The Hunting Ground (2015), documentary on campus rape culture
Rotten Tomatoes: 92%
Director: Kirby Dick
Producer: Amy Ziering
Runtime: 90 minutes
The creators of The Hunting Ground (Kirby Dick, Amy Ziering), a documentary on campus rape culture in the USA, made it due to the reaction to their previous documentary, The Invisible Wall, about rape in the military. They were originally planning a documentary on an unrelated topic (the food industry I think), but at so many of their screenings for the invisible wall they had women talk about their college experiences, and that forced their creative hand by forcing their hearts.
The Hunting Ground is a multi-faceted exploration of campus rape culture. There are the testimonials... I think they must have had three dozen women (and a few men, and a few parents of victims) discuss their experiences to various levels of depth, experiences of rape at various universities, and at various levels. There were three or four academics continuously interviewed, discussing several issues such as the reasons for underreporting, and the difficulty of studying the issue. We learn, for example, that it's extremely hard to study male rape victims, because the rate of reporting among male victims is incredibly low and thus it's nearly impossible to get a robust sample. There is the barrage of statistics, for several universities the researchers behind the film compiled the number of reported rape cases and the number of punishments, typically the fraction of time that the accused is found guilty is around ~2%. I think at Stanford there were ~200 rape accusations one year, and 0 led to disciplinary action. At another university, the accused were convicted, and expelled following graduation (seriously). There were other ludicrous punishments, one perpetrator paid a $25 fine, another was sentenced to 50 hours of community work ... at a victim's shelter.
I learned an interesting statistic, it's estimated that 8% of women commit 90% of rapes. I remember looking up that number a while back and not finding it, not knowing what the number. That means it's 1 in 12 men responsible for the issue, approximately. The number is uncomfortably higher than I would have guessed.
Finally, we follow a group of activists, half a dozen women or so, who have decided to speak up about the issue, to collect information, and to act as a resource to women across the country. They have a map of the USA where they add a stamp for every case they interact with, they have a wall of newspaper clippings, but most interestingly they are answering skype calls from women across the country, it seems the skype calls never stop coming in.
Returning to the victims, there were so many of them, it was an exhausting deluge, which I think is the point. A range of experiences from being drugged, to being overpowered, the most consistent narrative through it all was that campus police/security/staff always wanted the issue swept under the rug. There's a challenging interview with a male police officer who resigned from the force because he was tired of not being allowed to do his job.
A significant discussion is that of college football. There was a rape accusation made against a college football player. The police officer who got the report, a detective, was also an alumni of Florida State and he worked for events involving the football team. I may not remember all the details since I was so emotional, but ... the police did not test the victim's rape kit for a year. This is a victim that was covered with bruises and semen. They never went after the security cameras of the area that had footage of where the victim said she was. They never asked for a DNA sample, which could have been matched to the semen stains. All they did, was warn her not to file charges as it could prove a nightmare for her.
It did in fact prove a nightmare. The football player she accused was Jameis Winston, a football star at Florida State University who has since won a Heisman, a national championship. During her ordeal he would go from being just a football player, then she would find out he was recruited as the top high school athlete in the country, then Florida State would win a championship. We see men and women alike from Florida State say she's a dumb **** looking for attention. They're clearly just happy that their college is winning a national title, and angry that anybody would dare spoil their moment of glory. What a nightmare it must have been for her ... she still managed to be a lot more composed than some of the other survivors interviewed.
In a discussion after the film, one women asked me (since I lived in the USA), how the world would have reacted if it jad been the quarterback who had made the rape accusation. I said I honestly have no idea, but my suspicion is that as the quarterback, he is a commodity and his purpose is to make money for other people. He needs to smile and STFU. I think he'd be blasted if he were to claim to be a victim, but again I can't be sure.
I recommend not discussing the issue of Jameis Winston with NFL fans, very likely they'll ask you for "proof". Never mind that only ~4% of rape allegations are false as estimated by studies, never mind that this particular woman had her life devastated by pursuing an allegation against a man she otherwise didn't know and had no interest in, and never mind that the police chose not to do an investigation and the detective who told her to f'ck off was a fan of FSU football. "Where's the proof?"
