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Fictional
Rapist Sparks Row on Author
Responsibility
Tito
Drago
MADRID, (IPS) - The book ”Todas Putas”
(All Whores) has created a storm of
debate on feminism and on the
responsibilities of creators of fiction,
drawing into the melee matters of
discrimination against women, abuse,
rape and paedophilia.
The author of ”Todas Putas”, Hernán
Migoya, internationally famed filmmaker
Pedro Almodóvar and other artists
reject the notion that authors should be
held responsible for what they have
their characters do or say in their
stories, novels or films.
But women's groups and the two leading
parties of the political opposition, the
Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE)
and the United Left (IU), demanded --
and won -- the removal of ”Todas Putas”
from bookshop shelves.
They are also seeking the resignation of
Miriam Tey, director of the governmental
Women's Institute and co-owner of the
book's publisher, El Cobre.
Migoya came under fire for two of his
book's 15 short stories, titled ”El
violador” (The Rapist) and ”Porno
del bueno” (The Good Porno).
Almodóvar was also the target of
criticism because, according to a study
published by the psychology department
of Ramón Llul University in Barcelona,
drug consumption is portrayed in 14
percent of screentime of his overall
film production.
Migoya's ”El Violador” is written in
first person and begins: ”Now that all
blacks are good and all gays are very
nice guys, let's see if society gets
together and decides once and for all
that we rapists are not all bad
people.”
After recounting some personal stories,
the character says, ”It will always be
better to rape a woman and let her live
than not to rape her and but kill
her.”
”I wouldn't be capable of killing a
woman. I wouldn't have the stomach for
it. But rape themà I assure you that it
causes me no remorse.”
In the other controversial story by
Migoya a man picks up his daughter from
school, rapes her and, through tears,
tells her: ”Don't tell Mommy,
honey.”
Gloria Escudero, president of the Aid
Association for Sexual Assault Victims,
says, ”It is reprehensible that a
justification is being made against the
human rights of women and children. The
author confuses open and consensual
sexuality with violence, which
constitutes an attack against sexual
freedom.”
The Women's Council of Madrid, which
comprises 84 feminist groups, and the
Network of Feminist Organisations
against Gender Violence say Migoya's
book constitutes a defence of the crimes
it portrays. As such, they are calling
for the resignations of publisher Tey
and of Labour Minister Eduardo Zaplana.
The demand that Tey step down came in
spite of the fact that the book was
published before Mar. 13, when she took
over the public post as director of the
Women's Institute, an agency of the
Labour Ministry.
The president of the Association of
Progressive Women, Enriqueta Chicano,
also a feminist and PSOE member, joined
the protests saying that ”the content
of the book is absolutely unacceptable
and an offence against all defendable
values, given that it is a clear
justification of rape.”
When asked to what extent he thinks like
the protagonist in ”El violador”,
Migoya responds, ”not at all.” He
stresses that ”nobody is interested in
what I think. The story is fiction and
if I had wanted to defend of rape I
would have written and signed a
manifesto.”
Furthermore, the author does acknowledge
that the story is a justification for
rape, but only from the point of view of
the protagonist, ”who fortunately is
not me.”
Migoya says that the entire book is
about the monsters that all humans have
inside and, for precisely this reason,
is a manner of condemning such moral
aberrations.
He also claims he is ”more feminist
than many feminists,” and underlined
that his goal in writing ”Todas Putas”
was to ”pull out all the crap involved
in untouchable issues and allow people
to laugh at themselves and to discover
the hypocrisy that we all carry
inside.”
A group of ”literati”, including two
members of the Spanish Royal Academy (of
language), Antonio Muñoz Molina and
Pere Gimferrer, publicly rejected the
notion that Migoya's book is a defence
of any kind violence and described the
controversy surrounding it as
”artificial”.
Predicting that the outcry against the
book ”is the seed of a witch-hunt in
the most purely fascist style,” in a
communiqué the group announced that it
would ”uphold freedom of expression
and of the dissemination of creative
works.”
A leading personality from Spain's
publishing world, José Manuel Lara
Bosch, head of Grupo Planeta, one of the
most powerful publishing houses in the
Spanish language, said, ”even if they
are scandalous, it is always good that
books are published so that there is
talk about these issues.”
”If an editor removes what he doesn't
like from the books he edits, that is
censorship, and that is not the editor's
job,” added Lara Bosch.
A Barcelona-based organisation of young
writers and journalists, La Gancho
Divine, expressed solidarity with Migoya
and Tey, saying that the author ”has
sought to stir up moral indignation and
civic responsibility against those who
in reality act like his much-criticised
characters.”
Almodóvar, after learning of the report
on drug use in his films, wrote in the
Spanish daily 'El Mundo' that he felt
”the same Kafkian sensation, a mix of
fear, disgust, stupor, fury and
indignation as in 1991 when the U.S.
censors categorised as pornographic 'Atame'
(Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down - the film that
launched him to international fame).”
According to the filmmaker, ”the fact
that this would occur in Spain in 2003
does nothing but aggravate the
situation.”
He noted, ”If in the films by U.S.
director Martin Scorsese one takes into
account that more than 60 percent of his
characters are gangsters or criminals,
possess weapons and use them, we would
have to denounce him as a member of
organised crime.”
”The author should not judge his
characters, but rather understand them,
as monstrous as they might be, and show
their humanity and complexity, creating
them in complete liberty,” states
Almodóvar.
In reactions to the book appearing on
the El Mundo website, one reader asks
with irony, ”Have you tried reading
(Marquis de) Sade, (Francisco) Quevedo,
Dostoyevski, Céline? We should ban them
too, no?”
Those caught up in the controversy
surrounding ”Todas Putas” have not
reached an agreement as to whether or
not the book is misogynist or whether or
not it was correct to withdraw it from
the market.
But everyone, including the author and
Tey, agree in condemning all types of
gender discrimination, and particularly
rape and other sex crimes.
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