In Chile in November of 2019, following a tumultuous October of violent protests against the socioeconomic inequities of Sebastián Piñera’s regime, a new movement emerged, one not defined by flying rubber bullets and rioting but by song, dance, and feminism. This new movement was delineated by flash mob performances of the song, A Rapist in Your Path, a powerful anti-rape song created by the Chilean feminist collective Las Tesis. The song and its accompanying performance were created to allow all women to gain access to feminist theory, not only those who live within the elitist academic sphere, and included themes such as patriarchal subjugation, victim-blaming, and police brutality. The flash mob performances of the song did not remain a solely Latin American phenomenon and soon lent itself to globalization, spreading to over fifty different countries. While A Rapist in Your Path has been featured in numerous studies examining its use of flash mob techniques and artivism, the rationale underlying the transnational potency of A Rapist in Your Path has not been extensively studied. Thus this study aims to understand how A Rapist in Your Path lent itself to transnationalism, specifically how its lyrics and its performative attributes contributed to its massive influence as a social movement. In order to focus on the transnational appeal of A Rapist in Your Path, this study will involve analyzing the lyrics and performative attributes of four different performances of A Rapist in Your Path, with a concrete focus on performances that took place in Chile and the United States. This study will use the themes that emerge from each lyrical and performative analysis to decipher the transnationalism of A Rapist in Your Path, ultimately answering what drives the globalization of social rebellion.
“And the Rapist is You”: Exploring the Transnational Appeal of “A Rapist in Your Path” Through Lyrical and Performative Analyses of American and Chilean Performances
Category
Gender, Ethnicity, Diversity, or Cultural Studies 2