Non/human appetites and the perils of consumption in Under the Skin

This article examines the complex and shifting appetites for meat and sex in Michel Faber’s 2000 novel Under the Skin and the 2013 Jonathan Glazer film adaptation of the book. Although almost unrecognizable at the level of plot, this article argues that considering these texts together highlights their deep and unsettling rendering of misogyny in relation to the pleasures and perils of consumption. In engaging with the confronting and, at times, politically ambiguous treatment of consumption in these texts, this article offers a reading of the intersectional relationship between the oppression of women in a patriarchal society and the exploitation of nonhuman animals as a resource for human endeavors.