The Hunting Ground (2015 Uncut/Radius-TWC/Anchor Bay DVD)/It Happened Here (2014/Docurama/Cinedigm DVD)

Picture: C+ Sound: C+ Extras: C+ Documentaries: B+

There are so many crisis going on that when another turns up with immense scandal, it is even more infuriating. The argument to having a better life, even as opportunities (for reasons we will not go into here) since the 1980s have declined has been if you go to school and work hard, you'll do fine. This is something that has not always been accorded to women, but slowly increased as women broke ground in the workplace (after more than proving their capacities during WWII before the 1950s rollback (similar to that of the 1980s) kicked in) during the great Feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s. This includes going to college, something you need more than ever since the 1980s (versus just having a high school diploma) to get places. Not that you can't make it without either, but even that is harder.

Two new documentaries arriving only a year apart look at this and the ugly secret too many major big money universities have been hiding, but has been part of business as usual and has now become worse in the less obvious second rollback era. Both happen to start with young women being accepted to, then arriving at their schools of higher eduction, followed by a dark side that has remained hidden... until now!

Kirby Dick's The Hunting Ground (2015, in its Uncut version, as a legal threat by a still-going-to-court NFL football player named Jamies Winston is being accused of rape and sexual assault (one of several women have claimed this, it turns out) so the CNN version was cut... for now?) has this opening in the Michael Moore style (music accompanies a sense of joy we know will soon be doomed and perverted) but this segment is untouched before it gets to the many nightmare stories the women (who all seem VERY credible) tell of being assaulted, some not even realizing it and how they were re-victimized again and again and again when they needed to be helped.

Lisa F. Jackson's It Happened Here (2014) has the women being accepted in an almost montage of victory, but immediately starts telling about the assaults. Both are smart to immediately attack the myth of everything being happy and fine simply because money, prestige and respectability is involved. Then we get to the ugly stories of the assaults by guys who were not raised correctly, have zero respect for women, hate women, have issues and should be in jail. Yet that never explains at first why the Universities, Campus Police and local Police (et al) do not do anything to help these women. Worse, they start asking them (including from other women who should know better, but big, easy money does things to people) the tired list of 'victim's fault' questions like 'were you drunk?', 'did you say no?' and the classic 'how were you dressed?' among others. Some are uglier, but we'll let you see and hear the documentaries for them for yourself.

The overlap between the two (including women who became activists to help other women and even some assaulted men out of the darkness) is, instead of being repetitive in any way, profoundly confirming of the crisis that is going on here. The idea is that there should be moral authority (especially since these women and men are actually PAYING HIGH PRICES to go to these schools) that no means no and there should ALWAYS be a safe environment. Instead, the reps of these school and connected people in these towns go out of their ay to cover things up, lie to the victims, stall forever to get anything done when they intend to do nothing, even intimidate the victims (one got committed to a mental institute for a few days for no good reason after she did an art exhibit to deal with her pain) and only new enforced laws, multi-million dollar lawsuits and permanent scars on the schools in question will begin to change this behavior.

However, there is a certain male dominance mentality (the Rambo-style kind relaunched in the 1980s) that is FINALLY revealed through both important works (Ground is an Oscar finalist for Best Documentary among 15 as this posts and I hope it is a finalist and wins) that will likely not be the last of their kind and should not be. Specifically, both manage to target certain frats, the use of alcohol and things that would send men to jail if they were not on a campus.

That brings us to other outside institutions that financially and immorally support this madness, especially the National Football League, who has so many problems, issues and insanity going for it of late (forget about 'deflategate' as it is a distraction from the serious issues) that they've got to explain things like why they have always had non-profit status, to what extent the massive issue of player/former player concussion issues (from former Steeler Mike Webster to Frank Gifford (see Blood Equity elsewhere on this site) to a 41-year-old player who was left homeless and just killed himself a few weeks ago by driving his bicycle into oncoming car traffic in Florida) to bullying (all around) to the government paying organizations like them big taxpayer money to have patriotism rallies they should be doing for free! What the hell is going on here!!!

