MovieChat Forums > The Hunting Ground (2016) Discussion > Do the accused get a voice?

Do the accused get a voice?


I appreciate the awareness a movie like this brings, but we live in a society that is veering dangerously towards "guilty until proven innocent," allowing invalidated accusations to be accepted as fact. Most of these girls are telling the truth and should be heard, but if they are found to be a false accuser, the legal ramifications should be stiff. This documentary is very one-sided.

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Do the accused get a voice?! The accused RUN the system and protect campus rapists.

Think rape survivors aren't at least entitled to a 2-hour movie to themselves and THEIR stories?

Why are America's young women being raped and then slut-shamed even by the institutions that are supposed to protect them?

The entire system works in the interests of rapists while blaming women for being raped.

Asking, "Do the accused get a voice?" reveals a kind of ignorance and stupidity that is galling after everything we now know about how young women in America are perceived as an inconvenience to the avarice of colleges for large donations.



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You are missing the point... until now, ONLY the accused have had any voice. The victims are only just starting to not be quiet.

***So I've seen 4 movies/wk in theatre for a 1/4 century, call me crazy?**

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And what are these supposed victims saying? Most of the high profile rape accusations have fallen apart under scrutiny. Mattress girl, the Duke Lacrosse scandal, Rolling Stone, all proven fabrications. Then we take a look at the research done on campus rape such as the oft quoted, though absurd, 1 in 4 statistic and it doesn't look too good. It looks more like hysteria.

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Don't forget Patrick Kane, the Chicago Blackhawks star and recent victim of this hysteria.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nhl/blackhawks/2015/11/05/chicago-blackhawks-patrick-kane-sexual-assault-charges/75208266/

The accuser, who alleged she was sexually assaulted in Kane’s suburban Buffalo home in August, has stopped cooperating with investigators and Erie County District Attorney Frank A. Sedita III said in a news release that there were “significant material inconsistencies between the complainant’s accounts and those of other witnesses.

“The totality of the credible evidence — the proof — does not sufficiently substantiate the complainant’s allegation that she was raped by Patrick Kane and this so-called ‘case’ is rife with reasonable doubt,” Sedita said. “Accordingly, the Office of the Erie County District Attorney will not present this matter to an Erie County Grand Jury.”


Patrick Kane suffered public humiliation, lost out on endorsement deals and regardless of this outcome will forever have his name associated with the stigma of a rape accusation. And what happens to accuser who still gets to enjoy anonymity? Presumably nothing. Hopefully these false accusers will start getting sued in civil court regularly.

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Question: why do you think the intent of the documentary is to be two-sided? Why is that the expectation? If the documentary was about relatives of people who had been murdered, and there was no conversation with the convicted murderer, would the documentary as a whole be rendered invalid?

The intent of this film is to discuss the ways college campus administrators handle sexual assault. It was designed to illuminate the ways campus administrators avoid reporting statistics to ensure enrollment remains high. There was an interview with a man who had served jail time for rape, who discussed why a college campus was his favored trolling grounds.

People are responding hotly to this question, because while your concerns for bias are valid, it seems that concerns for bias only erupt in such circles when the subject is rape. And the people demanding that this be presented evenly are always men. Why? If you are not a rapist (and I'm assuming most of the people posting here are not) what do you have to lose from the successful prosecution of rapists? If you want women to see that not all men are rapists, then take the time to see that not all rape victims are false accusers, simply because that's the canned lined MRA dialog has fed you. Talk to an actual woman, or read an actual news source or academic journal instead.

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How do you know only most of them are telling the truth and not all of them. I'm not saying they all are, but you have no proof that they're not.

The problem isn't about who's lying and who isn't, but rather that no one is properly investigating accusations. If someone is lying, I agree they should be punished, but if someone is telling the truth, then the accused should also be punished and the tap on the wrist punishments they show in the documentary.

Poorly Lived and Poorly Died, Poorly Buried and No One Cried

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This documentary isn't about giving a voice to rapists. It's about giving a voice to victims who are often left voiceless and feeling incompetent. To the point of suicide. Silence is what makes rape and sexual assault such a traumatising experience and this documentary is looking at the institutionalised silence of rape.

Oh and they did include an interview by a rapist. But as the documentary isn't about the rapists but what the survivors of rape are doing, of course they are not going to give them a voice.

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I returned to college as a 33 year old "non-traditional" student. I worked for the college newspaper when we decided to tackle the issue of campus crime.
The issue began as the under reporting of campus crime in order to protect the image of the school in the community as well as to prospective students and their families. Our mission took a turn when one of our editors was date raped at a party by a member of the school wrestling team and another member of our staff was groped in school van by a member of the football team. Both of these young women were counseled by campus security to NOT contact local law enforcement. Their cases were heard before a school board of trustees--male, mostly alumni from the local business community.
The young men in question were let off with nothing more than slaps on the wrists--"probation" for a semester and a two match suspension. If found guilty in local courts, these young men would have been punished as felons. The women were told to think of how these charges would "ruin the lives" of these young men. Not once were they asked about their own situations, how their own lives were affected. The young men's lives and the school's reputation in the community were far more important to the college than these young women's experiences.
Blaming the victim was the battle cry of the school: "she shouldn't have been at the party," "she shouldn't have been drinking," "she shouldn't have been sitting by him." When do men take responsibility for their behavior? My parents always taught me that just because something was sitting out, unattended, it didn't mean I could take it. Why doesn't that apply to someone's body? Just because a woman is drunk (and therefore, more uninhibited), or dressed "provocatively." or "flirtatious," a man is NOT entitled to touch her or stick his penis into her.
Yes, there are women who will cry rape because of ulterior motives. I cringe every time I hear of such cases. I have no doubt about the statistics of non reporting--why report when you won't be believed. I have no doubts, because, in my first try at going to college, it happened to me.

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[deleted]

Do we? Less than 10% of cases end in a conviction, how can you possibly justify that statement? It's ridiculous.

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Less than 10% of cases end in a conviction


OMG. Where the fck are you getting that statistic??

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[deleted]

but if they are found to be a false accuser, the legal ramifications should be stiff
Good luck with that, mattress girl is still a "hero".

Erin Pizzey
https://youtu.be/Ix5-jqQYU1M

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