Capitalism, Greed, Inequality: The Platform by Emily Shih Set in futuristic Spain, Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia’s thriller The Platform (2019) captures the flow of societal wealth from those in the highest socioeconomic statuses to those who reside in the most harrowing impoverished conditions—all through food as a metaphor. The Platform follows Goreng, the protagonist, as he volunteers to spend six months in the prison, known as “The Hole,” in exchange for an accredited educational diploma. The Hole is no ordinary prison concept. It encapsulates 333 floors of thick cement walls with a gaping square-shaped hole in the middle for the chefs on Floor 0 to drop food down from Floor 1 to the last cell on Floor 333. Once per day, the chefs painstakingly craft a luxurious feast; the resulting set up consists of a variety of gourmet dishes ranging from lobster to escargots to panna cotta. The film centers around the distribution of these foods to all 666 prisoners. While there is theoretically enough food to go around, the prisoners at the top of The Hole take what they wish with no regard to the prisoners near the bottom of the prison. Every month, the prisoners are randomly assigned to a new floor and must deal with the implications of the feeding hierarchy. Those who are on the bottom Floors (200 and below) must resort to cannibalism as there is virtually no food left on the Platform once it reaches their level. In the scene above, Goreng is repulsed by what is left on the table with half-eaten dishes and scraps. The disarray represents an ongoing theme of the prisoners’ lack of cooperation. If the prisoners above them would only eat until satisfied and not binge on whatever food they got their hands on, everyone in the prison would be fed. Instead, prisoners like Goreng’s cellmate capitalizes on the opportunity to gorge themselves without thinking of anyone but themselves. How the prisoners respond to food in The Platform forces the viewer to confront societal injustices of capitalism, greed, and inequality. What starts as a luxurious feast on Floor 1 becomes a mere table of empty platters on Floor 333, highlighting the dark reality of how those with more resources easily disregard those without—as long as their stomachs are full. The Platform. Dir. G. Gaztelu-Urrutia. Netflix Studios, 2019.

Pretty Woman, Ugly Truth by Hannah Williams In Pretty Woman (1990) Vivian Ward, a prostitute working the streets of Los Angeles, meets a wealthy businessman named Edward. Edward’s lavishly wealthy lifestyle is explicitly show through his unnecessarily pricey purchases. Edward can afford to buy expensive clothes, food, and even women, like Vivian. Outward signs of wealth, such as gourmet food and deeply entrenched social etiquette, are foreign to Vivian and are a symbol of the constraints that stop her from leaving her “inferior” status and connecting with others who are wealthier. Whilst the audience may understand the relationship between Vivian and Edward as one of romance and care, a deeper view at the use of food in this film tells another story. Vivian, much like the ornate foods eaten in the film, is consumed by wealthy men (like Edward) and used for her appearance and the direct pleasure she provides. The constant disapproval Vivian meets in the film as she attempts to assimilate into upper class society is discouraging. Vivian attempts to shop at expensive stores, where she is turned away for the way she has presented herself, much like a rejected dish that doesn’t visually please it’s clientele. Vivian slowly learns that the language of the upper class is that of dinner etiquette; forks and spoons for specific occasions, napkins on laps, and appearances. These facets of upper class culture keep the “ordinary,” like Vivian separate from the “worthy” like Richard. In the main meal scene where Vivian accompanies Edward to an important business dinner, her newly acquired skills are put to the test as she is presented an array of dishes that are unfamiliar to her and cause her anxiety. Foods with acquired tastes, deemed “above” other foods, are reserved for those with a “superior” status and one’s ability to appreciate and properly consume these items are pivotal to their status. If the men find out that Vivian doesn’t know how to properly consume these foods, she will be viewed negatively. The film sends out a message to its audience about appearance and the ethics of judging based on class differences. The same men who are respected for the appearances they maintain are also the men who use prostitutes, showing a discontinuity between their respected status and their deplorable actions. The man and the prostitute are both involving themselves in the same action, yet one is condemned and the other is praised. No one seems to bat an eye at a man who buys sex, but a man who doesn’t understand the fine points of meal etiquette is unacceptable. For Edward’s unknowing audience, it doesn’t matter that he has a prostitute at the table, but only that the appearance of unity and relational health is in place. Pretty Woman can be seen as a commentary on the ways in which we view consumption. Public matters, such as eating and relational associations, define social status. Private matters, such as sex, are kept in the dark. As long as one appears to be gourmet, regardless of the possible cheap ingredients within (men with cheating and greedy mentalities), they can be accepted. Pretty Woman paints a picture of the divide between lower and upper class as well as the ways one can manipulate appearance in order to be considered “worthy” of respect. Work Cited Marshall, Gary, director. Pretty Woman. Touchstone Pictures, 1990.

Meals of Oppression by Genna Holtz Set in 1797 England, Joe Wright’s Pride and Prejudice (1995), based on the book of the same name, beautifully captures one of the most famous and complex love story of all time (Wright, 2005). The central tension of the romance lies in the relationship between Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy, who come from vastly different social positions in life. Their misinformed perceptions of each other drive the narrative’s cautionary tale of character judgement rooted in pedigree. One of the poignant ways Wright conveys ever-present social tensions in the story is through food. The manners, etiquette, and politics surrounding meals reveal subtle sources of distinction between the haves and have-nots. Though the love story between the protagonists takes precedence, the food depicted in the film illuminates the political expectations that govern the lives of the gentry. Moreover, the way Wright cinematographically captures the oppressive social structures that dominate Pride and Prejudice’s world highlights the strong relationship between food and power. Foregoing tradition, Wright uses food as a divisive tool rather than a unifying instrument. He incorporates food into scenes involving characters from distinct social classes to build tension. As the director describes, “Society at that time was changing. The French Revolution [had] just happened, and the aristocracy [were] terrified that the lower classes [were] going to rise up in arms against them. So rather than segregate themselves, they assimilated” (Abeel, 2005). Instances in which the elite and the middle class attempt to homogenize in the film often involve meals. In the film, the dinner at Rosings Park most clearly illustrates this uncomfortable assimilation of classes. The dinner scene at Rosings Park, Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s palatial estate, epitomizes food’s role as a conduit for communicating class distinctions. Lady Catherine barrages Lizzie Bennet with intimate questions regarding her upbringing, educational opportunities, and accomplishments. Lady Catherine, and everyone else of equal status seated at the decadent table, sips her soup throughout her inquiry, while Lizzie cannot even get a bite in because she must explain herself, and justify her place at the table. The editing in the scene cross-cuts between mid-range shots of the other dinner guests eating and contrasting closeups of Lizzie’s spoon hovering above her bowl. Lizzie grows visibly increasingly frustrated and offended by the Lady’s impertinent probes. This is communicated through the closeups of her face side-lit by candle light. Wright comments that there are many closeups because “Jane Austen observes people very carefully and closely: so that was the cinematic equivalent of her prose” (Abeel, 2005). Lizzie’s victory comes after she wittily shuts down Lady Catherine’s question about her age, effectively regaining her power. This is symbolically indicated by her triumphantly taking her first taste of the meal in a closeup shot with short depth-of-field. The bond between food and power depicted in this scene is integral to understanding the film’s broader comments about the rigidity of socioeconomics at the time. Dinners throughout the film emphasize class differences. The scene in which Mr. Collins first comes to visit the Bennet family specifically highlights the politics of ownership during this time in England. At dinner, Mr. Collins, the heir of Mr. Bennet’s estate rudely asks, “What excellent boiled potatoes…to which of my fair cousins should I compliment the cooking?” A vexed Mrs. Bennet responds, “We are perfectly able to keep a cook…” and he insensitively replies, “I’m very happy that the estate can afford such a living” (Wright, 2005). The room is under-lit, but the potatoes are very well lit and bright yellow, in stark contrast the dark neutral colors in the rest of the room. The prominent placement of the potatoes as a focal point in most of the frames draws all attention to the tension the dish represents. The choice of potatoes in this scene is clever because the potato’s stature amongst food mirrors the Bennet family’s stature in society. While potatoes were not an outright poor people’s food in the early 19th century, they were hardly a fancy dish that would be served in a place such as Rosings Park. Likewise, the humble Bennets have some standing in their community, but they seem destitute and impoverished in comparison to wealthy families such as Bingley’s and Darcy’s. The point of view shots allow viewers to feel as if they too are seated at dinner, sharing in the Bennet family’s embarrassment and enduring the insufferable Mr. Collins’s presumptuous and condescending questions. The tight framing and flash pans of the scene create an oppressive, restrictive atmosphere that echoes the suffocation the females at the table feel. At the core of this exchange, Wright conveys the multifaceted nature of food and that the preparation of a meal speaks volumes about status. The awkward sharing of the meal foreshadows the excruciating transference of property from Bennet to Collins that will occur in the future. After Mr. Bennet’s passing, all property, wealth, and resources will fall into Mr. Collin’s possession, not the children’s, simply because of their gender. Wright’s masterful utilization of food as a vehicle to convey class in this scene demonstrates this society’s blatantly unjust social institutions. Food is a principle mode of class distinction in Pride and Prejudice, used both to establish power dynamics as well as define the limited opportunities for British women in the late 18th century. Joe Wright beautifully mimics the feelings of Elizabeth Bennet through his cinematography so that the audience can easily empathize with her struggles. Pride and Prejudice elicits the nuances and pervasiveness of social pressures that women faced, demanding audiences to question the social structures they tolerate in modernity. Works Cited Abeel, Erica. “Tackling A Classic: Joe Wright on “Pride and Prejudice”.” IndieWire, 10 Nov. 2005, http://www.indiewire.com/2005/11/tackling-a-classic-joe-wright-on-pride-and-prejudice-77678/. Pride and Prejudice. Directed by Joe Wright. Focus Features, 2005.

The Beauty of a Working Woman by Renuka Koilpillai Although this film is a fairytale, the message that its portrays is quite atypical for its genre. From the beginning of the story, it is clear that Tiana doesn’t believe in fairytales, but rather hard work. It is this hard work and determination that not only earn her own restaurant in the end but also win her the heart of Prince Naveen. This clearly conveys the idea that a woman’s worth and what makes her beautiful is not superficial looks but instead her brain. The Princess and the Frog (dir.2009 by Ron Clements and John Musker) uses the power of food and Tiana’s skill and ambition to cook to illustrate the idea that a working woman is beautiful. Throughout the movie there are multiple scenes where food exercises its power to bring people together by highlighting each person’s important qualities, specifically skill. One of these examples is in the scene with Mama Odie, who is a voodoo priestess trying to turn the two frogs back into humans. During this scene, Mama Odie is making gumbo and starts to sing a song where she says it “don’t matter what you look like; don’t matter what you wear” (1:03:08) but that you have to dig to try and discover what you really need. During the song, Mama Odie and Tiana go over to the gumbo, which magically turns into a reflection of Tiana cooking with her Dad who shared her dream of opening a restaurant and taught her the importance of working hard. The gumbo pot is framed in such a way that it looks like a crystal ball seeing into the past illustrating the food’s psychic powers. Mama Odie is trying to remind Tiana that sharing your skill and ambition with a person, like she once did with her father, can foster a deep love connection, which is what she should ultimately strive for. In addition to the power of food, the film portrays the beauty of hard work through Tiana’s skill and ambition to cook. Throughout the film, Tiana is contrasted with her friend, Charlotte La Bouff who seemingly is obsessed with finding a prince for a husband. We see the contrast in the first scene of the movie where Charlotte swoons over the Princess and the Frog fairytale while Tiana is grossed out by the frog. Instead of seeking a husband, she preoccupies her time with working extra shifts to save for a restaurant. Charlotte’s character, who puts more effort into her appearance, represents the stereotypical way to attract a man; however, Prince Naveen is first attracted to Tiana when she shows her superb ability to mince mushrooms for the swamp gumbo. He also appreciates the fact that Tiana pushes him to try mincing himself, seeing that he has felt useless after being cut off from his parents. This reinforces the idea that talent and skill are also attractive and that finding someone who sees value in your abilities is important. Tiana’s character exhibits the significance of talent and hard work throughout the film. It is clear that she doesn’t rely on fairytales or wishing stars to make her dreams come true but rather hard work and ambition. Not only are these valued traits to be a good person, but it they are also important when it comes to finding love, which is expressed through the power of food and determination in The Princess and the Frog. Work Cited The Princess and the Frog. Dir. Ron Clements and John Musker. Perf. Anika Noni Rose, Bruno Campos, Keith David. Walt Disney Pictures, 2009. DVD.

Piggy in the Middle: Sex-Roles and Attachment in "A Private Function" by Georgia Jeffrey It is 1947 and Britain is still in the recovery stages from World War II. The rationing system remains in place and there is yet “another blow to the British housewife” (0:02:00) as bacon rations are cut in half. An event to raise the spirits of the nation is on the horizon. The marriage of Princess Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten is due to be a public celebration and many plan to commemorate the event with their own dinners and parties; however, with country-wide food shortages, some try to “hog” other less-legal sources. Some local businessmen decide to raise a pig illegally for a dinner they are hosting for other well to-do members of the community. Gilbert Chilvers is a local chiropodist who inadvertently steals their pig at the behest of his wife who hopes it will bring them upward mobility. Before the couple's activities are unearthed, attempts are made by Joyce to encourage her husband to kill the animal despite his reluctance. Korsmeyer (2007) argues that we are often disgusted by “[foods] that are insufficiently removed from their natural form” (p.149). In this case, the pig is sufficiently alive to cause discomfort at the thought of eating it. Initially, Joyce offers Gilbert a small chiropodist blade as he dances around the kitchen trying to convince himself he can do it before admitting “she’s [his] friend” (1:07:00). At 1:08:00, Betty (the pig) is shut in the kitchen with Gilbert and a knife. The camera maintains its close-up focus on Joyce with her ear to the door as we hear loud, distressed squealing for an uncomfortable few seconds. A loud thud ensues and then silence. The dim, natural lighting adds to the tense ambiance. Momentarily, Gilbert emerges with a blood soaked knife and a forlorn look on his face. His masculinity is restored, if only for an instant… “I’ve cut my finger.” The camera tilts to the floor as Betty teasingly trots through the door. The use of sound and perspective in this scene convinces the audience that the deed is done which makes it all the more comical when our assumptions turn out to be wrong. Joyce however, is not pleased at all. “You pathetic cringing nancy… I should have married a man”. Gilbert does not fit the normative masculine role. He is a quiet, unassuming man who is content in his position as a doctor of the feet. Joyce too is distant from normative femininity. Female stereotypes often include compassion, empathy and a close proximity to nature (Katz and Winiarski, 2012). Joyce lacks all of these in relation to Betty. She is driven and determined by her own ambitions and her decision not to have children emphasizes this profile. Gilbert is emasculated by his attachment to the animal. By giving it a name, he ascribes a character to the pig with which he forms a bond. Like a pet, he finds it difficult when she is slaughtered later in the film, refusing to eat her at dinner. Butchery is a male-dominated profession. It is commonly viewed in society as an expression of hyper-masculinity. The violence involved with the occupation is assimilated with men as ‘hunters’ and testosterone-fuelled beings who exist as providers and are not prone to feminine sensibilities. Gilbert’s consideration and sympathy for the pig are not aligned with traditional hegemonic masculinity of the time. As such, he is considered ‘less of a man’ by his wife. A Private Function draws in questions of where we draw the line between pets and livestock. We are often alienated within capitalism as a consumer from the live animal. By the time it reaches us, we can hardly relate what is on the supermarket shelf to the animal in the fields. Being confronted with the slaughter process is a difficult moment of realization for Gilbert. Works Cited A Private Function. (1984). [film] Directed by M. Mowbray. United Kingdom: HandMade Films. Katz, P & Winiarski, D. (2012). Sex role stereotypes and gender differences. In: J, Banks, ed., Encyclopedia of diversity in education. SAGE Publications, Inc., Thousand Oaks, CA, pp. 1949-1958. Korsmeyer, C. (2009). Delightful, Delicious, Disgusting. In: F. Allhoff and D. Monroe, ed., Food and Philosophy: Eat, Drink and Be Merry, 1st ed. John Wiley and Sons, pp.145-161.

