Masculinity and Rape in Spanish Cinema: Representation and Collective Imaginary

Abstract

Commercial cinema in Spain, as in the rest of the world, has gone to great lengths to describe visually, without any intention of protest, each and every one of the forms of violence against women: physical, psychological, financial, social and, lastly, sexual. Beyond insinuating and intimidating compliments and gazes, sexual violence is something that is excepted in scripts, even in those of famous directors who create powerful female characters. The aim of this paper is to know how the Spanish directors, of both sexes, represent the topic of sexual violence, paying attention to the masculinity of the characters. To this end, a content analysis was performed on twelve films from a narrative perspective. In a second stage, employing methodological triangulation and a questionnaire as a quantitative tool, university students were asked about how they perceived the scenes of sexual violence in these films. The results show, on one side, that rape is the act of sexual violence more represented and, on the other hand, a lack of awareness about the treatment of rape in Spanish cinema, as well as its rejection by young audiences.