Line #66 Main/RapeDiscretionShot


1	There's the SexyDiscretionShot, and then there's this. So you're a big-shot Hollywood producer who wants to let his audience know that RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil, but you don't want them to actually see the rape. So what do you do?
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3	You put the rape in anyway but you're careful about not actually showing it onscreen. Just how much of the preliminaries the audience sees will be governed by what audience the film makers are going after, or more cynically, what MPAA rating the film makers are willing to take. That said, enough will be shown to make it clear what is about to happen; the rapist(s) will make their intentions fairly obvious in their speech and behaviour, and the victim(s) will make their non-consent equally obvious (a ScreamDiscretionShot may be invoked).
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5	In works with more gritty realism, violence will be depicted (hitting the victim, knocking them down), and perhaps some of the victim's clothing may be seen torn and/or removed before the action leaves the scene. The audience may even see the rapist unfasten their belt and/or trousers, or remove whatever else they are wearing, just before the cutaway. The discretion may be achieved by having the rapist take the victim to another room (perhaps a bedroom or some other place with furnishings to facilitate sex, thus being a further indication of coming events). Alternatively, the camera will pan away to another character's reaction or some other view, or the shot will end and another will immediately follow.
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7	Because the event is not completely shown, the audience can become confused as to whether the crime actually took place, and to what extent (i.e. whether the victim was also murdered). This can be done on purpose, to instill suspense in the audience, to make them [[NothingIsScarier imagine an act more heinous than could ever be shown]], or to subvert this trope and reveal something far more innocuous, often after a misunderstanding leads to tragedy. This trope also turns up for BlackComedyRape scenes, and for many modern iterations of Double Standard Rape sorts of scenes (say, when [[NotIfTheyEnjoyedItRationalization the supposed victim grants consent]]), because graphically portraying rape as the violent crime it is would undermine those tropes.
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9	See also: GoryDiscretionShot, SexyDiscretionShot, VomitDiscretionShot.
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11	----
12	!!Examples:
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15	[[folder:Anime and Manga ]]
16	* In the final episode of ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'', [[spoiler: Griffith, now Femto,]] rapes [[spoiler: Casca]] but we only see him lowering his winged cape over her lower body so we can't actually see the physical portion going on, though we can still see [[spoiler: Casca]] writhing in agony as this is happening to her. The anime depiction was [[LighterAndSofter FAR MORE DOCILE]] than the manga.
17	* The ''Manga/BlackLagoon'' OVA has a flashback of Revy's PrisonRape, which shows pretty much everything but the actual act.
18	* Diva raping Riku in ''Anime/BloodPlus''.
19	* In the anime adaptation of ''Manga/FutureDiary'', the camera focuses on a discarded cellphone on the floor. But you can still hear the muffled whimpering of Ai Mikami as she is being gang-raped in the background.
20	* Used in ''Manga/{{Golgo 13}}: The Professional'' the first time the assassin Snake rapes Laura Dawson. A bit less discretion is used much the second time it happens, [[{{Squick}} unfortunately]].
21	* Used in the anime version of ''Manga/IkkiTousen''. When [[spoiler: Ryoufu]] immobilizes and then rapes [[spoiler: Ryoumou]], the screen pans to the nearby woods. And later, we see [[spoiler: Ryoumou]] laying down on her stomach, still paralyzed, and with her bare bottom exposed.
22	* Used in ''Anime/{{Noir}}'' when the young [[spoiler:Altena]] is about to be raped by a soldier. He's put her on a bed and is about to lie down next to her, and we then see [[EmpathyDollShot her doll]] hit the floor.
23	* ''Anime/QueensBlade Hide 'n Seek'', complete with falling rosebud, makes it clear that [[spoiler:Elina rapes Nyx, which is alluded to without having to show it.]]
24	* ''Anime/RevolutionaryGirlUtena'': When [[spoiler:Akio]] rapes [[spoiler:Anthy]] at the end of episode 25, the camera shows only his grabbing her and yanking her to him as soon as she hesitates to [[BrotherSisterIncest continue their weekly tryst]] for a moment.
25	* In ''VisualNovel/SchoolDays'', when [[spoiler: Taisuke]] rapes [[spoiler: Kotonoha]], we see him pining her to the wall and undoing her blouse as she just stands there in an HeroicBSOD. Then, the girl's school tie falls to the ground.