Royale with Cheese: Food during Critical Moments in Pulp Fiction by Oliver Eisenbeis Every one of Tarantino’s films contains at least one memorable food or beverage: for Jackie Brown, it’s the screwdriver; for Inglorious Basterds, it’s the strudel and milk; and for Pulp Fiction, it’s the breakfast, coffee, milkshakes, and the infamous hamburgers. Food is unique in Tarantino’s films because it’s always dripping in significance. What characters eat and how they eat it tells us about appetite, morals, and principles—it’s one of the most significant pieces of a character’s personality. As seen in virtually all of Tarantino’s films, food is always a way for characters to assert dominance. Pulp Fiction is a unique film in that food is a topic that the characters continuously discuss, consume, and analyze. It’s used to bring people together during moments of relaxation, yet always exists at critical plot points that usually precede death. This film is split up into three seemingly separate stories that begin to overlap as we learn more and more. We’re introduced to two hit men (Samuel L. Jackson as Jules Winnfield and John Travolta as Vincent Vega) during the prologue; Jules is driving a car while Vincent discusses the “little differences” between McDonalds in America and France. Their friendly, light-hearted conversation, shown in a classic shot-reverse-shot sequence, focuses on the “Quarter Pounder with Cheese,” which Vincent points out is called a “Royale with Cheese” in Paris (due to the metric system). Upon entering an apartment to retrieve a briefcase for their employer, the two hit men discover three young men eating hamburgers for breakfast—specifically “Big Kahuna” cheeseburgers. “You mind if I try one of yours?” asks Jules. The young man nods nervously. Every way you look at it, the seizure of this young man’s burger is a power move born out of confidence. Samuel L. Jackson’s character walks into the room and immediately claims it. “Coming in there as [a] black male,” Quentin Tarantino said in an interview, “[Jules] just completely [dominates] this room of younger white males by taking a bit out of the guy’s hamburger” (YouTube). He metaphorically plants a flag in the center of this room and claims it. Strengthening the existing power dynamic, Jules finishes the burger, slurps downs the young man’s drink, and then shoots him 9 times in the chest. This scene is a great example of Tarantino’s characteristic use of food to assert dominance, but also highlights another recurring theme of food being consumed at a critical moment, often before death. Furthermore, the remark about the royale with cheese is repeated again in this scene, highlighting the repetitive nature of the hamburger. Hamburgers return again in story 1, titled Vincent Vega and Marsellus Wallace’s Wife. After being asked to entertain his boss’ wife for the evening, Vincent buys heroin in preparation before taking Mia to dinner at a 1950s themed restaurant. Again, we’re given a dialogue heavy, friendly conversation presented via a very static shot-reverse-shot sequence. It’s as if Tarantino sets up the cameras and just lets them run, allowing the actors to improvise the dialogue as naturally as possible. This sequence, similar to the royale with cheese conversation that occurred earlier in the car, exists to brings the characters together. Vincent and Mia establish an intense relationship and bond over their individual food choices. Even though this scene doesn’t appear to be centered around power at the surface, Mia’s confidence in her food order astounds Vincent (who subsequently shifts his position and leans in to the rest of the conversation) and aids to form their relationship. Nonetheless, this moment of food once again precedes a critical moment. Following their meal, Vincent goes to the bathroom to talk himself out of making a pass at Mia. Meanwhile, she discovers the baggie of heroin in his coat pocket and, assuming it’s cocaine, snorts some. She immediately overdoses and Vincent panics, leading to a secret that the two share for the rest of the film. To add one more example of the idea that food is continuous topic of discussion in Pulp Fiction, look at the beginning and the end of the film. In both scenes, conversation takes place over breakfast in a diner (actually the same diner in both scenes) and food is used as a device to uncover character’s morals and identity traits. There are many other scenes throughout the film’s chapters that do this as well. This discussion, consumption, and analysis of foods is a common practice in Tarantino’s films, but this film continuous use of said practices is what makes it unique. Food itself becomes a central character in the film and previews/reveals critical moments, often resulting in death. Works Cited Pulp Fiction. Dir. Quentin Tarantino. Perf. John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Samuel L. Jackson. Miramax, A Band Apart, Jersey Films, 1994. DVD. Yellow King Film Boy. “Quentin Tarantino Talks About Food And Their Power In Movies.” Online Video Clip. Youtube. Youtube, Oct 17, 2017. Mar 8, 2018.

Why A Rat? by Catherine Bracken The beauty of animated films, along with the striking colors and illustrations, is that directors can shape the film to be exactly how they want it to be. Unlike films with human actors, ideal characters are created to fit the exact demand for the movie. In Ratatouille (2007), a film by Disney Pixar, many people wonder, “why a rat”? Why did they pick a rat, of all creatures, to be the “little chef” behind the entire splendor in the kitchen? The reasons the animators decided to use a rat is to bring significance to how the little ingredients can make dishes spectacular, and to really portray the joy that goes into cooking through the rat’s movements. Ratatouille is a film about a rat, Remy, who is a very intuitive chef. But, the only way he can cook in an actual kitchen is by hiding under the hat of Linguini, his human friend. Remy’s talents stem from his elevated senses, and he uses his sense of smell multiple times to make magnificent dishes. A rat’s sense of smell is more pronounced than any other small mammal, and is especially superior to a human’s sense of smell. In the clip, Remy takes in the smell of all the ingredients, and really emphasizes the motion of wafting. It is ironic because the cooks view rats as revolting creatures that would never be allowed in the kitchen, but logically rats would make skilled chefs due to their elevated sense of smell. A rat’s sense of smell is so defined that they could easily make dishes that humans would never think of, just as Remy does in the clip. Remy’s combination of human-like moral consciousness and rat-like instinct make him a unique hybrid that can only be brought out through animation. Though Remy is this unique hybrid with a human conscious, his size still plays a large factor. He must utilize utensils, ingredients, and other kitchen gadgets that are small and easy to handle, because he cannot pick up and use very large instruments without the help of Linguini. This made the small kitchen ingredients look larger. In the clip, when Remy handles herbs, many are as big as he is. These things would have much less emphasis placed on them if a larger being was handling them. Since Remy is the one handling the ingredients, it allows for a visual representation of the “big flavor” that these ingredients have and drives the viewer to analyze what Remy is putting in his dishes. Also, Remy’s petite stature allows the audience to notice the details of the smaller ingredients. In the clip, you can see the lines on the chives, the indentions in the garlic, and veins on the leaves of the herbs. The colors of the ingredients are bright, and Remy almost looks like he is in a “jungle” of kitchen ingredients when he stands in the middle of all of them. The detail is what makes the clip beautiful, and the detail can only be noticed through the viewpoint of something small, such as Remy. The small size of the rat also allows the animator and director to put together some amusing shots to illustrate how the dishes are being prepared. The fact that Remy must leap, skip, run, and dodge in order to grab ingredients for his soup adds this sense of joy when he is cooking, something that the movement of human hands just cannot express. Oddly enough, Remy is capable of expressing quintessentially human emotions because his small size as a rat. It is quite funny how the rat, something that is usually seen by humans as wasteful, dirty, and pitiful, is the character receiving the most pleasure in this particular kitchen. The kitchen seems like it should be scary territory for Remy, but ironically he treats it like a children’s playground. Remy bounds over the pot to pour in some salt, races up a spoon to throw in some garlic, and is constantly tossing and energetically stirring the concoction throughout the scene. The effort that Remy must put into getting from one end of a counter to another, and the obstacles that he faces not only allows the animator to have close ups on the food that he is going around, but this constant, jubilant movement engages the viewer and really makes one pay attention to the beauty and joy of everything that is going into the dish. Why a rat? Remy the rat’s talents lie in the kitchen, though paradoxically many kitchens see a rat as something that is disgusting and undesirable. The animators were able to make Remy a bridge character between human and animal, and allowed him to use human consciousness while acting on the instinct of a rat. Through Remy’s small size, animators were able to put significance on the varied, smaller ingredients that many people overlook when putting together a meal. The smaller ingredients seemed larger and more detailed, and it is expressed to the viewer that these ingredients, as opposed to bigger ones, (such as meat or large vegetables) changed the soup in this clip from something bland to something spectacular. Remy’s adventures when physically cooking due to his small size also allowed a sense of joy and happiness to radiate from those scenes, and this engages the viewer into looking at every detail of what goes into a dish. Through all of these factors, the animators were able to create an ironic character to show how many ingredients that we overlook normally bring beauty and taste to even the simplest of dishes.

Bound by Love and Torn by Flesh: Coming-of-Age through Cannibalism by Marcella Pansini Raw (2017) is a horror coming-of-age story that explores the emergence of two sisters into adulthood. The film primarily follows Justine, a first-year sheltered and perfectionist veterinary student. She is a virgin in every sense of the word, having never tasted flesh, neither animal nor human, nor had sex. These primal urges are connected throughout the film, starting when Justine is peer-pressured into eating raw rabbit kidney for a school hazing ritual. This film becomes a metaphor for an adolescent’s experiences with experimentation and often convoluted search for independence. One scene in particular acts as the catalyst for this search for self (0:19:54). Justine’s sister, Alexia, urges Justine to eat the rabbit kidney and abandon her lifelong vegetarianism in order to fit in. The scene features an over-the-shoulder shot of Alexia and Justine as well as a close-up of Justine’s face. Dull lighting shines over the sisters, who are dressed in neutral shades of white that contrasts with the vivid red of the animal’s blood. The complicated relationship between the two sisters is also seen. The audience sees Alexia as the aggressor as she towers over her sister and shoves the undesired food into Justine’s mouth. However, the wariness in Justine’s eyes shows she is still conflicted on whether to trust her sister or not. The audience feels disgust for Alexia’s actions and sympathy towards Justine due to Justine’s facial expressions and Alexia’s positioning. This scene and Justine’s first cannibalistic experience offset Justine’s physical and psychological transformation throughout the film and reveal her family’s secret cannibalistic history. An animal that’s tasted human flesh isn’t safe” (0:49:06). This claim, spoken halfway through the film by their father, could serve as the film’s thesis statement. This line of dialogue brings the concept of vampires, zombies and other flesh consuming monsters to the forefront of the audience’s mind. Over the course of the film, Justine undergoes a physical transformation that shows her character’s psychological turmoil, transforming from an innocent girl to a feral, sex-crazed monster as she explores parts of herself she didn’t know existed. This transformation culminates in Justine’s ravenous consumption of her sister’s amputated finger beside her unconscious body (0:45:56). Lupton’s Food, the Body and the Self explains the motivation behind parents’ exertion of dominance over a child’s eating habits: “control over the child’s diet is vital. Not only is the offspring’s present health at stake, but his whole future evolution” (950). Similarly, Justine’s parents had used strict control over her diet to try to keep her from following their family’s history of cannibalism. However, by Alexia forcing Justine to eat the raw rabbit kidney she is pushed down a path of discovering both her family’s secret history and her own innate desires. Justine’s relationship with meat and human flesh is largely defined by the shame and lustful feelings it provides her. This negative association with desires of the flesh ends after Justine consumes Alexia’s finger. By Alexia forgiving Justine, she provides her sister with the gift of food in the form of her flesh which demonstrates the love and trust they have for each other. This allows Justine to feel accepted and complete her search for self. Exploring independence and discovering who you really are is difficult. Raw uses food and consuming human meat as a metaphor for sexual awakening and experimentation, creating a connection between sex and carnivorism. This metaphor also follows how our identity changes through exploration. Cannibalism also represents Justine’s evolving understanding of herself — both where she comes from and where she’s going. Works Cited Ducournau, Julia, director. Raw. Focus World, 2017. Lupton, Deborah. “Food, the Body and the Self.” Google Books.

