ABSTRACT
This article starts from the relationship of continuity between Medea, the character of the homonymous tragedy by Euripides, and two female characters of the Colombian film Satanás (Andy Baiz, 2007). I take into consideration that the murders committed by the three female characters occur out of sight of the public/audience, in the off-scene. I put this in dialogue with the key concept of my text, the ob-scene, which is defined by pointing out how it is opposed to certain notions of spectacle and pornography. In addition to stretching as far as possible the link between off-stage and ob-scene, and discussing Georges Bataille’s considerations on obscenity, Jean Baudrillard’s thoughts on pornography, and Slavoj Žižek’s conceptualizations on violence, I consider Euripides’ Medea and her contemporary refigurations in Satanás through the lens of the ob-scene, in order to reflect on issues such as censorship, family and church as violent formations and the Colombian media’s approach to gender-based violence, hunger, and nudity.