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28	[[folder:Comic Books ]]
29	* In ''ComicBook/ActionComics #593'', the {{slimeball}} [[ComicBook/NewGods New God]] [[PunnyName Sleez]] brainwashes ComicBook/{{Superman}} and [[AmazonianBeauty Big Barda]], forcing the latter to pleasure him on film which [[BigBad Darkseid]] [[ForcedToWatch shows to her husband]] Mr. Miracle. We only see his and his friend Oberon's horrified expressions before [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil Darkseid sends them after the guy]].
30	* ''ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk'': This is used in ''ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulkFutureImperfect'', when the ComicBook/{{Maestro}}, [[FutureMeScaresMe an older and evil alternate future version of the Hulk]], has one of his harem have sex with the temporarily paralyzed (and unwilling) Professor Hulk, raping him against his will.
31	* Surprisingly, despite its tremendous profanity, explicit portrayals of sex, and outright gore elsewhere, ''ComicBook/{{Preacher}}'' keeps Herr Starr's rape by "sexual investigator" entirely off-panel. As with some other examples, this is because the scene runs on DoubleStandardRapeMaleOnMale. Indeed, all the male-on-male rape in the series is both played for laughs and kept offscreen; the instance we do see is male-on-female, and is played as RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil.
32	* In ''Comicbook/StarmanDCComics'': When Jack Knight is drugged into unconsciousness and raped by Nash, the second Mist, the scene occurs from his point-of-view as a very strange erotic dream. Additionally, while the implication is there in the initial scene, it isn't until many issues later that the series confirms the fact that a rape occurred with a WhamLine.
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35	[[folder:Eastern European Animation]]
36	* ''Animation/GypsyTales'': In "The Gypsy Woman and the Devil", the devil in his human disguise removes Vunida's dress and starts kissing her. As he does so, [[LieBackAndThinkOfEngland she endures it thinking of her starving children]]. The episode only shows an image of Vunida's children instead of what the devil is doing to her.
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39	[[folder:Films -- Live-Action ]]
40	* Happens in ''Film/ThreeHundred'' when Leonidas's wife Queen Gorgo is raped by the council member in exchange for an audience with them. [[spoiler: When he turns out to be a traitor, she rather awesomely has her revenge]].
41	* ''Film/TheBorrower'': When Sully rapes a female cop he subdued to escape from the hospital, it's made even creepier because the camera focuses on a news report and we only hear what's happening.
42	* In ''Film/CriesFromTheHeart'', Michael gets up in the night to go to the bathroom. Jeff is taking a shower. He steps out and stands naked behind Michael. The scene ends there.
43	* ''Film/{{Deliverance}}'' (the TV edit, at least) does this to the homosexual rape scene.
44	* PlayedForLaughs with the PrisonRape scene in the Norm [=McDonald=] comedy ''Film/DirtyWork''. Not only is the rape itself not shown, but Norm's reaction is comically understated.
45	* Used in the infamous NotIfTheyEnjoyedItRationalization scene from ''Film/GoneWithTheWind''.
46	* The camera pans up right before [[Creator/ClintEastwood the Stranger]] rapes an impudent woman to teach her a lesson in manners in ''Film/HighPlainsDrifter''.
47	* Happened in the movie ''Film/HoundDog'' with the main character, Lewellyn, while she was being raped by a neighborhood teenager. The main character (who had already been coerced into stripping naked) was shown from the shoulders up making faces of anguish and begging her attacker to stop. Made even ''more'' unsettling by the fact that the character in question was a twelve-year-old girl played by a pre-teen Creator/DakotaFanning.
48	* The rape and murder of Saladin's sister by Reynald de Chatillon in ''Film/KingdomOfHeaven'' is presented this way. To wit: he approaches her from a distance. She tells him who she is, and he replies 'yes, I know' before ripping the veil from her face before the scene cuts away.
49	* The rape scene in ''Film/PulpFiction'' is mostly off screen, but you know exactly what's going on from the dialogue, and when Butch sneaks into the room wielding the sword you get an eyeful right before he takes the bad guys down.
50	* ''Film/TheHidden'': Subverted. The parasite uses his current body to assault a stripper after gaining an apparent interest in sexy women before the scene cuts away. It would hardly be out of character for a thrill-seeking spree killer to turn to sexual violence, but it turns out he was more interested in [[GrandTheftMe taking over her body]]. It does, however, literally screw another guy to death in the stripper's body.