Wine and Blood: Carnality and Brutality in Zhang Yimou’s Red Sorghum by Shirley Pu Red Sorghum (1987), famous Chinese director Zhang Yimou’s debut in that role, paints with a strong hand the landscape and people of 1920s rural China with its use of vibrant colors, sound, and imagery. The story is related through a frame narrative told by the narrator of his grandparents and their sorghum wine distillery. His grandmother, sold into marriage with an old rich leprous winemaker, first appears as an unwilling bride carried in a bright red sedan across the desert. When one of her carriers saves her from a bandit, however, she finds a way to subvert her fate and falls for him. This man, the eventual grandfather of the narrator, comes to help her run the distillery she inherits after the sudden death of the old winemaker. Their life making wine alongside the workers is portrayed as plain but joyful until the arrival of Japanese forces in the 1930s. The film then takes a turn for the gruesome, showing the atrocities of war through scenes of bloody carnage in the subjugation of the Chinese peasants and the eventual uprising of the distillery workers. The vitality of peasant life and the bloody violence of death are expressed with red sorghum and sorghum wine, whose brilliant reds and greens pervade the film. The conflation of these foodstuffs with the body emphasizes the unbreakable interlink between the agrarian peasants and the sorghum- as they live by it, so they die when it is destroyed. The titular red sorghum delivers both life and death within the film. While it serves as the raw material for the sorghum wine made by the distillery, its fields grow along the edge of Qingshakou, or “Murderer’s Gulch” (Ng), and are rumored to be haunted. Indeed, the thick fields are ideal for concealment, whether of the bandits that attack Grandmother or the workers hiding for their ambush on the Japanese forces. The sorghum serves most literally as a life-giver through forming the bed where Douguan, the narrator’s father, is conceived. The sequence of Grandmother’s capture and rape within the sorghum field emphasizes the primal nature of the peasants. Grandfather’s pursuit of her is almost animalistic, his frenzy portrayed through the blur of body and field captured by the tracking camera. He utters no words throughout the scene, only grunts as he tramples down the tall stalks of sorghum into a rudimentary mat, where Grandmother lays down, her red outfit stark against the greenery- she, like the sorghum, has yielded to his fervor. The suona horn and drums that sound as Grandpa kneels before her lend the air of a mythical ritual to the joining of their bodies. A interchange of life takes place, between the crushed sorghum and the new sprouting seed of a child. The trampling of the sorghum field again parallels submission through force in a dark scene near the end of the film. The Japanese soldiers drive the locals into the fields, the sound of the trampling of the stalks intermingling with the harsh barking of orders. The assertion by an officer that resistance is futile because they (the Japanese) have already destroyed the sorghum emphasizes how closely associated the people are to their crop- to destroy the sorghum is to break the people’s sprit. Later, a local butcher sits laughing in the field after being forced to skin a fellow peasant by the soldiers. The camera slowly pans from his blood-covered body to the vast amount of flattened sorghum as the narrator recites the sheer number of peasants forced into labor by the Japanese soldiers, the crushed stalks a visual metaphor for the broken bodies left by the occupation. Wine lies at the heart of Red Sorghum as the literal lifeblood for its characters. In the case of Grandma, wine is encoded into her very self- her name, Jiu’er, which means “ninth child”, carries the same pronunciation as the word for wine, jiu. These homonyms carry over to the making of the wine, which takes place on the 9th day of the 9th month. Even the structure of the narrative follows this theme, as the invasion of the Japanese takes place nine years after the initial events of the story, when Douguan is nine. The relation between wine and the body is not just figurative but also explicitly physical. A drunken Grandfather, returning to the distillery, pees in the freshly made urns of wine. Surprisingly, this leads to the wine being the best it has ever been, supporting the association between the body and wine. The crude act, along with his subsequent shoveling of the sorghum after declaring he will “make wine” for Grandmother expresses the virility of Grandfather that transfixes Grandmother, who proceeds to carry her off into the bedroom (Ng). Blood, wine, and the meat or flesh of the body are most closely associated in the last half of the film, especially in the final scene when the distillery workers lead a futile charge against the Japanese soldiers, ambushing their truck as it drives through the sorghum field. Earlier, during the first distillation after Grandmother has taken charge, the connection between body and wine is emphasized through the bareness of the workers, covered in ash and sweat from the heat of the process. Their extolling of the wine’s miraculous properties suggests the high regard in which they hold it, as they claim that it can cure over a hundred illnesses and, in a scene replete with red, scatter wine around the home to disinfect its leprosy. When the first batch of wine has been completed, the workers sing a song in praise of the wine god in return for granting them such a gift, proclaiming it can fortify a man to stand up to even the Emperor. This communal wine-drinking sees a solemn parallel the night before the assault on the Japanese, when the workers and the grandparents gather to honor the fallen foreman, who was skinned alive. In place of his body, they place a bowl of wine upon a table, and Grandmother tells Douguan to kneel before “uncle’s wine”. The wine he has made carries enough weight to represent him as a whole. Each worker then picks up a bowl of wine and sings again the song of wine, which this time acts as a dirge. The next day, the peasants prepare their ambush on the forces in a collection of scenes abounding with wine. The plan itself holds wine as its center- they have buried urns underneath the soil of the road and plan to explode them when the Japanese trucks arrive. While the men lie in wait, Grandmother prepares a celebratory feast at the distillery. A long close-up montage of the wine being poured into bowls foreshadows the blood to be spilled. The wine’s brilliant red shade, created by the sunlight hitting the fluid, is a cinematographic touch repeated later with the spilling of the wine and blood on the battleground. Notable in the pouring montage is the splashing of the wine droplets onto the neighboring meat dishes, reinforcing the association of wine and blood (Figure 1). This omen of carnage is brought to life moments later, when Grandmother is shot down by soldiers on her way to deliver a lunch to the hungry men. The blood that blossoms on her shirt is the same color of the wine before, and a haunting close-up shows her limp body, the wine from a broken urn and her own blood mingling together and bubbling just like the poured wine (Figure 2). The men, enraged by her death, charge at the truck, lobbing urns full of flaming wine. This causes a huge explosion, the aftermath of which is panned over. Pools of red liquid lie on the ground, their nature purposely ambiguous. Meat, wine, and blood are intermingled in the carnage. The shot is framed on both sides by the green of the sorghum, witness to yet another scene of death. The lone survivors, Grandfather and Douguan, emerge against a red sky, the color of blood or wine, with Grandmother’s wine-soaked corpse lying at their feet. The wine has been spilled, the life-blood of the people has been lost, and there is nothing left now but charred and empty bodies. The red grain of Red Sorghum interweaves itself into the story as deeply as it embeds itself in the lives of its characters. Zhang relentlessly drives in its significance by encoding as a symbol for the body and blood of the peasants through misé-en-scene details, color choices, and shot compilation. Whether they serve as the source for new life, a necessary for livelihood, or a harbinger of death, the fields of Red Sorghum carry heavy significance throughout the peasants’ lives. The wine they make acts like blood for them, even to the point of representing bodies, and when it is spilled, they have been defeated. Works Cited Ng, Yvonne. “Imagery and Sound in Red Sorghum.” Kinema. Accessed April 16th, 2017. http://www.kinema.uwaterloo.ca/article.php?id=354&feature

Meals of a Game Show Star by Jack Wang Requiem for a Dream (2000) is a movie that explores the concept of addiction. The plot is divided between a junkie trio led by Harry and Harry’s mother, Sara. Each character’s story intertwines as they chase their drug-fueled dreams. In this paper, I will discuss how Sara’s addiction to food pushes the boundary at what we consider a drug and a habit. At first glance, our characters’ drug of choice are heroin and amphetamine; however, a closer look reveals that hard drugs are only replacements for their true addictions. Harry’s friend Tyrone, for example, uses heroin to fulfill his need for motherly love. Sara, on the other hand, quells her loneliness through watching TV game shows day and night. She fantasizes appearing on the show one day in her red dress with her beloved son, Harry. When she gets a call that tells her she’s been selected for the show, Sara goes through drastic measures to fit into her old red dress. Sara is addicted to food. In the beginning of her diet, Sara considers eating less. Breakfast was a grapefruit, a cup of black coffee, and a hard-boiled egg. The movie uses cuts to skip the process of the food being eaten, only showing the food in the untouched and consumed states. The abrupt time-lapse accentuates the meager quantity of food, completely devoured in the matter of milliseconds on screen. Extreme close shots of Sara’s sour expressions further reveal her distain for diets. The refrigerator externally represents Sara’s food addiction. Each time she is hungry or eats, the camera cuts to the fridge. This occurs right when Sara ditches her diet and starts on amphetamine pills, contrasting her new meals (pills) to the old (food in fridge). Once she begins her prescription, the sunlit fridge starts a transformation towards darkness. The fridge comes to life one night, shaking and threatening to detach itself from the wall. The frightened Sara takes even more pills to battle her growing amphetamine tolerance and returning hunger. Eventually, Sara suffers a psychic break from overdose and watches the fridge finally detach itself and attempt to swallow her. This is the first time the camera gets a close look at the fridge. The low angle shot and poor lighting heightens the menace of the fridge (Figure 1). The fridge opens to reveal the fiery maws of hell rather than the yellow interior shown in earlier scenes. Instead of Sara consuming the contents of the fridge, the fridge is now threatening to consume her. This is a parallel to how Sara’s obsession with her weight has consumed her. Sara’s story represents addiction to several things at different layers. At the surface, Sara is addicted to amphetamine pills. At the deepest level, Sara is addicted to the idea of connecting with her son. The second level is where we are most interested, Sara’s addiction to food. She cannot resist the temptations of food which makes the fridge her biggest enemy. Throughout the film, she fights against her addiction by ironically creating a new habit. By the time Sara is admitted to the hospital, her exchange of addictions is complete. She no longer finds any enjoyment in food and has to be force-fed unappealing slop that lacks color and texture. Sara’s downfall is tragic yet relatable. How many of us can quit the simple joy of eating? Requiem for A Dream resembles an onion, unpeeling the layers of addiction of each character. Skin deep, they are junkies addicted to hard drugs. Beneath the surface, they are complete human beings with earthly ambitions. Sara’s addiction to amphetamine is caused by her loneliness and need to connect with her son. The game show exposed a habit Sara had all along, an addiction to food. The in-depth revelation of Sara’s path to self-destruction makes us realize our own vulnerability to addiction, and it doesn’t have to be heroin or meth. Many things we love, like food, can become a horrific habit. All it takes to trigger the transformation may be a bad situation and a lofty dream.

The Restaurant of Wishes by Tatiana Farmer Rinko’s Restaurant (2010) was directed by Mai Tominaga and is set in Nako, a small mountain village in rural Japan. Rinko, the protagonist of the story, is a young woman who has fallen on hard times and is trying to put purpose back into her life through food. The film follows her on her own journey of healing and self-discovery, a journey she shares with anyone who makes a reservation at her restaurant. The film begins in a misty light. A medium-sized pot and a small bag on the ground appears in the scene as the camera slowly pans away to the steady sound of a shovel hitting untouched soil. The birds are chirping, the ground is dewy, and the calmness of the atmosphere makes it clear that it is early morning. We come across a person clad in dark clothing crouching down to the ground. The person appears to be a woman, but her hair is wild and she is barefoot. She takes whatever she was looking for out of the ground just as the scene switches to the point of view of a large pig looking at her from the bushes. The pig emerges from the bushes and comes to the woman, who jumps up and backs away from it. We hear a loud and furious shout of “Thief!” from outside the frame of the camera and the woman tries to run away but ends up tripping into the dirt. An older woman appears in a red robe, large rollers in her hair, and a pitchfork in her hand. She thrusts the pitchfork just inches away from the thief’s face, but stops and looks down at her daughter, Rinko. Rinko is a pitiful soul when we first encounter her. She has neither money, friends, or nor job. She is always gloomy and mopey, but rightfully so because Rinko also cannot speak. Rinko was not born mute; instead she lost her voice due to a traumatic experience. She moved to the city to live with her grandmother because she could no longer handle the shame of living with her mother, Ryuriko. With her grandmother she develops a love for cooking and decides to become a cook after her grandmother dies. When she is about to open her restaurant, her lover betrays her and takes all of her things. With her grandmother gone, as well as her money, love, and all dreams stolen, Rinko also loses her voice and returns home to her mother. In Rinko’s absence, Ryuriko ends us adopting the pig Rinko encounters and names it Heremesu, and cares for him as if he were her child. Although Rinko is unable to speak, she still manages to open a restaurant out of a small shed outside of her mother’s house with the help of Aosu, an old man who used to care for her when she was a child. She communicates with him and others with slips of paper she carries around with her in her bag. Aosu becomes Rinko’s first customer and she prepares him a curry dish with pomegranates. After Rinko sets the dish down, she leaves the room and peeks at him eating it. Aosu vigorously eats the meal and when he finishes it, he begins to cry. He explains to Rinko that his wife left with their child because she could not stand his mother and he misses them dearly. There are three things special about Rinko’s restaurant. First, she will only serve people by reservation and she will take only one reservation at a time. I imagine this is due to the fact she cannot speak to her customers. Second, she does not have a formal menu. She puts great time and care into the custom dishes she makes for her customers, making sure that each one is unique and suits the individual. Lastly, Rinko’s restaurant is known to be able to make wishes come true, due to the magic miso that her grandmother left for her. About a day after Rinko serves Aosu, he tells her that his wife called him for the first time since they left. He is full of joy and claims it is due to Rinko’s cooking. Rinko will go on to do the same for numerous people. Her cooking helps people fall in love, come to self-realizations, or simply just become happy. Since Rinko’s dreams were stolen from her, she finds fulfilment in granting happiness to other people. She understands how it feels to be at a low place and prepares for them what they really need in the form of a meal. Rinko is able to mend the relationship with her mother with food as well. Towards the end of the film, Ryuriko who is terminally ill and engaged to be married, asks Rinko to cook Heremesu for her wedding before she dies. The only explanation she offers Rinko is that it is because Heremesu will taste the best out of everything else. Rinko accepts the request despite Heremesu being her pet and prepares him for Ryuriko’s wedding. It could be said that since Ryuriko was able to make up with her daughter, she no longer needed Heremesu and wanted to regain the love she invested in him. The only time we ever hear Rinko’s voice is when she has flashbacks to her childhood or talks telepathically to Heremesu. It is not until the final scene, when Rinko cooks a meal for herself, something we do not see her do, that we finally hear her speak. She takes a bite of the meal, chews on it slowly and thoughtfully. Then, she merely utters, “delicious” as she begins to cry. This last scene signifies Rinko’s wishes finally coming true. She has her restaurant, people who care for her, and is content. Having regained with all that was stolen from her, she is able to get her voice back and in this instant, she is healed. Work Cited Rinko’s Restaurant. Dir. Mao Tominaga. Popular Publishing, 2010. Film.

Care to Share? by Andrea Brucculeri The Road is a story of love — between father and son, men, God, and all of humanity. The story is relatively minimalistic, with the main characters not even receiving names through the film. This allows the story to be told through small actions and few words and invites the reader to observe themselves in the position of the characters. One of the main ways that love and goodness is expressed in the film is through food— which, ironically, makes very few appearances. However, it is this lack of presence in the film that makes food such a striking and meaningful feature, as characters stranded in a post apocalyptic wasteland are constantly searching for their next meal. Food is a symbol of humanity, love, and goodness, and this is expressed through the little boy. The nameless young boy in the film is the one true beacon of love in the film, and he uses food to express this love throughout the film. In the wasteland, there is very little food to hope for and every small discovery means new hope to survive the winter. Cannibalism is frequently brought up in the film, and the little boy always insists that they would never eat people because they are the “good guys.” This draws the line in the sand — good guys would rather die of starvation than hurt another human. Food is an expression of love, not violence. When the man finds a Cocla Cola, he offers it to the boy to try. Even though the boy likes the Coke, he insists that his father share it with him (25:58). This is the first wholly sweet, human moment between the boy and the man in the film, as it shows that the boy cannot even enjoy the treat unless his father is willing to enjoy it with him. This is a small act of love, but demonstrates the way the two care for each other. Later in the film, after the boy and man stumble across a large quantity of canned foods, the pair encounter a blind, sickly old man on the side of the road. The boy insists that they give him food, and despite the father’s protest, they do (1:04:00). Normally, the adult is the one teaching the child to be caring, generous, and fair, but in this situation the little boy is teaching his father how to love others. This is especially apparent when a lighter, happier music starts to play and the old man and the little boy hold hands as they head off the road to find a spot to eat (1:06:42). This suggests that sharing the food was the human thing to do— it gave the three travelers a sense of community, belonging, and love. The screenshot is from the dinner table in the underground bunker (56:03). Aside from a few of the cheerier flashback, this is the most joyful moment of the entire film. The colors in this scene are warm, unlike any of the present-day scenes. The two are eating together and the man is smiling as he goes, enjoying watching his son eat as much as he is enjoying the food himself. The lighting of the room is calming and feels like home. The food in the center is such a source of light and happiness, and it is made even more special because the father and son get to enjoy it together. It is also important to note that the actual foods they eat are not emphasized beyond knowing that these are normal canned items — it's more about the fact that they are sharing this warm, peaceful moment with food.

