Notes and Controversy
The film's screenplay omits Gumb's backstory, but does imply that he had a traumatic childhood. In the movie, Lecter summarizes Gumb's 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 psychopathic Gumb as bisexual and transgender. A Johns Hopkins sex-reassignment surgeon, present in the book but not the film (his scene was deleted and is found in bonus materials on the DVD), protests exactly the same thing; FBI Director Jack Crawford pacifies him by repeating that Gumb is not in fact transsexual, but merely 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. 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.
Read more about this topic: Buffalo Bill (character)
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