29 July 2013

"Bunny boiler" explained

I encountered "bunny boiler" for the first time in the subtitle of a Telegraph article:

Lisa Jewell on literary bunny-boilers

Had to look it up:
The slang term "bunny boiler" has passed into popular parlance as a term for a jealous mistress, based on [Fatal Attraction's] infamous rabbit boiling scene. The phrase's first use in print was on December 6, 1990 in The Dallas Morning News, in which Glenn Close described her character in that film using the term.
...we witness Beth Gallgher’s (Anne Archer) walk to the hob, taking the time to put her bag down as the camera cuts to show a single shot of the pan boiling. Then as she continues her walk the action gradually starts to increase with the cut to her daughter running in the garden, cut back to Beth and then straight back to the daughter again creating a frenzied and disorientating effect necessary to the pay-off at the end when the lid to the pan is raised. At this moment we cut back once more to the girl screaming by the rabbit cage and then hear Beth’s scream as we are offered a glimpse of the cooked bunny.

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