Hiding Behind Chocolate in Romantics Anonymous by Suejette Black Food is a remedy. One can push away pain by indulging in their favorite treat or can create food as a therapeutic form of self-expression. In Romantics Anonymous (2010), the two cripplingly shy protagonists use chocolate as a way to shield themselves from the outside world while simultaneously finding their place in it. At first Angelique and Jean-Ren use their passion for chocolate to mask their emotional handicaps and avoid leading a normal life. Working in a small, failing chocolate mill in France, the boss, Jean-Ren, orders around his employees and forms no relationships with them because his social anxiety makes him come off as a cold man. Angelique is sweet but also deathly afraid of attention and though she is a famous chocolatier her work is done anonymously. When the owner of her store dies, she struggles to find work because she refuses to make herself know. Both Angelique and Jean-Ren absorb themselves in making chocolate so that they do not have to deal with the struggles of forming real relationships. Although they are doing what they love, it seems that in ways their focus on chocolate is preventing them from truly living and enjoying all that life has to offer. Once Angelique and Jean-Ren begin working together though, their connection through their love of chocolate brings them together and allows them to overcome their social anxiety. In a scene in which Angelique pretends to be communicating with the famous anonymous chocolatier so that the mill can come up with a new line in order to save the business, a more relaxed side of the two is shown as they work with the chocolate. Though Angelique is still disguising herself, it is clear she is comfortable in the kitchen and allows her to communicate better with the staff and Jean-Ren. The non-diagetic orchestra music rises and falls with the chocolate making, giving a playful feel to the scene. The camera cuts between shots of her moving around the kitchen instructing the other workers and often shows point of view shots of the chocolate. The music then builds and adds suspense as her coworkers start to realize her true identity. The music culminates as the camera does an overhead panning shot of an illuminated counter of finished chocolates. As the two try the chocolates there is only the diagetic sounds of their voices and the chocolates crunching while they discuss the tastes and textures. The bantering back and forth seems very easy compared to their usual struggle to converse and the lack of background music makes it feel even more natural. The dimly lit room in the background provides focus just to their faces and the chocolate. As they discuss the chocolate in sensual terms the camera slowly zooms in to a medium-close shot of just the two of them. Their shared understanding of chocolate and the chemistry between the two is obvious. The film editing in Romantics Anonymous highlights how a food passion can open up even the most reserved people and provide a comfortable place for expression and discovery. Work Cited Romantics Anonymous. Dir. Jean-Pierre Ameris. Perf. Benoit Poelvoorde, Isabelle Carre. StudioCanal, 2010. ITunes. Web.

A Certain Point of View by Elliot Millner Sausage Party is not easy essay material. The R-rated film features numerous vulgar jokes, sexual innuendos, and profanity. Under its crude shell, however, lies a valuable perspective on the relationship between humanity and the food it consumes. Sausage Party was pitched as a spoof of popular animated movies from Disney and Pixar. The main characters of Sausage Party are foods personified. “People like to project their emotions on to the things around them – their toys, their cars, their pets,” said Seth Rogen, a writer on the film and voice of main protagonist “Frank,” during on stage Q&A about the film. He went on to pose an interesting question saying, “So we thought: ‘What would it be like if our food had feelings?’ We very quickly realized that it would be fucked up,” (Smith, 2016). Rogen’s words are key to understand fully the significance of Sausage Party and its place in the food film landscape. He’s right in that it would be “fucked up” but why and in what ways? Sausage Party illustrates the character that we give to food and the role it plays in human life by showing us that life through food’s own eyes. How would food view us if it were sentient? According to Sausage Party, we are Gods to food, deeming only the best products worthy to travel from the market to our “Great Beyond.” The food praises us as walking giants with dominion over the world. However, we also hide an ugly truth. Once at home, we murder food in the most violent of ways and with a plethora of tools. The characters in Sausage Party are naïve to this at the beginning of the film. Frank the sausage can’t wait to make it to “The Great Beyond” and finally be with his lover Brenda, a hot dog bun. The scene that defines the movie as a whole comes about 30 minutes into the film when we follow Frank and Brenda’s friends home from Shopwells the supermarket. The food is giddy with excitement. They are shaking inside their packaging. Light seeps through the windows in an angelic fashion. The landscape of the kitchen glistens with a hint of magic. The music invokes a sense of accomplishment, a long journey come to a glorious end. This is “The Great Beyond.” “We’re out of the package!” Carl the sausage exclaims. “This is beautiful!” Barry the sausage says in wonder. However, the beauty doesn’t last. The woman who has brought them home is ready to prepare them for a meal. She grabs a potato, gently washes it off under some cool water, and then proceeds to cut off his skin. The food is horrified by this display. They begin to scream and run for their lives. The shadows on the woman’s face intensify. The lighting turns a harsh red. Dooming music plays as the food products run for their lives. Two baby carrots try to jump to safety from the countertop. The film quickly cuts away to the woman’s perspective and all she sees is two baby carrots that are about to be spoiled by the filthy floor and go to waste. So she pops them in her mouth and begins to munch. “They’re eating children!” Carl screams in horror. The image that embodies this scene sees Carl and Barry standing in horror at what they are witnessing. The two have just seen the murder of two baby carrots and they can’t believe their eyes. Carl’s eyes widen in fear. Barry’s face grimaces as he looks away. The surrounding food share similar facial expressions. The lighting’s red tone invokes a feeling of danger and chaos. We’ve never seen cooking from this perspective, where the food’s emotions are given voice. This particular scene and the film as a whole are a commentary on humanity’s place in the world. Are we so savage as the film portrays us? The film treats all food consumption as evil. Meat and vegetables are alive all the same. Although I did not see Sausage Party in theaters, I imagine moviegoers walked out of showings of the film with a strange sense of shame. They most likely questioned their eating habits and looked at their food a little differently once they returned home. Drawing back on Seth Rogen’s words (Smith, 2016), it seems that was the point of this film; to present a scenario that makes us think about what role food plays in our lives and our dominion over it. Works Cited Smith, Nigel M. “Seth Rogen’s animated film Sausage Party is provocative food for thought.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 15 Mar. 2016,www.theguardian.com/film/2016/mar/15/sausage-party-seth-rogen-animated-sxsw-film-festival. Vernon, Conrad and Greg Tiernan, directors. Sausage Party. Columbia Pictures, 2016.

Bravery, Hunger, and Monstrous Food by Michael Palumbo Despite its humorous portrayals of gluttony and nods to drug use, Scooby-Doo ( 2002) artfully ties the desire for and consumption of food to bravery in the face of real and perceived danger. The titular dog, Scooby-Doo (voiced by Neil Fanning), and his owner-and-best-friend, Shaggy (Matthew Lillard), are notorious for their monstrous appetites. Although frequently courageous in their culinary tastes, the duo is chronically cowardly in their roles as detectives. Faced with solving the mystery of disappearing guests on Spooky Island, a monster-themed tropical amusement park, Scooby and Shaggy respond to danger, whether real or imagined, only when prompted with a food reward, their ultimate motivator. Scooby-Doo uses these two characters and their monstrous stomachs to explore the conflation of fear and appetite, the very idea of “monstrosity,” and the motivating potential of food and substance. Two years after the tumultuous break-up of their gang, Mystery Inc., Shaggy and Scooby live a seemingly idyllic life in the back of their van. The noticeable mise-en-scène of smoke wafting from the van and Shaggy’s exclamation of the word “toasted,” initially leads one to believe that the two are smoking marijuana inside. Cooking on a portable grill and biting into a chocolate-covered eggplant burger with hotsauce, Shaggy jumps at a knocking on the van door, exclaiming to Scooby: “Like, it’s probably just someone looking for us to solve some terrifying mystery.” Their sense of the word “terrifying” is unique: their appetites show no fear, yet, as seen in the prologue, their personalities are consistently cowardly, even in the face of superficial danger. The two are happy to eat monstrosities, but reluctant to confront monsters. Following their reluctant reunion on Spooky Island, Mystery Inc.begins their investigation of the disappearing park patrons at an abandoned castle-themed rollercoaster ride. As expected, Shaggy and Scooby are reluctant to enter, but gladly team up to investigate the ride with Scooby-Snacks, the duo’s favorite dog treat, as an enticement. Cautiously looking through the castle’s various rooms, Shaggy and Scooby come upon an oasis in the spooky desert: a medievalesque feast laid out before them. As they are about to dig in, the feast comes to life, and Shaggy and Scooby are pinned to the wall by animatronic sausages. The two are accustomed to figuratively monstrous food, but for the first time they are coming face-to-face with food that is literally monstrous. Rather than running or cowering in fear, as they would with a typical “monster,” the two resort to instinct and chew themselves through the chains of the plastic sausage links to freedom. Shaggy and Scooby have an appetite for the figuratively monstrous. However, the conflation of fear and hunger in the animatronic sausage scene poses a unique conundrum for the duo, as the sausages have a bipartite nature consisting of their greatest love (food) and their worst nightmare (monsters). In the uniqueness of the situation, Shaggy and Scooby conflate bravery with hunger to overcome the truly monstrous food they find themselves shackled with. The duo may not be traditionally brave, but their monstrous appetite for monstrous food ultimately saves them from certain doom.

Honey of the Heart: Food as Spiritual Nourishment in The Secret Life of Bees by Maggie Rutherford The worker bee musters courage to leave her haven hive. She hovers above the earth in a mid-afternoon haze, seeking a home in the harsh summer heat. She lands upon the petals of some fair flower and crawls into her nectar heart. She makes haste, returning to her queen in the hope of gifting her world with her sacred honey. The transformative nature of honey’s production is often allotted to its consumption: honey heals. In the Old Testament of the Bible, Exodus 3 recounts Moses’ journey to saving the Israelite slaves from Egyptian rule. He approaches a burning bush—a sight that encapsulates God’s power and cannot be tolerated by mortal eyes—and is promised by God that the Israelites will be delivered to “a land flowing with milk and honey” (Exodus 3:8). In The Secret Life of Bees, Lily begins as a troubled fourteen-year-old with a dark past. Her identity is transformed to a confident woman like a flower’s nectar into honey through what appears to be divine intervention. In this film, the Black Mary honey embodies food’s religious healing power and catalyzes Lily’s spiritual restoration. In the opening scenes of the film, Lily is pictured pressing a relic of her late mother—an image of the Black Madonna—to her bare body. T. Ray, Lily’s abusive father, finds his daughter in this disheveled state and assumes her behavior to be concealed eroticism. To escape unmerited punishment enacted upon herself and her housekeeper Rosaleen, the pair seeks refuge in a neighboring town. Lily happens across the Black Madonna on a honey jar label and discovers its source at the home of the Boatwright beekeeper sisters. Lily begins her stay with May, June, and August Boatwright believing herself to be unloved. As she becomes well-versed in the art of beekeeping, August teaches Lily to “send the bees love,” claiming that “every little thing wants to be loved.” One afternoon, Lily inquires into the secretly ever-familiar Black Madonna pasted on the honey jars. The sisters enlighten Lily by holding a religious service conducted in their living room to the lulling hum of Amazing Grace, recounting the story behind their Moses-like wooden Black Mary who severed the chains of slavery to bring freedom and light to the oppressed. As Lily reaches out to touch the figure’s heart with flashbacks of her mother’s death resounding in her fragile mind, she faints. Just as Moses approaches the burning bush in Exodus and cannot look at it for fear of God, this moment is the pinnacle of Lily’s pain and initiates the healing of her emotional wounds. Lily’s second encounter with death—that of May Boatwright—aids her in taking further steps towards spiritual bolstering. Both August and June, wrought with grief over the death of their sister, sing the following words over May’s body: “Place a beehive on my grave And let the honey soak through. When I’m dead and gone, That’s what I want from you. The streets of heaven are gold and sunny, But I stick with my plot and the pot of honey. Place a beehive on my grave, And let the honey soak through.” Clad in a white dress amidst a sea of funeral black, Lily silently listens to the melodic proverb. Its purity penetrates her soul as the sisters’ strength, evidently rooted in the transcendent honey of their Mother Mary, breathes life into our heroine’s feeble frame. Lily figuratively clings to the words of this song as the Israelites prayed for their deliverance into the land of milk and honey throughout the Old Testament. Lily’s final liberation takes place when T. Ray arrives at the Boatwright’s home, angrily determined to leave with his daughter. Lily’s strength seems to derived from the wooden Black Mary, as her outstretched arm reaches behind Lily’s back throughout the entire scene. Lily stands steadfast in her new might and is rewarded by her father’s permanent exit. In the frame displayed above taken from the film’s final scene, Lily’s environment—the curtains, a vase, her journal, and her very name—is saturated with flowers, prepared for future honey production. An image of her mother and the Black Madonna watch over her with gentle authority as she writes the story of her life. Lily tucks her honey of the heart into the stone wall, empowered by the tears and broken chains of her predecessors. Her renewal is reminiscent of nectar’s transformation into sugary sap, and the Boatwright’s haven serves as Lily’s “land of milk and honey,” delivered unto her by the Black Mary. Works Cited The Secret Life of Bees. Dir. Gina Prince-Blythewood. Perf. Dakota Fanning, Jennifer Hudson, Queen Latifah. Fox Searchlight Pictures, 2008. Amazon.com. “Exodus.” BibleGateway. 27 Feb. 2015. .

