Andrea and Alex head West to explore the notions of Manifest Destiny and the Frontier Myth in Antonia Bird’s Ravenous. Combining historical context through a modern gaze, Ravenous proves you are who you eat.
REQUIRED READING
Ravenous. Dir. Antonia Bird, 1999.
EXTRA CREDIT
Manifest Destiny – An overview of the philosophical American mandate to head West.
Cannibal (2006) – a German film based on the true story of Armin Meiwes, who ate a man he met online.
“You Are Who You Eat” – Bitch Flicks’ essay on Ravenous, with a discussion on how it handles “manpain.”
Frontier Violence – NYT 1974 article on Richard Slotkin’s recontextualization of the American Frontier Myth.
Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature, by Margaret Atwood.
A Tribe Called Red – Canadian Indigenous rap group.
Tanya Tagaq – Canadian Inuk throat singer.
LISTEN
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Once again you two (my favorite faculty) “saved my bacon” with the timing of this one. Made it worth getting out of bed at 430am on a miserable day in the Divided States of America. If I end up with a tax return from my Viagra-addled “president” a good chunk of it is coming your way!!
Thanks as always for an amazing, in-depth tour through a movie I had never heard of and intend to watch this weekend.
As I was listening to this episode, a familiar name came up – Alferd Packer. Here’s a little piece of trivia – Trey Parker and Matt Stone (of Cannibal: The Musical) both went to my alma mater, the University of Colorado, Boulder. This is likely where they were introduced to the stories about Packer. It just so happens in the student union building the food court is named after him. It’s called the Alferd Packer Grill with a bunch of little places to eat. My favorite? The Mexican food at El Canibal 😂 https://www.colorado.edu/umc/dining/alferd-packer
Great episode – a lot of, uh, food for thought. As a palate cleanser, here’s a very tangentially-related song called “Not a Step Back” by feminist metal duo Jucifer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMZ91G5npfs
My colleague and I do a psychology podcast (Apply Topically) and gave The Faculty of Horror a big shout-out in a recent episode. We started talking about diet and mental health and ended up talking Wendigo! Thanks Faculty!
Hearing you talk about Alferd Packer reminded me of this song and truly bizarre video by C.W. McCall, who was famous for the song Convoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3OXqRciinw
Unforgiven is a deconstruction of the macho mythology in Westerns. I’ll admit it has been years since I’ve seen it and considering it was an Eastwood film made in 1992, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were problematic elements to it looking back.
However, it’s not fair to use Unforgiven as an example of a Western that is “steeped in this macho antihero, Dirty Harry typed thing” when the movie’s main theme is why that macho mythology is a lie, a lie that leads to nothing but destruction and misery for everyone, including the antihero.