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Rape Discretion Shot

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There's the Sexy Discretion Shot, and then there's this. So you're a big-shot Hollywood producer who wants to let his audience know that Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil, but you don't want them to actually see the rape. So what do you do?

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 Scream Discretion Shot may be invoked).

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.

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 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 Black Comedy Rape scenes, and for many modern iterations of Double Standard Rape sorts of scenes (say, when the supposed victim grants consent), because graphically portraying rape as the violent crime it is would undermine those tropes.

See also: Gory Discretion Shot, Sexy Discretion Shot, Vomit Discretion Shot.


Examples:

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    Anime and Manga  
  • In the final episode of Berserk, Griffith, now Femto, rapes 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 Casca writhing in agony as this is happening to her. The anime depiction was FAR MORE DOCILE than the manga.
  • The Black Lagoon OVA has a flashback of Revy's Prison Rape, which shows pretty much everything but the actual act.
  • Diva raping Riku in Blood+.
  • In the anime adaptation of Future Diary, 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.
  • Used in 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, unfortunately.
  • Used in the anime version of Ikki Tousen. When Ryoufu immobilizes and then rapes Ryoumou, the screen pans to the nearby woods. And later, we see Ryoumou laying down on her stomach, still paralyzed, and with her bare bottom exposed.
  • Used in Noir when the young 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 her doll hit the floor.
  • Queen's Blade Hide 'n Seek, complete with falling rosebud, makes it clear that Elina rapes Nyx, which is alluded to without having to show it.
  • Revolutionary Girl Utena: When Akio rapes 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 continue their weekly tryst for a moment.
  • In School Days, when Taisuke rapes Kotonoha, we see him pining her to the wall and undoing her blouse as she just stands there in an Heroic BSoD. Then, the girl's school tie falls to the ground.

    Comic Books  

    Eastern European Animation 

    Films — Live-Action  
  • Happens in 300 when Leonidas's wife Queen Gorgo is raped by the council member in exchange for an audience with them. When he turns out to be a traitor, she rather awesomely has her revenge.
  • The Borrower: 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.
  • In Cries from the Heart, 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.
  • Deliverance (the TV edit, at least) does this to the homosexual rape scene.
  • Played for Laughs with the Prison Rape scene in the Norm McDonald comedy Dirty Work. Not only is the rape itself not shown, but Norm's reaction is comically understated.
  • Used in the infamous "Not If They Enjoyed It" Rationalization scene from Gone with the Wind.
  • The camera pans up right before the Stranger rapes an impudent woman to teach her a lesson in manners in High Plains Drifter.
  • Happened in the movie Hound Dog 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 Dakota Fanning.
  • The rape and murder of Saladin's sister by Reynald de Chatillon in Kingdom of Heaven 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.
  • The rape scene in Pulp Fiction 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.
  • The Hidden: 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 taking over her body. It does, however, literally screw another guy to death in the stripper's body.
  • May have happened in Rock 'n' Roll High School judging by the way Mrs. Togar's henchmen approach Riff and her friend right before they steal their tickets. And being the Evil Teacher 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 Xanatos Speed Chess to be traumatized.
  • The Shawshank Redemption shows "The Sisters" beating up Andy Dufresne, but the camera seems to pan away from the actual rape.
  • The Prison Rapes of the boys are never seen, the audience only hears their screams of pain while the act is horrifically described by Shakes.
  • Famous example from A Streetcar Named Desire, 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.
  • The climax of the "Poor Thing" scene with Judge Turpin and Lucy Barker from Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. 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.
  • In Vampire's Kiss, the villain protagonist Peter Loew rapes his secretary, although it is not explicitly shown. The scene cuts to the moments after the act.
  • Censorship wouldn't allow the makers of 1928 silent classic The Wind (1928) 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.
  • Showdown in Little Tokyo: 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 Driven to Suicide afterwards.
  • There's a scene in Shanghai Express where Hui Fei is dragged into Chang's office. The film cuts away afterwards but she's noticeably disheveled afterwards.

    Literature  
  • A Clockwork Orange: 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.
  • In The King's Justice, Princess Janniver's memory is read by Rothana, who 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; Caitrin's elder son Ithel.

    Live Action TV  
  • The TV movie A Case of Rape, which treats us to the audio, but not visual, of the attack.
  • Often used on Cold Case 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.
  • Although Criminal Minds mostly uses the Gory Discretion Shot, there'll occasionally be a rape scene that requires a discretion shot.
  • In the 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.
  • In The BBC's 1967 adaptation of The Forsyte Saga, 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.
  • 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 General Hospital—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.
  • In the first season of Happy Valley, a Bound and Gagged Ann Gallagher is asked if she is a virgin by her kidnapper 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 realizes what happened and is horrified.
  • An early episode of Law & Order 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.
  • The beginning of pretty much any episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
  • Joan's Bad Date on Mad Men isn't shown—the camera pulls away and we see what she's seeing: the floor under the sofa.
  • The comedy version for the trope was often used in Married... with Children whenever an Abhorrent Admirer managed to drag Bud off for some unwanted passion.
  • In Sons of Anarchy 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.
  • Two episodes of Without a Trace 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 For the Evulz; 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 Dark and Troubled Past: Samantha's sister was raped by a local man, who Sam crept up on and clubbed to death with a shovel during the act.
  • In Game of Thrones, 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.

    Theater  
  • Man of La Mancha. 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.

    Video Games  
  • Happens in the City Elf origin story in Dragon Age: Origins; you don't see Shianni being raped but you do see her on the floor next to Vaughn, and dialog after the fact makes it pretty clear that this is what happened.

    Webcomics 
  • Rain (2010): Chase's rape of Emily isn't shown on page nor is it even directly referred to as such, but the way Emily very heavily implies what he did, combined with the impact it has on her throughout the story is spine-chilling.
  • 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.

    Web Novel  
  • Can You Spare a Quarter?: None of the rape/sex scenes actually happen within the confines of the story; they are only alluded to. 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.

    Western Animation  
  • In the Family Guy episode "Dial Meg For Murder" Peter gets raped offscreen by a male bull.

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