The Dehumanization and Humanization of Prisoners through Food by Marco Gutierrez The critically acclaimed film The Shawshank Redemption (1994) centers on the life of Andy Dufresne, a hot-shot banker who is wrongly sentenced to serve two life terms at Shawshank Prison for the murder of his wife and her lover. At the beginning of the film, Andy is reserved and pities himself for his misfortune. Yet, after making friends with some of the inmates and finding a way to use his accounting skills to gain influence with the warden, Andy’s confidence skyrockets and eventually he escapes from the prison on a dark and stormy night. Usually, food serves as comfort and nourishment, yet in Shawshank Prison it serves quite a different purpose. The food supplied by the prison is seemingly meant to be consumed by animals, not humans, and this fact reiterates the abysmal status of the prisoners. Although at first, the food represents the oppression of the prisoners, later on, drink is also used to symbolize a temporary reinstatement of their humanity. Thus, food and drink are incredibly important elements in The Shawshank Redemption because they are used by the director to fully demonstrate the dehumanization or humanity of the prisoners through a medium that anybody can relate to. When the prison food is first revealed to the viewer, it is through a tracking shot in which Andy gets his food slopped onto his plate (0:20:00). The director uses this shot to illustrate the inhumane conditions of the prison that Andy is not accustomed to yet. Although all the other prisoners are accustomed to the food and are already eating, Andy takes one look at it and finds reason for pause. Upon closer examination, he realizes that there is a mealworm in his food (0:22:00). Sitting next to Andy is an old prisoner named Brooks, who asks for the worm. After Andy gives it to him, Brooks gives the worm to an injured bird that he said he is caring for. This scene is critical because it demonstrates to the audience that the prisoners are being treated like animals. For many people, eating a meal is meant to be a delicious escape from reality, yet in the prison, the food is literally meant for birds. By having the mealworm fed to the injured bird, the director is using the medium of food to draw a comparison between the prisoners and animals. Although prison life is highly monotonous, there is a moment where Andy and his new friends are able to escape the routine by drinking beers on the roof of the plate factory (0:37:00). In a moment of bravery, Andy convinces the head prison guard to buy beers for each of his compatriots in exchange for fixing up the guard’s taxes. As they are drinking the beers, Red says, “We sat and drank with the sun on our shoulders and felt like free men,” he said. “Hell we could’ve been tarring the roof of one of our own houses. We were the lords of all creation,” (0:38:17). The director uses beer to exemplify the feeling of humanity that the prisoners experienced at this moment in a relatable way. Most of the audience will probably know what it feels like to drink a beer on a hot, summer day, yet they don’t often stop to think about it. This scene makes the audience realize that prison life is so restricted that the prisoners don’t even have the privilege of drinking a beer when they want. The way that the director frames the scene, with a long-shot of the prisoners sitting in the morning sun, also helps to get across just how happy and free they feel in that moment. In this brief moment, the prisoners forget that they are trapped. The beer makes them feel human and reminds them of the outside world for a second. Overall, the director uses food as a relatable element that helps express the humanity and dehumanization of the prisoners at Shawshank. In the scene where Andy finds a mealworm in his food, the director uses the prison food to draw a comparison between the prisoners and animals. By showing that the food the prisoners eat is meant for animals, the director is implying that they are less than human. Later on, the director uses beer to demonstrate the temporary reinstatement of the prisoner’s humanity. The prisoners eat the same thing every day, but for one moment they are able to enjoy a drink that has not been chosen for them. The director lets the beer represent an escape from the dehumanization of prison life, and thus an emblem of freedom. This use of food in both a negative and positive context shows that the director takes advantage of this element to relay the state of the prisoners to the audience in a way that everyone can understand. Work Cited The Shawshank Redemption. Frank Darabont. Castle Rock Entertainment. 1994.

Café of Happiness by Tatiana Farmer What does it mean to be happy? In the small village of Toya, located in Hokkaido prefecture, lives a young couple who seems to hold the answer to this puzzling question. Café Mani is owned by Rie and Nao Mizushima. Their café gives off an earthy and organic feel. Almost all of their furniture is made out of various shades of wood, and their walls are painted a light cream color. The café is entirely surrounded by vegetation. Little plants are seen throughout the house as decoration, along with small creations made of glass created by Yoko, the village glassblower. They either grow their own ingredients or buy them locally. Their café is a refreshing little place away from the bustling and chaotic life of the city, which makes it perfect for weary travelers or even fellow villagers seeking an escape. Rie and Nao moved to the village to escape their old lives in Tokyo. The city life was proving too much for Rie, who was slowly falling into a miserable and repetitive routine after she gave up on finding her Mani, a fictional character from a book she often read in her childhood. Nao asks Rie to move to Tsukiura with him when he notices how hard life is becoming for her. Her family has passed away and she is beginning to force her smiles, she claims her heart is becoming smaller. This begins their journey as café owners. Nao bakes delicious bread and Rie cooks hearty food. They always use the ingredients that are in season, offering a variety in taste for their customers at any time of the year. Each season change ends up brining a new customer who is lacking something they end up finding with the couple. Summer is a time for adventure and risk-taking. This shows up in the form of a city girl named Kaori who finds herself staying at the Mani café alone after her boyfriend breaks up with her a few days before her birthday and right before their trip to Okinawa. Kaori is heartbroken but lies to her coworkers so that they would not find out. She gets drunk one night and admits that she feels that the people of Tokyo are all tensed and are constantly forcing themselves to laugh. She claims that life in the country-side must always be peaceful and happy, but Tokio, a local in the area discredits this, later disclosing to her in private that he is unhappy with his repetitive job of switching train tracks. He tells her that a person must struggle to be happy, which is something he feels he is not doing. Autumn is the epitome of change. Adjusting to life without her mother is proving to be a difficult process for village locals Miku and her father. Miku finds herself at Café Mani one morning when she misses the bus to school. She is stoic in Rie and Nao’s presence, but puts on a smile at school and jokes with her peers. However, when she returns to her home, she reverts back to being lifeless. Her house is empty, there are dishes still in the sink, and a little money left on the table from her father so that she can buy food. Miku disregards the money and gently sets the table for three, staring at the chairs where her parents should be. Miku then sits on the floor and eats bread until her father comes home from work. She tells him that she wishes to eat the pumpkin soup her mother used to make her before she divorced Miku’s father. Although winter also has its own beauty, it is hard to ignore its ties with death. An old couple arrives in the middle of a snowstorm one winter evening. Aya and Fumio Sakamoto have been together for 50 years. They have braced tough times together, specifically when an earthquake took everything they had, including their daughter. Thinking that life no longer has anything to offer for them anymore, they travel to Tsukiura with the intentions of dying together. Café Mani is where all of these people find their happiness. “Compagno” is a word that Nao uses frequently throughout the film. He claims the origin of the word is “people who share bread together” and its meaning is companion. Kaori and Tokio were able to eventually find love with each other at the café over the simple taste of bread. Miku and her father were finally able to communicate their feelings while eating bread with pumpkin soup. Lastly, Aya and Fumio were able to ignite a spark in their dull lives over sharing bean bread together. Bread becomes a symbol of happiness through the intimacy and connection that is established through sharing it with a person, be it a romantic or parental relationship. Nao mentions that companionship is the basis of a family and also a source of happiness, which in a way is what Café Mani provides for its customers. Finally, spring represents life. Before they learn they are about to have a child, Rie begins to feel truly happy after she realizes she has found her Mani, which was Nao all along. Just as Mani supported the moon across the sky every night, Nao supported Rie at her darkest time. Perhaps the happiness Nao wanted Rie to feel was also transferred into the bread he baked, adding meaning to Café Mani because just as Rie was able to find her Mani, their customers were able to find theirs too. Work Cited Shiawase no Pan. Dir. Yukiko Mishima. Asmik Ace Entertainment, 2012. Film.

Hannibal the Cannibal: The Fine Flavor of People by Madison Schroder The word “cannibal,” much like “monster,” most likely conjures images of a savage, predatory creature that is human only in form and animalistic in all other aspects. It is also associated with sheer necessity, as anyone willing to consume one of their own must have done so in dire straights. This is the source of the uniqueness of Hannibal Lecter of Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs, who is shown to be a sophisticated intellectual; he does not cannibalize out of need, but rather treats the act with a certain level of connoisseurship. Because Lecter is discriminating in his tastes, his cannibalism is further removed from the image of a primitive beast who attacks freely and without discretion. In the film, Lecter is a renowned psychiatrist who exhibits incredible skill in “reading” those with whom he comes into contact. Because of this, he can often determine the motives of the people who speak to him and he quickly develops a dislike for those who view him merely as a specimen. Dr. Frederick Chilton, who oversees Lecter at the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, is perhaps most notable in the treatment of Lecter. At Clarice Starling’s first visit to the hospital to interview Lecter, Chilton speaks to her of Lecter: “He is a monster. A pure psychopath. So rare to capture one alive. From a research point of view, he is our most prized asset.” Lecter develops a hatred for Chilton and seeks revenge once he is free, telling Starling he is “having an old friend for dinner” and proceeds to follow Chilton calmly through a crowd of people. Revenge is a common motive for Lecter, as he targets his “captors” throughout the film. While he is held in the Tennessee courthouse, he is placed in a cage that strongly resembles a zoo exhibit where he and all of his drawings are on display, as shown in the accompanying image. He is treated with contempt by the guards, Lieutenant Boyle and Sergeant Pembry, who regularly express their displeasure at his requests, as if he is an animal rather than a human and should not have special desires such as extra-rare lamb chops. In contrast, Starling treats Lecter with respect and wishes to hear his insights, and Lecter reciprocates her respect. When Lecter becomes free, he assures Starling that she should not fear him: “I have no plans to call on you, Clarice. The world’s more interesting with you in it.” His interactions with others are much like his game of quid pro quo with Starling; one will receive what he or she gives. Lecter lends his cannibalism some of the “sophistication” with which he approaches other hobbies such as art. He generally prefers facial organs, as damage was done in this area to both the hospital nurse and Sergeant Pembry. He never consumes large amounts of his victims, but rather only a portion he deems to be most “fit,” much like how filet mignon is considered a prize cut. His tendencies can be likened to any regular type of “fine dining,” exhibited in his warning to Starling: “A census taker tried to test me once. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.” Though both Lecter and murderer-at-large Buffalo Bill are ruthless killers, Lecter’s sophistication distracts from his killings. Lecter has a similar number of victims as Buffalo Bill, if not more, yet the murders of Buffalo Bill are those most emphasized in the film. Buffalo Bill is shown as preying on innocent, defenseless young females who merely tried to help a stranger, while Lecter subdues and cannibalizes the arrogant and insensitive characters of the film. This reflects an idea in Swift’s satirical A Modest Proposal, where it is suggested that the undesirable of Ireland become a part of a fine fricassee for the well-to-do; Lecter creates a fine dining opportunity from the “undesirables” of the film. Throughout the film, people have many words and names to describe Lecter. Chilton believes that Lecter is simply a monster. Considering that the applicable definition of “monster” is “a person who excites horror by wickedness or cruelty” (Random House Dictionary), Lecter could certainly fall in this category. On the other hand, his insight into the case of murderer Buffalo Bill helps subdue perhaps the biggest “monster” of the film. Lecter is given much more personable qualities, and despite also being a murderer, is the more appealing monster of two. The most apt description of Lecter is given by Starling. While riding the elevator with a police officer in the courthouse to visit Lecter, the intrigued officer asks Starling, “Is it true? That he’s some kind of vampire?” Starling thinks for a moment and responds, “They don’t have a name for what he is.” And really, there is no word to name the both terrifying and fascinating Hannibal Lecter. Work Cited The Silence of the Lambs. Dir. Jonathan Demme. Perf. Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins. Orion Pictures. 1991. Netflix.

Food for Fairytales by Andrea Brucculeri Shrek (2001) is a unique “fairytale” story in that it presents the unlikely pair of a princess and an ogre. One of the ways the contrasts between these characters were made clear is through food. Throughout Shrek, food is used to show the deep contrasts between Shrek and society, and how Fiona is the perfect match for Shrek despite being more physically human.The character’s snacks and meals reveal that Shrek and Fiona were compatible partners. Shrek is quickly established as having a traditionally repulsive diet. He is seen muting on a bowl of eyeballs (3:00) and threatening to squeeze the jelly out of people’s eyes, which he says goes well on toast (4:06). He doesn’t seem particularly impressed with regular human food, and yells at Donkey when the sidekick declares, “in the morning, I’m making waffles” (11:04). This serves to isolate him from the normal world, where all people and even talking donkeys are repulsed by his ogre ways. Shrek is even forced to preface some encounters with “look, I’m not gonna eat you,” just to have a conversation with someone (20:50). People are so afraid of him and his ways of consumption that he cannot connect with them, even if he wanted to. However, this does not discourage Shrek from enjoying his meals. He is seen looking over a table with a giant green slug, a pumpkin full of pink worms, and an unknown green goop (11:56). He eats this meal with apparent pleasure, only bothered by a tingle of guilt at leaving Donkey outside, or perhaps loneliness. This suggests that Shrek will need to find love with someone who accepts him for who he is, as he is not willing or able to change his ogre diet. He even personally identifies with traditionally undesirable foods, like the whole raw onion that he eats like an apple. He says he has layers, just like the onion (27:15). This suggests that Shrek knows there is more to himself than the scary ogre that others see. He surprisingly human on the inside, and has humans desires, like seeking companionship. Although Fiona appears human during the day, her ogre form at night turns out to be her “true form” and also the body that she is the most connected with. While looking for breakfast for Shrek and Donkey, Fiona starts singing to a bird and eventually sings such a high note that the bird dies. Although this is unintentional, Fiona uses the bird’s eggs to make breakfast for everyone (50:16). This is a prime example of the “middle-ground” that is Fiona — ogre enough to kill an innocent bird, but human enough to use the eggs to make breakfast for her companions. Fiona’s instinct to make Shrek food is in line with her underlying desire to get to know him, as they two talk and bond as they eat. Later, she makes him a drum stick out of bugs and spider webs (56:20). This scene is marked by the budding romance between the two as Shrek realized how much Fiona accepts him for who he is. The screen shot above is from 58:37, the conversation where Shrek and Fiona seem to fall in love. After Fiona expresses how much she loves the weed rat Shrek cooks, she sighs in disappointment at the idea of eating the fine foods of her wedding to Lord Farquaad. This shows that while she is outwardly a beautiful princess, she inwardly has the culinary taste of an ogre, and feels comfortable spending time with Shrek. Shrek then invites Fiona to his swamp so he can cook for her. This is significant because not only does Shrek continuously insists throughout the movie that he likes to be alone and wants no one else in his swamp, but because he is offering objectively disgusting foods that Fiona seems to find utterly dreamy. She’s leaning into him with a smile, and the sunset is giving her a golden glow and “mood-lighting” for both of them. Overall the conversation and presence of food has worked to bridge the physical human-ogre divide between these two and foster a new love.

