole in the floor, and quotes "it rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again". He also refers to a toy dog next to him as 'Precious'.
*"Joe Dirt" features a character called 'Buffalo Bob' who traps Joe in his basement, reenacting the scene where Gumb had kidnapped Catherine Martin and had her trapped in a hole in the floor. Joe is held prisoner in Indiana by Buffalo Bob, who intends to turn Joe's skin into an overcoat.

References