No Natural Predators: The Rhetoric of Desire in Saltburn
Department
English & Humanities
Presentation Location
Clark Memorial Library, Room 207
Presentation Start Date and Time
8-3-2024 12:00 PM
Presentation End Date and Time
8-3-2024 1:00 PM
Brief Abstract
The film Saltburn (2023) centers upon Oliver Quick, a scholarship student at Oxford with a difficult home life who befriends the wealthier, more-popular Felix Catton in his first year. When Oliver’s father dies, Felix invites him to live at the family’s estate for the summer. As he ingratiates himself to the family and enmeshes himself in their lives, Oliver’s true intentions are gradually revealed, with devastating consequences for the Cattons. Oliver’s desire for status and the measures he takes to achieve it have led critics to compare Saltburn to Minghella’s The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), and aspects of the film are reminiscent of Harron’s American Psycho (2000). Writer/director Emerald Fennell embraces the extremes of human behavior in the film, and we see Oliver perform his desire through acts of intimacy rarely—if ever—depicted in a wide-release film. Audience reactions to these unusual scenes highlight the discomfort and surprise viewers experienced. This discomfort is perhaps intensified by the film’s moral ambiguity; for all our jests about “eating the rich,” Oliver’s metaphorical consumption of the Cattons leaves us feeling unsettled. Saltburn constitutes what rhetorical critic Roderick P. Hart (1994) calls a curious text. Citing Hart, Foss (2009) describes such an artifact as one that “doesn’t fit or breaks a pattern.” I investigate the film’s curious aspects using a mixture of methods from content analysis (Geisler & Swarts, 2019) and generative rhetorical criticism (Foss, 2009), and I articulate its significance as a rhetorical and cultural artifact reflecting broader concerns about desire, wealth, and power.
References for abstract in attached file.
Recommended Citation
Scott, Jennifer Bracken, "No Natural Predators: The Rhetoric of Desire in Saltburn" (2024). Faculty Research and Teaching Expo. 2.
https://digitalcommons.shawnee.edu/ffa/Faculty_Presentations_2024/March_8_2024/2
References for Abstract
No Natural Predators: The Rhetoric of Desire in Saltburn
Clark Memorial Library, Room 207
The film Saltburn (2023) centers upon Oliver Quick, a scholarship student at Oxford with a difficult home life who befriends the wealthier, more-popular Felix Catton in his first year. When Oliver’s father dies, Felix invites him to live at the family’s estate for the summer. As he ingratiates himself to the family and enmeshes himself in their lives, Oliver’s true intentions are gradually revealed, with devastating consequences for the Cattons. Oliver’s desire for status and the measures he takes to achieve it have led critics to compare Saltburn to Minghella’s The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), and aspects of the film are reminiscent of Harron’s American Psycho (2000). Writer/director Emerald Fennell embraces the extremes of human behavior in the film, and we see Oliver perform his desire through acts of intimacy rarely—if ever—depicted in a wide-release film. Audience reactions to these unusual scenes highlight the discomfort and surprise viewers experienced. This discomfort is perhaps intensified by the film’s moral ambiguity; for all our jests about “eating the rich,” Oliver’s metaphorical consumption of the Cattons leaves us feeling unsettled. Saltburn constitutes what rhetorical critic Roderick P. Hart (1994) calls a curious text. Citing Hart, Foss (2009) describes such an artifact as one that “doesn’t fit or breaks a pattern.” I investigate the film’s curious aspects using a mixture of methods from content analysis (Geisler & Swarts, 2019) and generative rhetorical criticism (Foss, 2009), and I articulate its significance as a rhetorical and cultural artifact reflecting broader concerns about desire, wealth, and power.
References for abstract in attached file.