A Taste of Revolution: Food’s Status and Power by Jordi Gaton Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer is a post apocalyptic action thriller set in a world where attempts to combat the threat of global warming have resulted in Earth’s devolving into an unlivable winter hellscape. The only humans alive are those on a train, circling the world endlessly and waiting for Earth to become inhabitable. While safe from the frost, it becomes apparent to our protagonist, Chris Evans, and the rest of the people relegated to the back car that this safety has come at the cost of their freedom and humanity. The train comes to represent inequality and each car closer towards the “holy engine” becomes home to a higher caste of individuals. Bong Joon-ho further develops the theme of inequality throughout the film in its juxtaposition of the ghastly food given to those in the back and the elegant food available to those in the front of the train. Through this clever metaphor, Bong Joon-ho crafts his own dystopian representation of the socio-economic inequity that exists in our world. In the opening scenes, the people of the back train stand waiting to be counted, so that they may receive their daily “protein block” ration from the heavily armed soldiers. As these people stand in lines reminiscent of Soviet bread ration queues from the Cold War era, they frantically grab and gnaw on these gelatinous blocks in a way that makes them appear more animal than human. In Figure 1, this block seems to be sapping the very humanity out of these people, causing a Kafkaesque transformation, as their puffy beaten faces appear more devolved and insect-like. Later in the next car over a POV shot through Curtis, we see in Figure 2 that these blocks derive their transformative effects from their protein source, cockroaches. In this, the director plays with the notion that “one is what one eats” in order to both represent the horrid station of life that these people inhabit and the lack of humanity afforded to these individuals at the back of the train. In contrast, as Curtis and his mob move forward through the cars they walk through a massive aquarium filled with a whole ecosystem of fish that they thought were extinct, to find themselves at a sushi bar and are presented in Figure 3 (above) with a dish that is today associated with luxury. The sushi itself, unlike the horribly unappetizing protein block, emphasizes artistic presentation and clean, pure ingredients. As they eat, Tilda Swinton, one of the higher-ranking officials on the train, remarks with pride that this dish is available because of the “very precise” efforts and control that they exert on the ecosystem. In this exchange it becomes evident that she and the train conductor, Wilford, see the people on the train in the same way as they see these fish. Wilford in his final meeting with Curtis confirms this theory and openly states that the people in all of the cars represent a delicate ecosystem that must be managed closely and that Curtis’s rebellion was an elaborate plot to correct the overpopulation present within the train. Wilford intended that Curtis start the revolution, so that Curtis could succeed him as the conductor. But this development leaves an interesting question: Why did they choose Curtis? The answer lies in the early, darker days of the train—the day Curtis was crammed in the back at the young age of 17. In those days the population was much too great and there was no food in the back cars. After a month the entire car including Curtis, resorted to cannibalism. In a torrent of emotion he reveals this to Namgoong Minsoo in the final car: “You know what I hate about myself? I know what people taste like. I know babies taste the best.” In this moment, Curtis reveals to the audience the source of his power and the reason why both Wilford and Gillian felt that Curtis could take over the train. Having tasted the flesh of the weak, Curtis has obtained the strength and sheer will to survive that are a perquisite for survival in this post- apocalyptic world. As a leader through the revolution of the back car, he willingly sacrifices friends and his lover, in order to chase his dream and passion for change. In putting the lives of individuals over his passion for equality, Curtis represents the darker side of revolution where human lives become secondary to the preservation of the ideal.Through the example of Curtis, it becomes apparent that there is no clear dichotomy between revolutionaries and those who are in power. Oftentimes as it has been demonstrated throughout history, the most passionate of believers can become more heartless than the people they struggle against. The social conflict that follows is oftentimes a transformative moment that changes the oppressed into the oppressors, leading to a perpetuation of the same inequity from which the conflict originated. Altogether, the sacrifices that both sides lose in this cyclical social strife essentially feed these ideals. As ideals supersede the lives of individuals, a revolution consumes its own followers in a way akin to cannibalism. Through this metaphor Bong Joon-ho critiques not only those in power but also those who seek change without concern for the lives of individuals. This passing of the torch to Curtis represents the Marxist cycle of revolution and revolt between the proletariat and bourgeoisie. In this, Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer is an uncompromising critique of social inequality that arises from an unequal distribution of powers. Food stands out in this film as a sign of this unequal status and lack of justice within the train society. The transformative effects derived from the consumption of this food drive both Curtis and his people to revolt against Wilford to reclaim their lost humanity. This struggle, depicted closely through food, therefore represents redemption for Curtis and humanity as a whole. Works Cited Pong, C., Harris, E., Hurt, J., Swinton, T., Bell, J., Spencer, O., & Entertainment One (Firm : Canada), (2014). Snowpiercer.

Soylent and Subjugation: Food as a Means of Control by Josh Green Few movies are as deserving of the moniker “cult classic” as Soylent Green. Richard Fleischer uses a dark vision of futuristic New York to depict the power of food, importance of environmental preservation, and the dangers of rampant capitalism. Unlike many of its dystopian peers, its primary symbolic elements are related to food. Central to the story is how the Soylent Corporation is able to use its control of the food supply to gain global influence. In particular, Soylent Green explores the reasons for which food is an ideal means for control and well as the dimensions of power that such control enables. Initially, one must wonder why it is that food has become the primary ammunition in the war of capitalist companies against the oppressed populace. In most dystopian novels, dominance is achieved through military might, mind control, or a combination of both. However, though the police play a central role in Soylent Green, the Soylent Corporation has no Palace of Corrective Detention, telescreens, thought police, or command economy. Instead, most members of the populace go about their lives with little interaction with the corporations, interacting with the governing bodies only to get their food rations. This unique take on dystopia is undergirded by the idea that food control alone is enough to produce cultural subjugation. The film’s imagery underscores why it is that food is an ideal mechanism through which such control can be achieved. The emaciated bodies of children and the rabid hunger of the populace on Tuesdays (“Soylent Green Day”) serves to remind the viewer of how dependent humanity is on our meals. Few people in the overfed West are forced to confront their need for food as sustenance, and the film’s depiction of a starving New York contrasts sharply with the relatively well-fed New York of today. However, it requires little imagination to envision how this basic need for nutrition could quickly overpower most other pursuits were food to become scarce. It is this very essentiality of the human need for food that allows the Soylent Corporation to so easily control the world’s population. However, though their power over the food supply is important, the Soylent’s political dominance is only possible because the population is removed from the means of their food’s production. The Corporation’s complete social control rests on a delicate balance between circumstances being “bad enough” that their food is an absolute necessity, while still being “good enough” that mass revolt is unlikely. The movie explores the fact food scarcity alone is not enough to drive political revolution. In fact, Soylent depends on such scarcity to maintain power. Though during the movie, Soylent is forced to quell a small revolt when the supply of Soylent Green runs dry, the problem is short term and could be solved via a slight increase in production of the good. In terms of its potential impact on the New York populace, this minor supply problem is dwarfed by the problem of the actual content of the titular green bars. The main character seems to believe that the knowledge that “Soylent Green is people” will be enough to rouse the citizenry into action, and the movie’s ending (a group of people literally being roused from sleep) strongly implies that he is right. Thus, the separation of the people from their food’s production is the main barrier to revolution. This theme of separation should come as no surprise, given that society in the West has become increasingly distant from the actual production of what we are consuming. The movie represents the most abhorrent and extreme result of such separation: not only do the people have no idea what is actually in the Soylent bars, but this lack of knowledge results in unintentional cannibalism. Moreover, Soylent Green tangibly represents this separation from food via images of opaque food trucks, highly processed green bars, and especially through the literal barrier between the people and the Soylent factories themselves. Interestingly, though the necessity of food and the people’s separation from its production does give the Soylent Corporation considerable power, the extent of their control is comparatively limited. Many stories of dystopia depict the governing bodies as having absolute power over the minutia of the lives of their citizenry. For example, in 1984, ‘Big Brother’ is said to control the very thoughts of the people in Oceania (Orwell 1949). In A Brave New World, the government’s power extends even to the mating behaviors of their populace (Huxley 1969). Contrastingly, the Soylent Corporation’s authority is primarily economic, though their wealth does afford them a large amount of political power. Unlike many dystopian stories in which the primary antagonist is the government, in Soylent Green the main character fights against a private corporation. Soylent does not have any influence over the people’s home lives (like the government in 1984), nor does it appear that they are the ones deciding on people’s careers or choice of spouse (Orwell 1984). Instead, they control “two thirds of the world’s food supply” and use their money to remain in the good graces of the much weaker government (which is apparently distinct from the corporation itself). Thus, their power appears to be mostly economic and they seem to have little interest in the day-to-day affairs of the populace. Worth noting, however, is the extent to which this economic control allows them power in other areas. For example, their wealth allows them sexual control over a group of women (whom they refer to as furniture), who are treated as little more than property. These women rely on the wealthy businessmen for food and shelter in exchange for their freedom. Soylent Green is a clear picture of the importance of food as a means of social control and the enormous power that is available to those who can control the food supply. It should serve as a warning to carefully monitor what we are consuming and the people who control the means of our food’s production. References Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: Harper Perenial, 1969. Orwell, George. 1984. London: Secker and Warburg, 1949. Soylent Green. Dir. Richard Fleischer. Perf. Charlton Heston, Leigh Taylor-Young, and, Edward G. Robinson. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1973. Amazon Instant Video.

Insatiable Adults & Spirited Children by Katelyn Liu I remember when I first watched Studio Ghibli’s famed Spirited Away as a young child. All I heard were people celebrating over the magnificent and nonsensical world that Hayao Miyazaki was able to create. Anticipating a work of color and creativity, my memory has only cemented one distinct feeling from years ago - I was horrified. It was more than the shock of watching Chihiro’s parents’ transformation into pigs. Spirited Away implicated how the social conditioning towards materialism proves blinding towards the opportunity for human intimacy. The protagonist, Chihiro, is a young girl who begins the film by sulking about moving away from her hometown, is sucked into a world of ghosts and gods. After wondering into a deserted theme park, her parents freely gorge upon the mysterious food that is left without supervision, heaping quantities onto plates beyond their threshold of satiety, while Chihiro was adamantly wary, refusing to partake. As a result, their devolution into porcine embodiment ensues and Chihiro is forced to work in Bath House run by Yubaba in order to free her parents. Stripped of her name and renamed Sen, she shuffles along as a lowly worker in Bath House as she tries to make sense of this new reality complete with anthropomorphic frogs. In a quiet moment with her only friend, Haku, she allows herself to cry over a humble meal of onigiri. Even with the safety of her protector, Haku, she is hesitant to eat before allowing herself to eat and cry in his company. The role reversal is clear; as a young child, it seems uncharacteristic of her youth to enter into this thought-to-be abandoned amusement park so cautiously. Rather, her parents—full-grown adults—frolic and eat with no consideration of the strangeness or potential consequences of their presence in the eerie and sacred space. As Miyazaki unravels the spirit world through Chihiro’s novel eyes, the unassuming god, No Face, is introduced (Figure 3). He begins on a busy bridge, unseen by anyone but Chihiro, who politely dips her head in acknowledgment of his presence. No Face begins similar to an infant; he knows nothing of the world, nor how to interact with those who run it. More and more, he appears around Chihiro who accepts these opportunities to show him kindness, even opening the door to the Bath House for him to enter (mistaking him as a guest). No Face spends most of his time observing behavior, most notably when the Bath House workers clamor to pick up the gold pieces left behind by the river god. No Face, with the ability to materialize gold pieces, soon becomes the most popular and celebrated patron as every worker lines up to attend to his every desire. With more gold, there are more people who adore him. Little by little, he learns the joy of receiving kindness from others and perceives the systems of currency and the value ascribed to it. As he consumes more and more, even consuming workers, his previously unnoticeable presence evolves into a grotesque, spider-like form. His soundless steps now thud with every movement throughout Bath House. As the workers of Bath House feed his greed, his appetite grows unrestrained and No Face’s education of social norms remains unbalanced, with no conditioning to understand limitations, to the point of swallowing workers. Only Chihiro rejects the gold, what No Face has come to understand as acceptable payment for companionship. The one who originally offered him attention and kindness is the one character who will not accept his gold. Chihiro, perhaps the most desperate for any influence or control in this world, demonstrates her own self-control and teaches the same to No Face. Self-restraint and limitations is not innately understood, it must be taught. In fact, No Face demonstrated that the exhaustion of physical consumption ultimately does not satisfy the underlying desire for companionship and intimacy. Chihiro’s adventure seems to end where it began. Her parents, now human again, call her back to the entrance of this world, unaware of the whirlwind their daughter has emerged from. Yet the shocking, full-circle transformation of No Face points back to the pig transformation of Chihiro’s indulgent parents from the very beginning. Although they eventually become human again because of Chihiro’s efforts, due to their absence throughout the film and their amnesic venture into the spirit world, they are the least developed characters in the world of Spirited Away. It leads the viewer to consider why the only human adults in this world filled with mystical, physical, and emotional transformations are marked by their insatiable appetite and lack of control. Perhaps we are to consider how the daily transactions that reinforce social conformity for a desire of more, leaves us clueless to the magical wonder of intimate human connection. Works Cited Spirited Away. Dir. Hayao Miyazaki. By Hayao Miyazaki. Perf. Rumi Hiiragi and Miyu Irino. Studio Ghibli, 2001.

