The campus sexual assault propaganda film “The Hunting Ground” will be in the running for an Oscar, according to predictions from Variety editor Kristopher Tapley.
Tapley’s “educated guesses” as to which films are in contention for a nomination or win include the film in the “Best Documentary” category. Tapley doesn’t suggest it should win an Oscar, he is merely predicting “where the red carpet will lead this year.”
Tapley places “The Hunting Ground” as the third front-runner for the award, behind “The Look of Silence,” about the 1960s Indonesian genocide and “Amy,” a documentary about the life and death of singer Amy Winehouse.
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But “The Hunting Ground” is not a documentary about a horrific epidemic of violence across the U.S., it is a propaganda film based on false statistics and inaccurate accounts of accusers. The film relies heavily on the claim that 1-in-5 women will be sexually assaulted in college, a statistic that has been debunked time and time again as the result of biased and flawed studies.
It also relies on the “expertise” of researcher David Lisak, whose own study claiming that campuses are hotbeds for serial rapists was debunked just a couple months ago. Lisak’s study, which has been used to legitimize eviscerating due process rights for accused students, wasn’t even about sexual assaults that occur on campus.
Beyond the faulty statistics, the accusations in the film haven’t held up to scrutiny, either. The film presents Kamilah Willingham’s accusation as evidence that schools let violent offenders back on campus after finding them responsible for sexual assault. But the man Willingham accused, while found responsible and suspended from Harvard University, was found guilty in a court of law of only “misdemeanor touching of a nonsexual nature.” The reason for this was that Willingham was not a credible witness.
Another accuser in the film, Erica Kinsman, had accused former Florida State University quarterback Jameis Winston, but her story also had holes. The filmmakers included accusations from Kinsman that she believed she was drugged, even though she was aware of two toxicology reports that there were no date-rape drugs in her system.
The filmmakers also provided the other side — accused students and universities allegedly doing little to combat the problem — little, if any, time to respond to their claims.
The man accused by Willingham said he didn’t hear from the filmmakers for his side of the story until a month after it debuted at Sundance. FSU president John Thrasher said he didn’t hear from the filmmakers until after the film had already been submitted to Sundance.
IF “The Hunting Ground” ends up getting a nomination, I wouldn’t be surprised if it won. After all, Michael Moore, a liberal filmmaker known for taking quotes out of context and presenting half-facts to achieve his narrative, won an Oscar for his 2002 film “Bowling for Columbine” and was nominated for his 2008 propaganda film “Sicko.”