That then brings us back to the Winston case, epitomizing the kid-gloves-for-money care the perpetrators get (usually guilty, but assumed totally innocent irresponsibly) where he gets to graduate, get phony slap-on-the-wrist suspensions and lands up with the Heisman Trophy, $40 Million contract and stands smiling with the then-crew (not all the members of which have proven to be totally moral themselves) of CBS' NFL Today show as if getting the full certification and 100% support of the league and big money. Add the spokespersons for these colleges lying and making up goofy explanation and you have a full-blown crisis to go with the other crisis that will only end if it is exposed permanently and we never except and phony explanations that every is going to be 'fine' and it got instantly fixed.

Too many people have been hurt and the society has permanent damage, thus are vulnerability to mass shootings, hate crimes and other awful things we would have never seen on a common basis before the 1980s. Also highlighted in both great works are the ignorance of other guys who have lightyears to go before becoming men ('they put my friends name on a bathroom that he was a rapist and I know he isn't' as if the guy spent 24 hours a day with this 'friend' which also beings up other questions) embarrassing women who think because a court case took so long or there was not 'enough evidence' (so many case had enough and charges were STILL not pressed) that an accuser must be automatically lying (hope the gal is not trying to be a lawyer!) in an attitude even ignorant men (George Will for instance, who Bill O'Reilly (also shown as a sexist blaming a rape victim accuser who gets murdered as inviting the death in one of the programs form a clip) rightly called a hack) whose grasp of being with formidable women is like the proverbial wino trying to understand quantum physics.

So that leaves us looking at the culture, one that says we can be only about big money and some side of the 'magic hand of the market' will protect the innocent (a few of whom commit suicide because of how the universities and authorities treated them) because 'they' have it all figured out gives us pro-rape anthems as comedy like the hideous hit ''Blurred Lines'', the sex scandal of Bill Cosby where he has lawyers saying all these women (many of whom are in positions of success and power have no reason to lie) are 'guilty' (of Original Sin?) in full woman-hating mode and were asking for it or even the case of Penn State. Yes, Penn State, the big winning college whose ignorant donors are secretly trying to rewrite history after it turned out they were not only winning on the field, but winning the sexual assault record... for hidden child molestation!

Yes, children, anything to win so they could have money and live easy. This particular case was so bad, it could not be held back (the school destroyed and rebuilt one of the showers 'suddenly' after many decades where some of the crimes occurred) in one of the most infamous crimes of power abuse since the Kent State murders in 1970. I will not name names since you likely know them and I would need a separate essay to list them, but it epitomizes what the other colleges (including Penn State, where rapes of women and likely some men are happening) are doing to protect a phony sense of their precious reputations. Note the people who ultra-denied what happened at Penn State. Acting like their actions were as omnipotent and inarguable as the Catholic Church (whom they have some ties with apparently) means these schools act like multi-national corporations who think laws don't apply to them, but to their victims (especially when they have no money or power) as if this is acceptable behavior or should be a new normal. It is not.

And this has not been a review through polemics, but of how bad things are and how an unshocked public is not aware of them, are ignorant enough to ignore it as if it does not affect them and why things need to change soon or they will change in ways that cannot be controlled. Both The Hunting Ground and It Happened Here show and tell us we need to respect and treat women with the same respect we want to be treated with, extending to everyone else and when we don't, the worst possible things thrive. For the United States of America, that it TOTALLY UNACCEPTBLE and we should know better. Those who care will wish they could have helped these women or stopped what happened before it happened. The rest need to wake up and those who are part of the war on women are a TOTAL DISGRACE TO ADULTHOOD in ways beyond words.

The anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image on both releases have some rough historical footage as expected, but they look as good as they can in the format (Ground has also been issued on Blu-ray, which Here deserves) and the new interview footage in both cases is well shot. Both also offer lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 mixes that are mostly stereo with music in the surrounds, but they are well mixed and edited. The Lady Gaga song is in The Hunting Ground, in case you wondered.

Extras on both give vital recommendations and resources for those who have had the same experience, Ground adds Additional Scenes and a valuable Q&A with Annie & Andrea, while Here adds an Original Theatrical Trailer.

- Nicholas Sheffo