For Hunting

            On Netflix you can find the powerful stories of many women who speak out against their oppressors in the film The Hunting Ground.  The film is about the problem of sexual assault on college campuses and how it suppressed by universities, because they are afraid of the bad press that could hurt them if word gets out that these scandals are going on.  Kirby Dick, the director, presents the stories of several women about their stories of rape and sexual assault, how people reacted to their stories—especially those who were part of the leadership of the university—and how they felt personally afterwards and sometimes months or years later now telling the story. 

The stories of the women to me were very powerful.  There were some interviews that were accompanied by cutaways that showed scenes similar to what they were describing, while some just stayed on the visual of the girl telling the story.  Whether or not there were visuals, I was pulled in.  I felt the pain and the fear and the sadness of the terrible treatment of these women through the plainness of their words.  In the interviews, there were also men that were violated that were featured, as well as one man who had his face blurred out, because he confessed that he had been a sexual assailant to show a little of the other faucets of this story.

Now, I thought it was very positive that they also had a storyline of hope among the grimness of the situation.  Though the stories left me touched, it also left me feeling helpless.  However, the storyline of the two women learning about how to submit a Title IX complaint to the government, then going across the country to teach other girls about it was truly inspiring.  I have seen the raised awareness in my own community, at BYU, and to know that it was started by those two women, makes me feel that a difference can be made in this world and that it doesn’t always come from the “big guys.”   They were just like me, right in the middle of a college degree, so what’s stopping me from making a difference?

For Miss Representation

The documentary Miss Representation explores how women are represented in media and how this affects women in our society today to feel that need to have the perfect figure to be a exactly what a man wants and that they don’t have worth besides how they are seen on the outside.  Jennifer Newson, the narrator and creator of this film, reflects on her own experiences and what she will do to educate her daughter, which is soon to be born.

In the telling of her story, she uses the combination of her personal story, the stories of others, both men and women, through interviews and verité footage, startling and revealing images, dramatic statistics.  Personally, I thought the combination was powerful and I especially enjoyed the interviews.  It made me feel that people were on my side, as a woman, and that there were many people who saw this as an issue and it had affected them personally. 

The graphic images of women in media was a little manipulating.  It was if they were looking through all of the media of this past decade and finding the worst to feature.  However, in my personal experience, I have seen women portrayed in a very similar light.  I was able to understand what she was trying to accomplish by backing up the words of people in interviews with very powerful evidence, with themes that are still present in media today. 

Some of the more effective scenes that I saw were of the interviews of the younger girls and boys.  It made me think of not only myself at that age, but of the future girls that I’ll have in my own family.  I recognized the same struggles that I had as a teenager and I wondered, just like Newson, about what I would do to educate and encourage my future girls.  Along with that, it was powerful of her to share her own story and her worries about the baby girl that she was pregnant with and would bring into a world in which her gender was represented in such a negative way.   It gave the film a personal angle for her and also for me.