51	* May have happened in ''Film/RockAndRollHighSchool'' judging by the way Mrs. Togar's henchmen approach Riff and her friend right before they steal their tickets. And being the EvilTeacher she is, it must be assumed that Togar did NOT lift so much as a finger as she witnessed the double rape. If Riff and her friend really were raped as may have been implied, they're too concerned about having to come out at the top in a freshly kicked-off game of XanatosSpeedChess to be traumatized.
52	* ''Film/TheShawshankRedemption'' shows "The Sisters" beating up Andy Dufresne, but the camera seems to pan away from the actual rape.
53	* The {{Prison Rape}}s of the boys are never seen, the audience only hears their screams of pain while the act is horrifically described by [[{{Narrator}} Shakes]].
54	* Famous example from ''Theatre/AStreetcarNamedDesire'', where the last scene we see of Blanche before her complete nervous breakdown and regression is Stanley hitting her and dragging her into the bedroom.
55	* The climax of the "Poor Thing" scene with Judge Turpin and Lucy Barker from ''Film/SweeneyToddTheDemonBarberOfFleetStreet''. We're not shown anything beyond Judge Turpin descending upon Lucy with the big cloak, but we are shown the nightmarish vision of the masked crowd surrounding her and laughing as she screams, as well as the Beadle's sinister grin as the musical number/flashback ends.
56	* In ''Film/VampiresKiss'', the {{villain protagonist}} Peter Loew rapes his secretary, although it is not explicitly shown. The scene cuts to the moments after the act.
57	* Censorship wouldn't allow the makers of 1928 silent classic ''Film/TheWind1928'' to show Wirt raping Letty, but they implied it as strongly as possible--Wirt makes menacing advances on Letty, then we cut to the next morning where Wirt is cheerily smug, Letty is near-catatonic, and he assumes that now she's his girl.
58	* ''Film/ShowdownInLittleTokyo'': After Yoshida displays a sexual interest in Minako, he's seen dragging her into his bedroom and strips down. He shows her a tape depicting how he decapitated her friend Angel previously and warns her that the same will happen to her if she disobeys him. The actual rape isn't depicted, but it's strongly hinted that Minako is DrivenToSuicide afterwards.
59	* There's a scene in ''Film/ShanghaiExpress'' where [[spoiler:Hui Fei]] is dragged into Chang's office. The film cuts away afterwards but she's noticeably disheveled afterwards.
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62	[[folder:Literature ]]
63	* ''Literature/AClockworkOrange'': When Dim and Billy take Alex out in the middle of nowhere for a beatdown, what apparently happens during the attack is so graphic that Alex refuses to describe it to the readers. The attackers put their clothes back on afterward, suggesting a rape.
64	* Queen Taramis' rape by Constantius in the ''ComicBook/ConanTheBarbarian'' story "A Witch Shall Be Born."
65	* In ''[[Literature/{{Deryni}} The King's Justice]]'', Princess Janniver's memory is read by Rothana, who [[ExpositionBeam shows it to Kelson]]. The text reflects Rothana's editing of the vision in its description of Janniver's emotional reaction, emotions an outraged Rothana passes unfiltered to Kelson. Thus, the readers get no explicit details of the act itself, yet there's no doubt what happened, or who did it; [[spoiler: Caitrin's elder son Ithel]].
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68	[[folder:Live Action TV ]]
69	* The TV movie ''Film/ACaseOfRape'', which treats us to the audio, but not visual, of the attack.
70	* Often used on ''Series/ColdCase'' if the victim of the week was raped before being killed. Rather than the depicting the murder the way most of the final flashbacks did, the scene would cut away as the assault began.
71	* Although ''Series/CriminalMinds'' mostly uses the GoryDiscretionShot, there'll occasionally be a rape scene that requires a discretion shot.
72	* In the ''Series/{{Firefly}}'' episode "Heart of Gold", Burgess is standing in front of a large crowd of men, making an angry speech about how women need to know their place, with the hooker, Chari, standing by him. He tells the crowd "Let us all remember, right here and now, what a woman is, to a man." Then he turns to Chari, says "Get on your knees.", and the camera fades away as she starts kneeling.
