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This is a Literature Review study.

August 17, 2025

A study of systemic racism and gender violence in Colleen Murphy’s Pig Girl.

Key Points

The play Pig Girl effectively portrays Indigenous women's experiences of gender violence, prompting deep reflection on social issues.
With a focus on Indigenous identities, the narrative challenges traditional crime storytelling by centering victim experiences.
Through rigorous analysis of the Pickton case, it critiques structural violence, illustrating ongoing racism and institutional neglect.
Murphy's work serves as a powerful commentary on societal indifference toward gender-based violence and social inequality.

Abstract

This paper analyzes Colleen Murphy’s 2015 play Pig Girl, based on the shocking Robert Pickton case, as an act of theatrical resistance and ethical narrative. Rejecting the convention of centering the perpetrator, Murphy places the voices and suffering of Indigenous female victims at the heart of the narrative, thereby challenging the sensationalist consumption of violence typical in traditional crime narratives. The harrowing depiction of the torture and murder of a character referred to only as the “Dying Woman” delivers a powerful emotional impact, prompting reflection on human dignity and social responsibility. Pig Girl functions a not merely as a dramatization of real events but as a theatrical discourse that critiques structural violence including colonialism, misogyny, and institutional neglect. This study explores the colonial legacy and systemic racism in Canadian society and examines the political significance of the victims’ Indigenous identities. It also investigates the outline of the Pickton case and the surrounding social and institutional indifference, analyzing how Pig Girl, as an artistic reconstruction of the event, sheds light on social inequality and gender-based violence.

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