The Hunting Ground passes through Columbia University, where we hear from the now famous woman who is carrying her mattress around, and we also hear of the vigilantes who put up the names of male rape victims on bathroom stalls all over campus. This has been widely discussed in the news. What I had not seen before were the interviews. One guy admitted he knew several of the men who were accused, and he said the vigilantes were idiots. We see another man interviewed who says that just because a woman says no and there's sex doesn't mean it's rape. I'm disturbed that such a horrifyingly stupid interview has not been broadly humiliated in the national media sphere. We immortalize into shame much more trivial acts, like Star Wars kid.
Through this discussion, I'm reminded of that underdeveloped tribe from I forget which part of the world, possibly near the Amazon. The women of the tribe, when they feel wronged by a man, develop songs about that man to humiliate him. I'm no anthropologist but I think they're doing this because they have no other recourse. Women at Columbia are doing exactly the same thing by writing out predators' names on bathroom stalls. Ten thousand years of cultural evolution, but it's more or less the same social organization going on.
I think I see this as a failure, honestly, but the movie was presenting these women banding together to be activists as a success, there was even triumphant music two thirds of the way through setting the mood for their achievements raising awareness. I guess all modern and particularly documentaries need to close with a feeling of good, to find a victory somewhere, and thus to declare victory.
I had vaguely heard of The Hunting Ground from glancing at a few reviews, I knew it dealt with campus rape culture in the USA, an issue that's been in the news in recent years due to the work of activists. I assumed I would never get to watch it since it's hard to get the smaller movies in Canberra, when I saw that it was playing at the Palace Electric I jumped at the chance to go see it. I went to a screening where approximately 15% of the people in attendance were male.
It was a really difficult ninety minutes, and it felt closer to one hundred and fifty. I had tears in my eyes for around half of it, and I often became so angry that my mind would wander, and then I'd find myself having missed the past thirty seconds of important dialogue. I want to watch it again, with subtitles and a rewind button, to properly and more fully digest it.
However, even with this first viewing, I think it was the best film I've seen this year. I recommend you all go see it. It doesn't have any aliens or CGI robots and it's not funded by Marvel Studios unfortunately, so if you're interested in seeing it you'll have to make the effort to seek it out. But please do.
Rotten Tomatoes: 92%
Director: Kirby Dick
Producer: Amy Ziering
Runtime: 90 minutes
The creators of The Hunting Ground (Kirby Dick, Amy Ziering), a documentary on campus rape culture in the USA, made it due to the reaction to their previous documentary, The Invisible Wall, about rape in the military. They were originally planning a documentary on an unrelated topic (the food industry I think), but at so many of their screenings for the invisible wall they had women talk about their college experiences, and that forced their creative hand by forcing their hearts.
The Hunting Ground is a multi-faceted exploration of campus rape culture. There are the testimonials... I think they must have had three dozen women (and a few men, and a few parents of victims) discuss their experiences to various levels of depth, experiences of rape at various universities, and at various levels. There were three or four academics continuously interviewed, discussing several issues such as the reasons for underreporting, and the difficulty of studying the issue. We learn, for example, that it's extremely hard to study male rape victims, because the rate of reporting among male victims is incredibly low and thus it's nearly impossible to get a robust sample. There is the barrage of statistics, for several universities the researchers behind the film compiled the number of reported rape cases and the number of punishments, typically the fraction of time that the accused is found guilty is around ~2%. I think at Stanford there were ~200 rape accusations one year, and 0 led to disciplinary action. At another university, the accused were convicted, and expelled following graduation (seriously). There were other ludicrous punishments, one perpetrator paid a $25 fine, another was sentenced to 50 hours of community work ... at a victim's shelter.
I learned an interesting statistic, it's estimated that 8% of women commit 90% of rapes. I remember looking up that number a while back and not finding it, not knowing what the number. That means it's 1 in 12 men responsible for the issue, approximately. The number is uncomfortably higher than I would have guessed.
Finally, we follow a group of activists, half a dozen women or so, who have decided to speak up about the issue, to collect information, and to act as a resource to women across the country. They have a map of the USA where they add a stamp for every case they interact with, they have a wall of newspaper clippings, but most interestingly they are answering skype calls from women across the country, it seems the skype calls never stop coming in.
