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‘Rape Culture’ as Stalinism: Propaganda Tactics by ‘Hunting Ground’ Makers

Posted on | November 20, 2015 | 39 Comments

Erica Kinsman is featured in The Hunting Ground.

“All these people were praising him; they were calling me a slut, a whore. . . .I kind of just want to know, like, why me?”
— Erica Kinsman

Even while the new movie Trumbo engages in a whitewash of a notorious Communist, dishonest Stalin-era Soviet propaganda tactics have been given a new digital-age update by feminists:

A crew member from “The Hunting Ground,” a one-sided film about campus sexual assault, has been editing Wikipedia articles to make facts conform with the inaccurate representations in the film.
Edward Patrick Alva, who is listed on the film’s IMDB page as part of the camera and electrical department, has been altering Wikipedia entries for months, in violation of the website’s conflict-of-interest guidelines. Alva is the assistant editor and technical supervisor for Chain Camera Pictures, the production company associated with “The Hunting Ground” director Kirby Dick. . . .
Alva created his Wikipedia account just two weeks after Florida State University President John Thrasher first called out the filmmakers for their inaccurate and unfair portrayal of the school and its handling of the rape accusation against former star quarterback Jameis Winston. . . .
Nearly all of Alva’s Wikipedia edits have related to “The Hunting Ground,” either through edits to the film’s main Wikipedia page or through edits to the pages of some of the people featured in the film.
Alva took particular interest in editing the Wikipedia page of Jameis Winston, the only person named in the film as an alleged rapist. Winston was cleared by three separate investigations, yet activists — and the film — claim this was due to a biased process and investigators seeking to protect a star football player. The film doesn’t mention the holes in Erica Kinsman’s accusation against Winston and in fact allows her to tell a story that contradicts physical evidence. . . .
The film itself is inaccurate, as the president of FSU and 19 Harvard Law professors have noted. The film distorts the evidence and uses false statistics to paint a picture of a rape epidemic at American universities. (Despite the filmmakers insistence that it is a documentary and “completely accurate,” emails between an investigator for the film and the lawyer of one of the accusers strongly suggest otherwise.) . . .

Read the rest by Ashe Schow at the Washington Examiner.

The issue here is not whether we believe Jameis Winston is innocent, but instead whether The Hunting Ground accurately depicts the Winston case, which in turn leads to the question of whether the film accurately depicts the general situation on America’s university campuses. If we catch the producers of a documentary telling a false version of one incident, we are entitled to doubt the truth of their general portrayal of the larger phenomenon (the so-called “rape culture” on campus) that is the subject of their film. And when a member of The Hunting Ground‘s crew subsequently attempts to alter the online record and delete criticism of the film — a trick reminiscent of Soviet propagandists airbrushing Leon Trotsky out of photos of the Bolshevik leadership — we may indeed wonder if this “documentary” is fundamentally dishonest:

Amid a growing controversy involving questions of accuracy and fairness, the makers of The Hunting Ground, a documentary indictment of campus sexual assaults, are defending the film, which is set to air on CNN on Nov. 22.
Florida State University, where one of the cases depicted in the documentary occurred, has asked the news network not to air the film and has produced a detailed critique of what it alleges are instances of inaccuracy and unfairness that depart from standard journalistic practice.
In response, CNN — which also will air a roundtable discussion of campus sexual assaults after it airs the film — said it is “proud to provide a platform for a film that has undeniably played a significant role in advancing the national conversation about sexual assault on college campuses.”

CNN is dedicated to “advancing the national conversation,” even if it has to tell lies to do it. But do they really want a conversation or is this actually a one-sided propaganda lecture? Because a conversation might include questions like, why were two minors — Erica Kinsman and Jameis Winston were both 18 — being served alcohol in a Tallahassee bar on the night of Dec. 7, 2012? Why did Kinsman leave the bar in a cab with Winston and two other men and go back to Winston’s apartment? She claims somebody put a drug in one of her drinks, but the toxicology report showed no evidence of any drug. And let me repeat again: The issue is not whether Jameis Winston is innocent, but whether the case is presented accurately in The Hunting Ground.

The producers of this documentary claim that the Jameis Winston case is emblematic of a larger “rape culture” on our nation’s university campuses. If female students are indeed routinely victimized by such an “epidemic” of sexual assault, we might suppose, The Hunting Ground‘s producers would have many clear-cut cases to choose from and, by devoting a major segment of their film to the Jameis Winston case, they imply that the failure of officials to punish the FSU star athlete is self-evidently an injustice. Yet when we look at the facts of the case, reasonable doubts are immediately apparent. There is no evidence Erica Kinsman was drugged. She and Winston were both underage and drinking in a bar. There is no evidence that she was coerced to leave the bar with him, nor any evidence that he forced her to go back to his apartment.

