The Hunting Ground

The documentary “The Hunting Ground” has gotten an immense amount of exposure due to the efforts of two women, Annie Clark and Andrea Pino who supported this project. Both women are survivors of sexual assaults that occurred at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) and subsequently filed Title IX complaints against UNC in response to their rapes. This film plays a critical role in bringing attention to the widely discounted issue of sexual assault on college campuses in the United States. By highlighting the culpability of colleges in covering up the presence of sexual violence on campus, the film lends itself to much criticism from people including administration as well as professors.

Personally, the jarring facts and emotional stories shared on camera make any objection to this film seem insensitive and insignificant in the context of the issue at hand. This film’s goal is not to destroy the reputation of colleges but open their eyes to the harm in failing to adequately address sexual assault reports. Statistics show that 45% of colleges reported no rapes on campus last year (including Syracuse) – a number extremely unfathomable. Although colleges hope to promote safe campus life by denying the existence of rape on campus, they are in the process inherently fostering an unsafe environment. Not only does downplaying the existence of rape make the myth of “rape culture” arguably true but also survivors experience victim blaming by the very institution that vowed to protect and stand by them.

Another major criticism of this film with which I strongly disagree is the promotion of viewing college women as victims. Feminists might have an issue with this objection as the portrayal of women as victims directly opposes that of the feminist ideal and would harm their argument. Other responses to this may be that while the film is criticized for depicting women as victims, it is in fact doing the contrary. “The Hunting Ground” centers on young women as they raise their voices in the face of opposition and succeed in getting over fifty schools investigated based on Title IX complaints. I believe this type of false criticism does more damage than just raising an objection against the work as it inadvertently emphasizes some of the main reasons why over 80% of rape cases go unreported. Critics that say sharing your rape story makes someone seem as though they are a victim encourages the cultural phenomenon of victim blaming. This along with unfair treatment in the justice system and psychological trauma all prevent the overwhelmingly one out of every five college women who are sexually assaulted over the course of a four-year degree to come forward about their experiences. With the help of this film along with other forms of actions such as on campus protests and projects like Emma Sulkowicz’s “Mattress Performance”, women are able to find their voice in this battle against their school’s disregard of their rape.