Returning to the victims, there were so many of them, it was an exhausting deluge, which I think is the point. A range of experiences from being drugged, to being overpowered, the most consistent narrative through it all was that campus police/security/staff always wanted the issue swept under the rug. There's a challenging interview with a male police officer who resigned from the force because he was tired of not being allowed to do his job.
A significant discussion is that of college football. There was a rape accusation made against a college football player. The police officer who got the report, a detective, was also an alumni of Florida State and he worked for events involving the football team. I may not remember all the details since I was so emotional, but ... the police did not test the victim's rape kit for a year. This is a victim that was covered with bruises and semen. They never went after the security cameras of the area that had footage of where the victim said she was. They never asked for a DNA sample, which could have been matched to the semen stains. All they did, was warn her not to file charges as it could prove a nightmare for her.
It did in fact prove a nightmare. The football player she accused was Jameis Winston, a football star at Florida State University who has since won a Heisman, a national championship. During her ordeal he would go from being just a football player, then she would find out he was recruited as the top high school athlete in the country, then Florida State would win a championship. We see men and women alike from Florida State say she's a dumb **** looking for attention. They're clearly just happy that their college is winning a national title, and angry that anybody would dare spoil their moment of glory. What a nightmare it must have been for her ... she still managed to be a lot more composed than some of the other survivors interviewed.
In a discussion after the film, one women asked me (since I lived in the USA), how the world would have reacted if it jad been the quarterback who had made the rape accusation. I said I honestly have no idea, but my suspicion is that as the quarterback, he is a commodity and his purpose is to make money for other people. He needs to smile and STFU. I think he'd be blasted if he were to claim to be a victim, but again I can't be sure.
I recommend not discussing the issue of Jameis Winston with NFL fans, very likely they'll ask you for "proof". Never mind that only ~4% of rape allegations are false as estimated by studies, never mind that this particular woman had her life devastated by pursuing an allegation against a man she otherwise didn't know and had no interest in, and never mind that the police chose not to do an investigation and the detective who told her to f'ck off was a fan of FSU football. "Where's the proof?"
The Hunting Ground passes through Columbia University, where we hear from the now famous woman who is carrying her mattress around, and we also hear of the vigilantes who put up the names of male rape victims on bathroom stalls all over campus. This has been widely discussed in the news. What I had not seen before were the interviews. One guy admitted he knew several of the men who were accused, and he said the vigilantes were idiots. We see another man interviewed who says that just because a woman says no and there's sex doesn't mean it's rape. I'm disturbed that such a horrifyingly stupid interview has not been broadly humiliated in the national media sphere. We immortalize into shame much more trivial acts, like Star Wars kid.
Through this discussion, I'm reminded of that underdeveloped tribe from I forget which part of the world, possibly near the Amazon. The women of the tribe, when they feel wronged by a man, develop songs about that man to humiliate him. I'm no anthropologist but I think they're doing this because they have no other recourse. Women at Columbia are doing exactly the same thing by writing out predators' names on bathroom stalls. Ten thousand years of cultural evolution, but it's more or less the same social organization going on.
I think I see this as a failure, honestly, but the movie was presenting these women banding together to be activists as a success, there was even triumphant music two thirds of the way through setting the mood for their achievements raising awareness. I guess all modern and particularly documentaries need to close with a feeling of good, to find a victory somewhere, and thus to declare victory.
I had vaguely heard of The Hunting Ground from glancing at a few reviews, I knew it dealt with campus rape culture in the USA, an issue that's been in the news in recent years due to the work of activists. I assumed I would never get to watch it since it's hard to get the smaller movies in Canberra, when I saw that it was playing at the Palace Electric I jumped at the chance to go see it. I went to a screening where approximately 15% of the people in attendance were male.
It was a really difficult ninety minutes, and it felt closer to one hundred and fifty. I had tears in my eyes for around half of it, and I often became so angry that my mind would wander, and then I'd find myself having missed the past thirty seconds of important dialogue. I want to watch it again, with subtitles and a rewind button, to properly and more fully digest it.
However, even with this first viewing, I think it was the best film I've seen this year. I recommend you all go see it. It doesn't have any aliens or CGI robots and it's not funded by Marvel Studios unfortunately, so if you're interested in seeing it you'll have to make the effort to seek it out. But please do.
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