Hannibal is well educated and is a renowned psychiatrist, which makes it very ironic that he himself cannot be figured out by other psychiatrists. His character is fascinating to watch and read about which makes for good reviews from the audience. In most films the depiction of serial killers is hyper-masculinized, heterosexual, elite cultured suave, aristocratic, and almost always Caucasian. Hannibal Lector seems to hold all of these characterizations to be true. It is unlikely not to see a killer in a film possess some or all of these features as he does. .
In "real life", it is almost always the opposite from the films that are made about serial killers. For example, killers like Gasey or Danny Rollins did not come from wealthy families and were not masculine or prestigious. John Wayne Gasey had a homosexual tendency within his methods of capturing and killing his victims. He drew young men to him while pretending to be a cop and then killed them meanwhile acting upon his homosexuality all the while. Mothers are also blamed in many cases of men who are killers. It is almost always brought up in some way that the mother is somehow responsible. In films and literature, however, it is rarely seen that the mother is to blame. Usually it is just a power struggle that the character is trying to achieve. It seems that after this power is accomplished, it can usually be seen that it was achieved through in some way or another the fact that they were men, and had all the above discussed traits. In the book Hannibal, again the main character Hannibal Lector is portrayed just like in the film with the power being all encompassed in the fact that he is very prestigious and intelligent, making it very hard for others to figure out his reasoning. He is very powerful over his victims as well seeing as how his characteristics are much more invincible than that of theirs. One example of how his class plays into his murders is when he eats one of his victims disguising it as a full course meal with each body part such as the brain and liver eaten as representation of a man eating a prestigious dinner.
