#in my feelings about homoerotic imperialism-adjacent cannibal media again

[goldfishgrahamcracker]

The use of cannibalism in Ravenous (1999) as a metaphor for a variety of things intrigues me. On the one hand, it's clearly a metaphor for colonialism as a destructive force that never stops consuming, but the way Boyd and Ives connect with one another, with Ives urging Boyd to join him, makes the cannibalism work as a metaphor for gay desire as well.

Now, I highly doubt that the film means to say that queerness is negative and destructive like colonialism, but it's interesting to see both conveyed through the same device. Certainly one could argue that it reflects period-typical attitudes towards homosexuality, but at the same time the film doesn't make much textual reference, if any, to this topic.

Probably, the homoeroticism was intended to inject pathos, heighten the tension (all sorts) between Boyd and Ives. Atun-Shei Films mentions in one of his Ravenous videos that it makes Ives more unpredictable. Personally, I think there's an extra touch of tragedy in the way Ives uses the language of a desire ostracised by society to tempt Boyd into the political mandate of Manifest Destiny, as though colonialism has infiltrated even this potential for human connection.

In the end, the homoerotic aspect of the cannibalism is hardly the main focus of the film, but it really enhances the emotion. Not only do you mourn Boyd at the end of the film and admire his noble sacrifice, a tiny victory though it is against the inevitability of westward expansion as represented by Slauson eating the stew, the subtextual intimacy between Boyd and Ives makes you wonder what could have been.