Symbolic Violence and Masculine Domination in the Colombian Cinematographic Discourse

This article proposes an approach to the notion of symbolic violence in Pierre Bourdieu, specifically focused on structural violence against women. This review is based on Bourdieu’s key text Masculine Domination. This concept is related to the objective and subjective variants that have (re) produced and perpetuated a patriarchal system dominated by symbolic domination and binary opposites under the objective schema of male dominance, which has additionally generated the multiplication and constant production of violent enunciations regarding the feminine. These enunciations have been part of a patriarchal discourse that generates gender representations that make women invisible, re-subordinated and stereotyped: such is the case of the cinematic discourse. During the last decade in Colombia, for example, public discourses have reflected its social and political passage, including the location of the feminine subject in a subordinate position. The enunciation of the feminine image might be cause or effect, or both, of the institutional construction of certain gender stereotypes and, in turn, of the permanent establishment of a symbolic violence that links openly to the structural violence that is carried out every day in the country against women. The films selected for the analysis of cinematographic texts discussed in this article were reviewed taking into account the number of spectators by year, according to data from Proimágenes Colombia; the three chosen texts were from films which grossed the most in the year of release. Similarly, their selection was linked to the main participation of the female role inside the argumentative body in each film. The texts treated in this article are from the films Sin tetas no hay paraíso (No Paradise without Tits)- 2010, of the director Gustavo Bolivar; Rosario Tijeras (Rosario Scissors) -2005, of the director Emilio Maillé, and El arriero ( The Mule Driver) -2009, of the director Guillermo Calle. From these texts an analysis is made of the categories of body and gender stereotype, which makes the structures of symbolic violence in Colombian cinema discourse visible