If these reasonable doubts are apparent, we must nonetheless ask why Erica Kinsman immediately claimed she had been raped. Unlike many other cases that have come to light, there was no dubious delay in her accusation. This wasn’t like the infamous Columbia University “Mattress Girl” case where Emma Sulkowicz waited several months to claim Paul Nungesser had raped her. No, Erica Kinsman went to the hospital and reported that she was raped, an accusation the Tallahassee police were required to investigate. The alleged inadequacy of that investigation, and claims that police and university officials conspired to protect Jameis Winston, are the real issue in this case. But does anyone want to dig down into the, uh, racial subtext of this case? Is it merely a coincidence that the producers of this documentary focused so much attention on a blonde girl claiming she was raped by a black man?

We could speculate about such factors. We could wonder what an 18-year-old girl expects will happen when she goes back to the apartment of a guy she met in a bar. We can speculate what a 6-foot-4, 227-pound star athlete like Jameis Winston might have expected to happen in that situation. It is reasonable to speculate that (a) his expectations and her expectations were not exactly the same, and (b) Erica Kinsman was not prepared to deal with the consequences of her own decisions.

Are such speculations inappropriate? Perhaps. Yet if CNN wants to generate a “national conversation about sexual assault on college campuses,” they cannot silence the voices of those who see these kinds of reasonable doubts. And let the record show that there have been allegations that Jameis Winston was the target of a shakedown:

Jameis Winston’s lawyer has fired off a letter to Florida State University … claiming the woman who accused his client of rape demanded $7 MILLION to buy her silence.
David Cornwell, the lawyer for the Heisman Trophy winner, sent a letter to FSU, saying Winston will fully cooperate with the University’s ongoing investigation into the handling of the rape charges. The alleged victim claims the University engaged in sexual discrimination by sweeping her claims under the rug to protect its prized athlete.
According to the letter — obtained by TMZ Sports — the alleged victim’s lawyer, Patricia Carroll, demanded $7 MIL to settle her client’s claims against FSU and Winston, telling Cornwell, “If we settle, you will never hear from my client or me again — in the press or anywhere.”
Cornwell says he rejected her offer and 4 days later she went to the media.
Cornwell also says Carroll claimed her client’s sexual encounter had to be rape, because she would never sleep with a “black boy.” Fact is … the alleged victim’s boyfriend at the time was black. The criminal case fell apart, partly because the alleged victim had semen from 2 different men on her shorts.

Will CNN address that claim in their “national conversation”?

Probably not. Because they don’t really want a conversation.




 

Category: CNN, Sex Trouble

Comments

39 Responses to “‘Rape Culture’ as Stalinism: Propaganda Tactics by ‘Hunting Ground’ Makers”

  1. RS
    November 20th, 2015 @ 9:33 am

    You need to edit and replace “Wilson” with “Winston.”

  2. RS
    November 20th, 2015 @ 9:34 am

    There are a few places where the edits are needed.

  3. RS
    November 20th, 2015 @ 9:40 am

    Specifically, this paragraph:

    The producers of this documentary claim that the Jameis Wilson case is emblematic of a larger “rape culture” on our nation’s university campuses. If female students are indeed routinely victimized by such an “epidemic” of sexual assault, we might suppose, The Hunting Ground‘s producers would have many clear-cut cases to choose from and, by devoting a major segment of their film to the Jameis Wilson case, they imply that the failure of officials to punish the FSU star athlete is self-evidently an injustice. (Emphasis added.)

  4. RS
    November 20th, 2015 @ 9:42 am

    And this:

    And let me repeat again: The issue is not whether Jameis Wilson is innocent, but whether the case is presented accurately in The Hunting Ground. (Emphasis added.)

    Sorry for being a pedant.

  5. robertstacymccain
    November 20th, 2015 @ 9:43 am

    Fixed that. Thanks for the catch.

  6. RS
    November 20th, 2015 @ 9:59 am

    No problem. Delete the above comments, if you wish.

  7. Jeanette Victoria
    November 20th, 2015 @ 10:08 am

    We now live in a culture were LIES are used routinely and if one doesn’t believe the lies then one becomes marginalized and demonized. Really, is there much hope for a culture like that?

  8. DrGreatCham
    November 20th, 2015 @ 10:12 am

    Who can forget this golden moldie?:

    http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324600704578405280211043510

  9. DrGreatCham
    November 20th, 2015 @ 10:15 am

    Nope:

    http://www.thefrisky.com/2013-04-18/guy-accused-of-sexual-misconduct-at-college-his-mom-pens-victim-blaming-wall-street-journal-op-ed/

  10. robertstacymccain
    November 20th, 2015 @ 10:18 am

    Some lies are more equal than others.

  11. PeterP
    November 20th, 2015 @ 10:18 am

    Duke Lacrosse!