Food, Humanity, and the Supernatural by Naomi Wagner In 1972, acclaimed Russian science fiction authors Arkady and Boris Strugatsky published Roadside Picnic, a SF novel that imagines the aftermath of earth’s first encounter with aliens in which people known as “stalkers” venture into the abandoned Zones affected by the visitation to retrieve alien artifacts. In 1979, Andrei Tarkovsky adapted this novel into the SF film Stalker, in which three men, known only by their respective professions of Stalker, Writer, and Professor, enter an alien Zone in search of the Room at its center that is alleged to grant wishes. In the Strugatsky brothers’ original novel, when two characters discuss the alien visitation, one of the them compares the visitation to a “picnic by the side of some space road” (132). In this analogy, the aliens are like picnickers who briefly stopped on Earth and then moved on, leaving strange debris behind for the humans, like woodland creatures creeping out after the picnickers leave, to discover (131-132). Through this food metaphor, the authors of Roadside Picnic pose deep ontological questions such as what it means to be human in the face of an alien other. The Strugatsky brothers’ titular analogy provides the framework for Tarkovsky’s film adaptation Stalker, which similarly employs imagery of food and drink to question human nature in relation to the unknown and the spiritual through visual references to the well-known icon The Holy Trinity by the 15th century Russian icon painter Andrei Rublev. In this icon, three divine figures sit around a table partaking in the distinctly human act of eating a meal and thereby associating the human with the supernatural (see Figure 1). Since its creation, Rublev’s icon has become a national symbol of Russia, and Tarkovsky has repeatedly drawn on it as a characteristic motif in several of his films. Tarkovsky’s 1972 film Andrei Rublev daringly explores religion and Russian history in a monumental film that culminates in the creation of this same icon. Three years later, Tarkovsky directed his first SF film, Solaris, in which the space-travelling protagonist decorates his confined living quarters in a nearly abandoned space station with a reproduction of Rublev’s The Holy Trinity icon as a comforting reminder of his homeland. Finally, Tarkovsky frames the beginning and the end of his 1979 Stalker with another visual reference to this icon. At the beginning of Stalker, Tarkovsky focuses the camera on the characters Stalker, Writer, and Professor, who stand around a bar with drinks in a pose deliberately reminiscent of the three divine beings sitting around a table in The Holy Trinity (see Figure 2). Stalker, Writer, and Professor discuss complex philosophical themes such as the nature and purpose of work and existence over their drinks before entering the alien Zone to have their wishes granted by the mysterious Room at its heart. The long film that follows tracks the three protagonists as they wander through the empty Zone, discussing further philosophical questions and eventually returning without ever actually entering the Room. Upon their return near the end of the film, they gather around the same table in the same bar and assume practically the same poses as before, standing in silence for several minutes before departing (see Figure 3). These two incidents where people drink around a table foreshadow the final scene of the film, which is one of the only scenes shot in color in the entire film apart from those that take place in the alien Zone. In this scene, Stalker’s crippled daughter sits alone at a table, bringing to mind the central figure of Rublev’s The Holy Trinity, and appears to telekinetically move a trinity of glasses across the surface of the table (see Figure 4). Ultimately, the significance of Tarkovsky’s repeated, thematical references to Rublev’s The Holy Trinity icon remains ambiguous and open to various interpretations, as does the rest of the film. However, these visual references take on unmistakably ironic and subversive religious overtones when viewed both within the context of the totalitarian Soviet Union in which this film was produced and in connection with the director’s repeated previous uses of Rublev’s icon in his other works. Tarkovsky wrote in his dairy that Stalker “is about the existence of God in man, and about the death of spirituality as a result of our possessing false knowledge” (qtd. in David). This statement suggests that the director’s allusion to Rublev’s icon in Stalker serves both as a critique of religious repression in the Soviet Union and as a way of exploring the relationship of humanity and divinity through the imagery of drink. The framing device of the repeated bar scenes unites the diegetic narrative of Stalker into a comprehensive whole, inviting the reader to consider not only the place of drinking within human society but also, through its symbolic fusion of the material and the divine, the place of humanity in relation to the rest of the cosmos. Tarkovsky’s contemplations on the duality of drinking as human and supernatural culminate in the final moments of the film and suggest the existence of phenomena beyond the scope of human comprehension. As a result, Tarkovsky’s complex use of drink imagery in Stalker creates a thought-provoking narrative whose significance, like that of existence itself, resists fixed interpretations and thereby captivates the imagination. Works Cited David, Eric. “‘The Man Who Saw the Angel.’” Christianity Today, Christianity Today, 24 July 2007, http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/julyweb-only/foftarkovsky.html. Rublev, Andrei. The Holy Trinity. C. 1411, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia. Christian Art: Icons, Murals, Mosaics, Orthodox Christianity on the Web, n. d., http://www.icon-art.info/masterpiece.php?lng=en&mst_id=161. Image. Stalker. 1979. Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. Soviet and Russian Films with English Subtitles, sovietfilmsonline.com/fantastic/7-stalker.html. Film. Strugatsky, Arkady, and Boris Strugatsky. Roadside Picnic. Translated by Olena Bormashenko, Chicago Review Press, 2012. Print.

Food as a Barrier by Abhishek Das In the film Stanley Ka Dabba (2011), directed by Amole Gupte, food serves as a unifying connection between individuals of differing social classes in a small Christian school in India. Throughout the majority of the film, the protagonist, Stanley, is a fun-loving and mischievous student who asks for food from all of his peers during lunch time each day in school. Stanley is an orphan who works as a child laborer in a small, damp restaurant where he is abused, forcibly being thrust into a low social class. After months of begging for food from his classmates, he is ousted by a teacher who curiously asks for food from his peers. Through cinematographic elements and interactions that unify Stanley to those around him, difference in social class is distinguishable but tolerated. As Stanley interacts daily with his school friends, they offer him food every day so that he does not feel left out from the group, showing that his low social class has little bearing on his interactions with his friends. Normally in Indian society, children of lower class would not be allowed to go to school. Stanley and his friends, however, hide his class and share amazing foods prepared in similar fashion to obento boxes. The obento box-like dabbas, or lunch boxes, serve as a means for friendship to take power over differences in societal class. This togetherness the friends all felt to support Stanley is seen in Figure 1. Close-up shots throughout the film also support the notion that food forms a unifying connection among Stanley and those around him. Towards the beginning of the movie, a scene where a spicy chicken masala was being garnished with fresh green cilantro was depicted. It was especially noticeable that Stanley looked at this dish with longing eyes, yearning for a chance to try it. After having a bite, he realized that, although he is of lower social class, he can still enjoy food with the people he loves, no matter the social class. Lighting is also a key cinematographic element that helps enhance Stanley’s relationship with the people around him. In the film, Stanley’s primary interactions with friends and teachers took place near windows where the sunlight would stream down into their presence. This symbolic light emphasized a high level of care that others felt towards Stanley and his success. Oftentimes, Ms. Rosy, Stanley’s favorite teacher, was shown with a significant amount of light in the scene. This loving energy Ms. Rosy shows and her presence in light make Stanley feel welcomed in a place where he did not belong. In Stanley Ka Dabba, food became a way for Stanley to feel included amongst those he loved in a society that oftentimes rejects people of his “inferior” social class. Through cinematographic elements and interactions though food between Stanley and people in his school, his sense of social belonging is achieved. Work Cited Stanley Ka Dabba, Dir. Amole Gupte. Fox Star Studios. 2011.

(Un)conventional: Family and Food in Stand by Me by Patrick Kaper-Barcelata Stand by Me, directed by Rob Reiner, follows four boys’ search for the body of a missing local teenager, Ray Brower. While the boys, for various reasons, face social exclusion and familial struggle, they find friendship in shared experience. The protagonist of the four, Gordie Lachance, feels invisible in his family, especially after the death of his beloved brother, Denny. After being asked about his brother by a store owner, Gordie experiences a flashback to a family dinner when Denny was still alive. The shot (Figure 1) opens on the dinner table, placing the viewer at the end of a hearty meal set in an inviting dining room. The neat table setting and thoughtful composition of the shared meal give the indication of a family that is intentional about togetherness. Yet, despite the impression of a utopian, united family, dialogue reveals relational distance. Gordie’s father, who sits alone at the head of the table, dominates the conversation and is interested only in Denny’s football season. Denny barely meets his eyes. Gordie asks his father to pass him the potatoes three times but receives not even a glance in his direction until his mother hears him and passes the dish. These failures to connect conflict with the expectation of conviviality conjured by the image of a shared family meal. This scene illustrates one of the film’s central messages: appearances can be misleading. In this scene (Figure 2), the boys are on the second and last day of their journey to find Ray. Walking together, they use their hands to scoop some variety of purple berries or jam into their mouths. Instead of using plates, the boys each carry their food by creating a makeshift bucket with the bottom of their upturned shirts. Licking their fingers, they stain their face, hands, and clothes, paying little mind to cleanliness. In contrast to the neat and conventional presentation of the Lachance family dinner, this transitory meal is unruly and unconventional. Yet, despite lacking the accoutrements of a proper shared meal, this meal is characterized by an appreciable sense of family and community. There’s an egalitarian quality to this moment—underscored by the visual unity of the boys walking side by side—that is missing in the hierarchical presentation of Gordie’s family. The long stretch of railroad behind the boys, centered between them, underscores their commitment to this egalitarianism and to each other as a unit. Gordie displays a much greater sense of comfort, trust, and conviviality (all characterizing elements of family) here than in the aforementioned dinner scene. This distinction suggests that family is more about the nature of relationships than about convention and appearance. Stand by Me. Dir. Rob Reiner. Columbia Pictures, 1986.

Revenge is a Sweet Meat Pie by Jordi Gaton Slowly drifting into 1846 London, Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) opens with a city obscured by the dark shadow of crime, corruption, and filth. There begins Benjamin Barker’s revenge against a city where justice no longer thrives. Here in the opening sequence, Benjamin Barker returns to London 15 years after being falsely imprisoned by judge Turpin, his wife raped by his imprisoner, and child stolen after his wife reportedly died in a sanitarium. Through this savage injustice brought at the hands of those in power, the demon-barber Sweeney Todd is born. Pale to the point of death, Sweeney looks on at London singing contemptuously, reviling the city that has taken so much from him. Broken and completely disillusioned with society, Sweeney and his accomplice, Mrs. Lovett, seek vengeance by both killing and feeding the dead to a city all too ready to consume them in the form of Mrs. Lovett’s meat pies. Through this act, Sweeney hopes to both prove his warped view that people are inherently wicked, deserving of death and show that the city feeds on both injustice and the lives of the poor. In order to highlight and accentuate the brutality of both Sweeney Todd and the cannibalistic London, Tim Burton utilizes both the absence of color and dark lighting to develop metaphors that demonstrate the theme of human savagery. In the opening credits, a slow ominous cascade of non-diegetic sound dominated by an organ carries the viewer through a CGI sequence that follows a rich, vibrant stream of blood as it travels from Sweeney Todd’s execution chair down to the oven where the human bodies are converted into meat pies. The visual representation of blood builds a strong visual contrast to the dark and pale palate that colors both the city and characters throughout the film. When one compares the deep vermillion seen in Figure 1 with the pale, lifeless skin of Mrs. Lovett depicted in Figure 2, this contrast can be interpreted as revealing that the people of London lack blood and, like vampires, must consume this essence from the weaker, lesser individuals within the society in order to thrive. Interestingly Figure 1 operates to strengthen this underlying metaphor by the placement of the blood in between the gears. By placing the blood in between the cogs, Burton visually depicts Sweeney Todd’s view that the city thrives on the lives of the innocent. The image of the cogs using this blood a lubricant is a visual metaphor for the heartless way in which society takes advantage of individuals, like Sweeney Todd and his family. At the same time, it acts to undermine the value of human life, suggesting that these lives lack value beyond their own utility to keep society running properly. The pervasive injustice and harshness that rots London to its core therefore, also, acts as justification for the horrible joke that both Mrs. Lovett and Sweeney Todd hope to play on the people of London. With the mantra “waste not, want not,” (Figure 2) they decide to give the people of London the food that they have been craving. Tim Burton displays this perverse nature of the city by means of the deliberate and artistic changes made to Mrs. Lovett’s shop. In the grand reopening of Mrs. Lovett’s sweet pie shop, the lighting and colors within the film change dramatically to suggest a major enhancement to the lives of the Londoners. As depicted in Figure 3, the pale skin of the citizens changes to a more human and less anemic color as they unknowingly cannibalize their neighbors and fellow citizens. In addition to this sudden influx of color, light illuminates the shop in a manner that contrasts the dark and overcast lighting that persists throughout the film. This stark contrast in the artistic presentation within the film undermines the horrible deceit that both Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett employ on the Londoners. The improvement that these pies have on the visual aesthetic demonstrates that the citizens welcome this change organically. This therefore begs to question whether or not they possess the same monstrosity that has created the demon barber, proving Sweeney’s warped view of human amorality. In a sense by bringing color back to the picture through this horrific act, Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett ironically impart a human glow to the characters by means of an act that would be considered inhumane by traditional morality. Therefore, the use and manipulation of both lighting and color acts as a means to demonstrate the unique morality from Todd’s dystopian perspective. Cannibalism, much like both the lighting and colors utilized throughout this film, is a means to reveal the true nature of man. Through these meat pies, Sweeney Todd demonstrates that everyone within this dystopian London is just as corruptible and possesses the same innate desire for cruelty towards their fellow man. Through the violent spatters of blood and the sharp gasps of air from the dying, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street reveals a degree of dormant cruelty that is inherent within Tim Burton’s dystopian London. Work Cited Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Dir. Tim Burton. Paramount Pictures, 2007. Film.

Food, Connection, and Identity by Neha Verma c. As people come together to prepare and consume a food specific to their area, that food gives them a source of connection to one another and to their home. In Fell and Stevenhagen’s The Tale of Despereaux (2008), soup is an integral part of life in the Kingdom of Dor. When soup is banned by the King, Dor looses a part of its identity and the people loose their sense of connection to one another. Hit hardest by the ban is Chef Andre, shown in this still. Once strongly connected to Dor through his preparation of soup, he suffers the loss of his identity and his role in the kingdom as a soup chef. At the end of the film, Andre breaks the ban on soup, reclaiming his own identity and restoring a sense of identity to Dor. Throughout The Tale of Despereaux, the Kingdom of Dor as a whole and Chef Andre’s character are used to illustrate the strong relationship between food, connection, and identity, as well as and the importance of staying true to oneself. In Dor, soup is depicted as an indispensible part of life, and it is therefore closely tied to Dor’s identity. The narrator explains: “In Dor, Christmas was nothing; well, they still celebrated it, but it was nothing compared to Soup Day!” A holiday like Christmas encourages people to celebrate their shared religious identity. The comparison between Soup Day and Christmas illustrates soup’s ability to create a sense of identity in Dor that is just as strong as a sense of identity stemming from religion. Soup’s importance is further emphasized when an outsider arriving in Dor says: “Every place has something special, and in Dor, it’s the soup!” Although this outsider has never been to Dor, he already associates Dor with soup. Soup defines Dor not only according to the people who live there, but also from an outsider’s perspective. While a sense of identity begins with a person’s perception of him or herself, it is also strongly influenced by the perceptions of others. Therefore, it is telling that both the kingdom’s people and outsiders alike recognize the importance of soup in Dor. Soup also brings the people of Dor together, allowing them to establish a sense of community based on their shared connection to soup. While Christmas is a celebration of identity, it also represents a sense of community based on that identity. In this respect, the parallel between Christmas and Soup Day again holds true. The film’s Soup Day scene prior to the ban is rich with a sense of community. A large banner that reads: “LONG LIVE SOUP” is hoisted into the air, requiring multiple people to hold it up and thereby highlighting how soup brings the people of Dor together. Within Chef Andre’s kitchen, the teamwork involved in preparing a huge – about the height of four people – cauldron of soup is especially evident when a close-up follows a few potatoes follows them down an assembly line, with different hands performing each preparation step as they tumble toward the cauldron. Over the course of the film, there is no mention of anyone disliking soup – simply a collective love for Dor’s characteristic food. Soup is the common thread between the people of Dor, tying them to one another though a shared identity. Because soup plays such a significant role in defining and uniting Dor, the ban on soup destroys Dor’s identity and sense of community. Chef Andre’s character symbolizes these losses. Immediately after the ban on soup, Chef Andre is shown alone at a long table, as depicted in this still. The still is dark and the colors are dim, consisting of browns and grays. The majority of the scenes in the film without soup are also without light, signifying the sense of darkness and loss that comes with betraying one’s identity. The area of the still with the most light is a stack of bowls in the upper left-hand corner, perhaps suggesting that in taking the bowls off the shelf and putting them to use for soup once again, the sense of darkness and loss can be lifted as identity is restored. In the center of the still, Chef Andre simply rolls a coin along the table, illustrating the emptiness he feels upon loosing soup. His chef hat even sags toward the ground, emphasizing his dejection. While previously, his hands chopped and stirred and lifted spoons to his mouth, they are now consumed by the meaningless task of playing with a coin. This still also illustrates Chef Andre’s loss of connection to the people of Dor – the table spans the length of the frame, yet Chef Andre sits by himself. Without the appreciation of soup he once shared with the people of Dor and the role he once held as its preparer, Chef Andre is left alone at the table. In The Garden of Eating, Jeremy Iggers writes: “To reroot ourselves in the particularity of our place… means eating the food that can only come from where you live” (Iggers 94). At the close of the film, Chef Andre exemplifies this statement. Deciding he cannot live without his Dorian identity any longer, Chef Andre breaks the ban by making a pot of soup. As he cooks, the aroma of the soup wafts up to the storm clouds hanging over Dor, and for the first time since the start of the ban, the sun comes out. In making soup, Chef Andre not only reclaims his own identity, but also reestablishes Dor’s identity by making the food that is particular to the area. While the storm clouds symbolize the sense of loss and darkness that results from betraying one’s identity, the return of light to Dor signifies the restoration of identity and, therefore, the start of a better time for the kingdom’s people. The fact that the loss of one food can topple a kingdom and its return can immediately restore order is a testament to the power of food in establishing a sense of identity and the importance of honoring that the foods that make us who we are. Works Cited Iggers, Jeremy. The Garden of Eating: Food, Sex, and the Hunger for Meaning. New York: Basic, 1996.