73	* In The BBC's 1967 adaptation of ''Literature/TheForsyteSaga'', just as Soames is about to claim his "marital rights" from his reluctant wife Irene the scene shifts to a barrel-organ playing beneath their window.
74	* Half the rape storylines on Soap operas use this (the other half being wrenchingly graphic). A classic example is the infamous rape scene for Luke and Laura of ''Series/GeneralHospital''--he pulls her down to the floor as she cries out, "No, Luke, no!" as the camera pans away. There's some quick shots of the record turntable and various items scattered around the bar, such as her purse and her sweater, before we see Laura huddled on the floor crying with a disheveled Luke standing over her.
75	* In the first season of ''Series/HappyValley'', a BoundAndGagged Ann Gallagher is asked if she is a virgin by her kidnapper [[PsychoForHire Tommy Lee Royce]] and it cuts away as she screams through the duct tape. The next time we see her she is bruised and crying with her underwear on the floor. The other kidnapper [[EvenEvilHasStandards realizes what happened and is horrified.]]
76	* An early episode of ''Series/LawAndOrder'' had a woman being drugged during a doctor's visit and the scene fading out coinciding with her passing out, horrified at the realization of what has happened and that she's now powerless to stop him from raping her.
77	* The beginning of pretty much any episode of ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit''.
78	* Joan's BadDate on ''Series/MadMen'' isn't shown--the camera pulls away and we see what she's seeing: the floor under the sofa.
79	* The comedy version for the trope was often used in ''Series/MarriedWithChildren'' whenever an AbhorrentAdmirer managed to drag [[ButtMonkey Bud]] off for some unwanted passion.
80	* In ''Series/SonsOfAnarchy'' when Gemma is raped, we see her still fighting her attackers before the action switches to other characters. However, we are later shown the end of the rape when Gemma notices that one of her rapists has a distinct tattoo on his neck.
81	* Two episodes of ''Series/WithoutATrace'' employ this, both during flashback sequences. In one episode, the event in question is recalled by a blind girl who had been kidnapped, along with her tutor, by two teens who did what they were doing ForTheEvulz; the tutor is assaulted by one of the guys, and though we don't see the act, we ''do'' hear the woman's sobs while getting a full camera view of the blind girl's face as she listens in abject terror. The other episode employs this with the revelation of a main character's DarkAndTroubledPast: [[spoiler:Samantha's sister was raped by a local man, who Sam crept up on and clubbed to death with a shovel during the act]].
82	* In ''Series/GameOfThrones,'' Season 5 Episode 6 when Ramsey Bolton rapes Sansa on their wedding night, the camera shows only Theon being forced to watch it and Sansa's pained face.
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85	[[folder:Theater ]]
86	* ''Theatre/ManOfLaMancha''. Just before Aldonza is raped by the muleteers she is either carried offstage or the lights go out so the audience can't see what happens.
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89	[[folder:Video Games ]]
90	* Happens in the City Elf origin story in ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins''; you don't see [[spoiler:Shianni]] being raped but you do see her on the floor next to [[spoiler:Vaughn]], and dialog after the fact makes it pretty clear that this is what happened.
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93	[[folder:Webcomics]]
94	* ''Webcomic/Rain2010'': [[spoiler:Chase's rape of Emily]] isn't shown on page nor is it even directly referred to as such, but the way [[spoiler:Emily]] ''very'' heavily implies what he did, combined with the impact it has on her throughout the story is spine-chilling.
95	* ''Webcomic/{{Unsounded}}'': During the Aldish occupation of Grenzlan local women are shown being dragged towards waiting soldiers to be raped, with the scene cutting away before they're handed off.
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98	[[folder:Web Novel ]]
99	* ''Literature/CanYouSpareAQuarter'': None of the rape/sex scenes actually happen within the confines of the story; they are only alluded to. [[spoiler:For example, the story cuts away from the moment where Jamie is caught by his father to the moment where Graham find the bleeding boy in front of his door]].
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102	[[folder:Western Animation ]]
103	%%* Happens twice on ''WesternAnimation/DanVs'' despite being a cartoon aimed at older children, in ''Dan vs. the Animal Shelter'' and ''the Family Camping Trip''.
104	* In the ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' episode "Dial Meg For Murder" Peter gets raped offscreen by a male bull.
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Context Main / RapeDiscretionShot