In theaters now.
“Two of us were sexually assaulted before class even started,” activist Annie Clark says in the recently released documentary The Hunting Ground. “I thought if I told [administrators] they would take action, but the only action they took was against me.”
This sentiment summarizes the overarching theme of this film, which examines sexual assault on college campuses. This is director Kirby Dick’s second attempt at illuminating the institutional cover-ups of violence against women: His first is a documentary on sexual assault in the military entitled The Invisible War. I suspected this film would be just as heart-wrenching and found that, especially as a college student, the film effected me more profoundly.
I was well aware of most of the statistics that appeared on the screen, but the depiction of the way rape is institutionalized on social, political and economic levels was still mind blowing. The documentary focused specifically on the grueling process of reporting and prosecuting sexual assault on college campuses. Many women expressed that the experience of reporting felt like a second victimization and some found it as degrading and infuriating as the experience of assault itself.
For example, the documentary outlined how college administrators sweep what they can under the rug and keep policies in place that prevent victims from reporting and rapists from expulsion. Some colleges have deemed things like a two-day suspension, expulsion upon graduation, community service at a rape crisis center, and even a $25 fine as adequate “punishments” for this crime. Particular care is taken to protect college athletes, who bring huge amounts of revenue to their schools.
In addition to failing to punish perpetrators, college administrators often silence victims for fear of faltering alumni contributions or a drop in enrollment rates. Our ability as a society to value revenue over human beings — and especially the valuing of money over marginalized populations like women, people of color, the LGBT+ community and the poor — astounds me.
The Hunting Ground ultimately illuminates that although so many women still face this disgusting reality of violence on campus, society continues to blame the victims, claiming that their actions/clothing/words/past warranted this crime. Meanwhile, men who rape — those who are truly responsible for this violence — walk through their lives as if nothing has happened. A woman’s worth and her sexuality remain inextricably linked while men’s criminal behavior is not judged at all and further seen as irrelevant to their worth as people.
Despite the tightening in my stomach I felt throughout the film, I left the theater energized due to the consciousness raising and activism highlighted at the end of the documentary. As the film increasingly focused on student activists’ work, I couldn’t help but feel like the tides were turning, like something was finally going to give. I think media attention like this film that has brought campus rape to the forefront of our nation’s consciousness is the first step to meaningful change.
So take your friends and families to see The Hunting Ground. Let’s stay angry.