Can You Stomach It? The Sensual Thrill of Food in Tampopo by Shirley Pu Is food something to feed our bodies or to feed our senses? Tampopo (1985) demonstrates that food can provide more than gustatory pleasure. Through the incorporation of food into love scenes, bodily and sexual appetite are conflated. The use of food provides both a form of unconventional visual eroticism and a vehicle for expressing the unspoken emotions and desires of the parties involved. The tie of food to sexual excitement begins in the introductory scene, as the woman in white bites and licks at her glove as a feast is laid before her, providing her own inedible aperitif. While she does not actually ingest it, the glove nonetheless is an oral stimulation just as conventional food is. The linkage of food to sex, both of which humans are said to have an “appetite” for, is present in several scenarios throughout the film. The most prominent example is the sex scene in the hotel, during which the gangster and his lover engage with various foods. They also, later, have a passionate exchange of an egg yolk between their mouths. The shot is close, with the two characters heads filling the frame. They lean back and forth, allowing the egg to slip from one mouth to the other. The woman’s amplified sighs and gasps during this scene make the sexual connotations of the scene clear. The slippery texture of the egg yolk is suggestive without journeying to explicit imagery. The scene concludes with her closing her mouth and making sounds as if she is choking, the egg yolk then dripping from her mouth, clearly signifying the finish of their bodily encounter. Another scene during which food serves to convey desire features the gangster purchasing an oyster from a diver. The camera’s close-up of the girl cracking the oyster open paired with the rising volume of music suggests the significance of the oyster beyond a food item. The deliberate process of extracting the oyster from its shell, as she pulls apart the strands of flesh clinging to its sides, reflect how its opening is sensual and momentous, like the blossoming of desire between them. When the gangster cuts his lip trying to suck the oyster from the shell, the girl cuts it out and proffers it to him in her hand. While attempting to eat it, he leaves a spot of blood on its surface, a stain upon its surface, suggestive of the coming loss of the girl’s innocence. He finally manages to ingest it, with a look of pure pleasure, which seems to awaken something within the girl. She puts her hand to his face and leans in to lick the remaining blood from his lip, her tongue and the thin lines of saliva linking them focused on in the shot. The opening of the oyster can be seen as the blossoming of sexual desire within the girl, and the sensual manner in which he eats it is a step towards conventional intimacy. The appeal of a meal lies not only in swallowing but in the pleasure of the other senses as well, and the absence of these sensual pleasures would render what we usually consider food unrecognizable. The intertwining of lovemaking and food within Tampopo show that our hungers for both are not always distinct and, in fact, may often merge to create new forms of intimacy.

A Story to Savor by Tatiana Farmer The Taste of Tea (2004) is a surreal film directed by Katsuhito Ishii. It is set in rural Tochigi prefecture, Japan, and peeks into the life of the eccentric Haruno family. At first glance, this film seems to be out of this world. The characters and story lines are bizarre and meandering. The cinematography is simple yet captivates the audience by its illogical and sometimes unnerving scenes. The family, much like the film, seems to have difficulty in living in the moment. They are all over the place, rarely showing an intimate moment together. Even when they are present physically, their minds and their lives are elsewhere. The film begins somewhat normally. The screen is black and nothing can be seen or heard except for the sound of frantic panting. This is how we are introduced to the first character. Hajime Haruno is the eldest child of the Haruno family. The camera trails him as he is seen desperately running through rice fields after a train. The scene switches back and forth from Haruno outside of the train to a young girl inside the train who is revealed as being his unrequited love, who is moving away. Hajime stops running and looks up at the train as it leaves the frame of the camera. He is full of regret and the camera switches to a close-up of his sad face. There is no music playing, only Hajime’s dazed face looking off into the distance. Then, a lump begins rising under his forehead. A train extrudes from his head, leaving a square-shaped hole in his forehead. This scene is the first sign to the viewers that this film is not at all what it is seems. Connecting the film in relation to tea, even food in general, was a difficult process in the beginning. It is extremely easy to be drawn in (or pushed out) by the otherworldliness of the film, which causes the subtle meanings hidden within the film to get overshadowed. Food in the film can be seen as a link to normalcy. Despite the strangeness of the family, when we see them sitting around the dinner table enjoying a meal together, we are reminded that they are human and for a moment they do not seem so foreign to the viewer. However, even at the dinner table it is hard for them to separate from their individual lives for even just a moment. This is seen when Yoshiko and Akira are practicing poses for her animation. The only times we see them truly connected physically and mentally is through tea. All the characters have their own quirks that make them seem alien to the viewers. Sachiko, the youngest child of the family has a recurring problem throughout the film; She keeps seeing a silent bigger version of herself that mimics or watches her from afar. She cannot seem to get rid of it, but upon hearing her Uncle Ayano’s account of a similar problem with a ghost that kept following him, she tries to get rid of her bigger self by doing a backflip over a horizontal bar. Yoshiko, Hajime’s mother, is no regular housewife. She juggles domestic work on top of her dream of being an animator. Often she is seen drawing at a table or getting her father to help her by posing in various positions for her characters. Nobuo, Hajime’s father is a clinical hypnotist. He enjoys his job and even practices on some of his willing family members. Ayano is Hajime’s uncle who is visiting. He is a music producer and is taking the time off to reflect and get away from the city. On his visit, he manages to settle an old relationship and indirectly helps Sachiko with her problem. Akira, the grandfather, is the most peculiar character of them all. He almost seems senile. His actions are playfully immature and he has frequent outbursts of singing or acting. His family, nonetheless, adores him because he gives life to the family. After Akira dies, life moves quickly for the family, but they do not seem to be living in it. When the funeral passes, they all gather on the porch and drink a cup of tea together. A picture of Akira is seen propped against the wall in the house, but it is facing the backs of the family. Hajime and Nobuo both have their eyes cast down, their faces solemn. Sachiko and Yoshiko are both looking up, but their eyes are not looking at anything in particular. There is no music or talking, the only sound we hear is from the slurping of the tea; this is a big contrast from the beginning of the film when the small house was full of life. In this instant we connect with the characters on a personal level. We understand their loss and sympathize with their vulnerability. Tea plays a significant role in this scene. A famous Japanese expression called “Ichie Ichigo”, which translates roughly into “One time, one meeting,” is an expression used to highlight the importance of appreciating each moment as unique. In this scene the family’s chaotic life is left in the background as they take the time to enjoy a cup of tea together. The intimacy associated with this simple action is therapeutic, promoting a congenial environment for healing. This film is not meant to be enjoyed or understood with only one quick watch. Instead, the director intended for his audience to savor this film, to take in all of the flavors of the characters and interconnected storylines and have them come together in a subtle, yet sensational way. Just like the perfect cup of tea. Work Cited A Taste of Tea. Dir Katsuhito Ishii. Grasshoppa, 2004. Film.

Reconciliation through Food and Crises by Renuka Koilpillai There are three sets of characters within Tasting Menu (dir. 2013 by Roger Gual) who are battling personal struggles, which lead them to the closing night of the world famous restaurant, Chakula. The first character is the chef of the restaurant, Mar Vidal who is at the top of her career but feels pressured to move on to a bigger venture. The second character is the Countess who has struggled to move on from her husband’s death. The final set of characters is Marc and Raquel who actually made the reservation at the restaurant when they were married but have since become divorced. By the end of the film each of these characters are able to settle their problems. The film portrays the message that in times of uncertainty and concern, food and crises can similarly reconcile conflict within and between people. This is done by exhibiting how food and crises can bond people over the realness of their experience. Additionally, they both force us to confront our problems and focus on what is right in front of us. Although experiencing a meal and a crises are two very different situations they do share a common thread; they both evoke genuine responses from the people experiencing them, which in Tasting Menu helps alleviate each character’s problem. In one glimpse of the dinner (35:10), the camera tracks the food from the dish to the table capturing the diners response. The fluidity of the tracking shot makes the experience seem very natural. Additionally, the shot is accompanied with extradiegetic music that actually syncs up with the diegetic sounds of diners cutting into and eating their food. The synchronicity combined with the camera fluidity evokes a sense of sincere everyday behaviour, which minimizes the problems of the diners. The audience knows this, because the camera picks up on the expression of the diners, including Marc and Raquel who seem to be bonding over the excitement of the food. Similarly, the characters put their troubles aside to try and save the musicians lost at sea. Raquel and the Countess both exhibit this instinctual response to help. Their identical response leads to the Countess trusting Raquel and sharing her experience with her husband. In doing so, she finally discusses how hard it’s been without him (1:06:49). The scenes leading up to the actual dinner scene show the audience that all three sets of characters are avoiding their problems or dwelling on the negative aspects of their situation, which both the food and the crisis of the lost boat force the characters to confront. One instance where we see food help alleviate a situation is when Marc and Raquel move outside to discuss their relationship. Up until this point, the two of them have been arguing about their relationship, but then a waitress brings out a dish of olive oil and potato with ham followed by Mar who states that “the emulsion [referring to the dish] only works when they are together” (50:29). At this point, Marc and Raquel are forced to look at their relationship from a new perspective, creating a turning point that helps resolve their dispute. Finally, in a TV interview Mar Vidal seems to dodge the question as to why she is closing down the restaurant. When the dessert sinks with the boat, Mar is forced to face her fear of serving food that is not a spectacular show. Although she initially panics, the situation forces her to return to her roots of cooking and she concocts a dish out of simple sea water. This reminds Mar, that she doesn’t need an extravagant display to create great food. By the end of the night, each set of characters has come to terms with their problems. Mar Vidal no longer feels the need to go to Japan to start a new restaurant, the Countess accepts the death of her husband, and Marc and Raquel end up rekindling their romance. By evoking a raw response and by forcing the characters to confront their problems, food and the lost boat crises help to resolve the many conflicts in that a way that mirror each other. Work Cited Tasting Menu. Dir. Roger Gual. Perf. Jan Cornet, Claudia Bassols, Vincenta N’Dongo, Andrew Tarbet, Fionnula Flanagan. Magnolia Pictures, 2013. DVD.

Pizza: A Bite of Humanity in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem by Chantel Gillus Pizza. A lot of humans love it, and turtles do too. Especially teenage mutant ninja turtles by the names of Leonardo (Nicolas Cantu), Donatello (Micah Abbey), Raphael (Brady Noon), and Michelangelo (Shamon Brown Jr.) who reside in New York City, New York where pizza is a staple food. In the film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (Jeff Rowe, 2023), the four turtles are found in the sewers by a rat named Splinter (Jackie Chan) who becomes their father. He finds them covered in green “ooze” which he also touches, and it turns them all into mutants. In turn, they grow miraculously, gaining a human-like form with increased speed, strength, agility, and heightened intelligence. Splinter raises and trains them in the sewers, sheltered from the human world to keep them safe from the dangers, rejection, and discrimination of society. When the turtles become hungry while living in the sewers, Splinter feeds them pizza for the first time. When the pizza box opens, a golden light emanates and the turtles say “Woah!” with wide eyes as if they’ve just opened a treasure box and discovered gold. In the picture above, this is when they feast upon the pizza, enjoyment showing in their faces. For the turtles, eating pizza for the first time is almost like taking their first steps. It’s a coming-of-age moment as the turtles begin to consume this hot, cheesy, and pepperoni-filled pie that derives from the human world. It is a stepping stone into their inquiries about mankind. As stated earlier, pizza is a principal dish in New York. Although pizza originated from Italy, when you think of all-American food, pizza is most likely one of the first dishes to come to mind. Splinter and the turtles are all deemed outcasts because they’re different, but they desire to be accepted. Pizza is their favorite and only food throughout the film, and this can be a metaphor for how badly the turtles want to be a part of humanity. They want to be true Americans. Most of what the turtles know about the real world is from the media, movies, and their dad who tells them that humans will never accept them, but harm them instead. Despite their dad’s horror stories, they desperately want to fit in and be a part of society by going to high school and being typical teenagers. This is the American Dream for the turtles: to be normal. Assuming that the turtles consume a lot of media featuring humans eating pizza, they probably infer that this is the way to be regular. Pizza is a dish that almost everyone likes. Therefore, if the teenagers like what everyone else likes, then maybe that’ll help them assimilate into the in-crowd. Not only does pizza connect the turtles to the real world, it keeps them grounded in their inner world; it is their comfort food. Pizza is one of the only ways Splinter will allow them to associate with civilization. They feast upon the pizza in the sewers as a family where they are safe and can be who they are without judgment. Essentially, pizza links them together as a family, creates a safe space, and offers a taste of reality. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem. Dir. Jeff Rowe. Perf. Micah Abbey, Shamon Brown Jr., Nicolas Cantu, Brady Noon, Jackie Chan. Paramount, 2023. Streaming.