Summary Of The Film The Hunting Ground

The tone is one of excitement and eagerness as the film The Hunting Ground opens up, with graduation music playing and high school seniors opening up their college acceptance letters. As students arrive at college, however, the mood shifts from anticipation to foreboding. The documentary, composed of heart wrenching rape stories and frightening statistics, portrays college as a breeding ground for sexual assaults. By relying heavily on emotional appeal and twisting statistics to support his argument, director Kirby Dick falsely presents college as a hostile institute where the administration sides with the accused instead of the accuser.

What can make the documentary so convincing is the numerous emotional recountings of a sexual assault.

The tears and sensitivity of the subject evoke a strong feeling of sympathy for the victims and a feeling of anger towards the college administration. The film leads us to believe that women are prey and that colleges ignore-- and even blame-- the women for being assaulted. However, the film expects the viewers to take all the information at face value without questioning the accusers’ stories. Not once does the film present the accused’s side of the story. Though many of the cases may have happened, the stories cannot be accepted just because of a tearful retelling.
Many times after an emotional story, the film displays bold statistics and alarming assertions to support their argument. At one point, the film states one out of five girls will be sexually assaulted in college. However, the film never asserts what is considered sexual assault. According to the Association of American Universities, sexual assault includes unwanted kissing and touching. The percentage of sexual assaults on campuses is 23 percent; however the percentage of actual non consensual penetration on campuses is under 11 percent-- still not a great statistic but much less horrifying than 23 percent.
In the documentary, several examples are given of what seem to be jokingly light punishments for sexual assault allegations. The penalties range from paying $25 to writing a paper about their “misconduct.” These statistics are meant to be appalling; how can someone accused of sexual assault receive such a nominal punishment? However, under the definition of sexual assault, their crime very well could have been an unwanted kiss. By leaving out pertinent details, the directors are misconstruing the audience’s perspective of college.
Also, the film leads us to believe that when these sexual assaults are reported, the administration tries to cover up the incident in fear of damaging their reputation. However, a study from United Educators suggests otherwise. UE’s findings reveal that when a student is accused of sexual assault, he is found responsible in 45 percent of the cases. If found guilty, more than 80 percent of the time he is given the most severe penalty available. In 25 percent of the cases, the accused is found unresponsible. In 23 percent of the cases, the school did not make a decision because the accuser either asked the college to stop investigation, became uncooperative, or could not identify the accused. In the remaining cases, the accused dropped out of the school.
One of the most heated cases the film discusses is that of student Erica Kinsman and Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston.

Kinsman claims that after drinking and being drugged at a bar, Winston took her back to his dorm where he violently raped her. The film does not present Winston’s side of the story, in which he claims the encounter was completely consensual. The film focuses a great deal its attention on the fact that Winston is one of the most prominent student athletes in the country. The documentary claims that since Winston is this larger than life athlete that he therefore has a sense of entitlement, thus proving he raped her. However this argument is illogical-- Winston being a major athlete does not solidify Kinsman’s rape

allegation.
In the film, Kinsman claims that she was intoxicated and drugged.

However, the video fails to mention that the two toxicology reports came back negative for both alcohol and drugs. It also fails to mention that during hearings, Kinsman never asserted that she was drugged. Kinsman also claimed that while at the hospital, the doctors and police saw bruises appear on her the next day. However, the nurse who examined Kinsman could not find a single bruise on her body. Kinsman was proven to be an unreliable source when she repeatedly changed her story and could not be counted on to go to trial. Most of the cases in the documentary are much less prominent than Kinsman’s infamous allegation. The very controversial way the film handles the Winston case, however, raises doubt on the fairness of the many other accusations that form the crux of the film.

The Hunting Ground continues to twist the allegations surrounding the Winston case when one of its crew members edited multiple Wikipedia pages to support the film’s claims. On Jameis Winston’s page, crew member Edward Alva removed several paragraphs of evidence depicting major issues with Erica Kinsman’s story and removed a significant section describing how Kinsman "broke off contact with [the Tallahassee Police Department] and her attorney indicated that she did not want to move forward at that

time."
The documentary has a noble endeavor to raise awareness of sexual assaults that are happening on college campuses. However the film fails by presenting only one side of the argument. It exaggerates its statistics and expects the audience to believe every statement by a talking head is the incontrovertible truth.