  12. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    November 20th, 2015 @ 10:25 am

    I hear there is a hell of a ‘hunting ground’ in Syria and Iraq: Yazidi girls make the best sex slaves for ISIS brethern hopped on amphetamines.

  13. Dana
    November 20th, 2015 @ 11:17 am

    Here is our esteemed host’s money line:

    CNN is dedicated to “advancing the national conversation,” even if it has to tell lies to do it.

    Was it all that long ago that Dan Rather was retired early, two senior executives were resigned and Mary Mapes was just plain fired for presenting a 60 Minutes episode which relied on a forged document. Some at CBS tried to make the “fake but accurate” argument that the story being told, that Lt George W Bush was receiving special treatment in the Texas Air National Guard, even if the documents provided by a political enemy of President Bush weren’t any good. Now, CNN is going to do the exact same thing, present a one-sided story when they know that the facts do not support the narrative.

    How can this be good for either CNN or the narrative the feminists want to push? Once this is aired, all sorts of stories are going to be published showing the factual errors, and this has to hurt Teh Narrative.

  14. Southern Air Pirate
    November 20th, 2015 @ 12:19 pm

    Not the first time CNN tried to push a narrative. Remember Peter Arnett and his “we used nerve agents against the Vietnamese story in the late 90s?
    Yea, full of falsified data and one single source who was shaky as hell, but whatever right? Got to get that paycheck for the dirty laundry. Even if it ain’t truly dirty laundry.

  15. Ilion
    November 20th, 2015 @ 12:37 pm

    “But does anyone want to dig down into the, uh, racial subtext of this case? Is it merely a coincidence that the producers of this documentary focused so much attention on a [bottle] blonde girl claiming she was raped by a black man?”
    Hell. Not only is she not a virtuous woman, she’s not even a blonde.

  16. Finrod Felagund
    November 20th, 2015 @ 12:54 pm

    I am encouraged that the vast bulk of the comments to that story excoriate the author, and rightly so.

  17. Finrod Felagund
    November 20th, 2015 @ 12:58 pm

    The world could use more people like you, pedants that aren’t assholes.

  18. Fail Burton
    November 20th, 2015 @ 2:16 pm

    This once again poses the larger question of why people are so passionate about an ideology – an anti-oppression movement – which is supposedly spurred on by facts but whose adherents just as passionately refuse debate because they have no facts.

    The answer lies in what is at the heart of this movement and that is a con game based on hate. If you have an ideology which is willing to change laws until men break them then changing reality itself until men look bad is a no-brainer.

    In Nazi Germany the Reich changed laws to suit their views of Jews and the American South changed laws for blacks. These Third Wave Feminists are willing to change laws for “toxic masculinity” based on using statistical anomalies in a wide variety of public arenas to “prove” men hate women. Demography equals supremacy is a classic tactic to demonize people. It’s like saying the NHL is a KKK. Any arena men or whites dominate instantly becomes proof of immorality. Unfortunately that logic is never used the other way around and so the NBA and women’s romance novels escape scrutiny by reason of an Orwellian black hole of circular logic where the “morality” of “oppressed” women and non-white has been so firmly established there can be no suspicions cast on them.

  19. DeadMessenger
    November 20th, 2015 @ 4:09 pm

    Nobody’s going to read the followup stories, because they’re written by Rapey Right Wing White Men. And Ashe Schow will be marginalized like she always is by liberals, because Narrative.

    The propaganda will have found its audience and cannot be unheard. It will enter the zeitgeist and then end of story. And wikipedia will remain tainted, because it’s always been tainted, and liberals love a good tainting, so long as it advances their fairyland narrative.

  20. DeadMessenger
    November 20th, 2015 @ 4:16 pm

    “Why are you hair shaming me? You’re so mean! Once I was traumatized by a bad cut, and had to get therapy for years, and I still have PTSD. I feel triggered, and I need Robert Stacy McCain to provide a safe space on this blog! My attorney will see to that, rest assured. Or else pay me $3MM, and I’ll go away, and you’ll never hear from me again.”

  21. Ilion
    November 20th, 2015 @ 4:29 pm

    Now *you* have triggered me with memories of my horrible hair cut … done to me just before school pictures were taken.

    I fond my “safe space” by burrowing to the back of the under-the-stairs closet and crying my eyes out.

  22. DeadMessenger
    November 20th, 2015 @ 4:43 pm

    Patriarchs cannot be triggered. Only oppressed classes can be triggered, of which I am one.

    Help, help, I’m being repressed!

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fxGqcCeV3qk

  23. Adobe_Walls
    November 20th, 2015 @ 6:11 pm

    Or even if they are assholes.

  24. Adobe_Walls
    November 20th, 2015 @ 6:12 pm

    Not much.

  25. Jeanette Victoria
    November 20th, 2015 @ 6:25 pm

    Insensitive brutes not a single trigger warning

  26. Fail Burton
    November 20th, 2015 @ 7:18 pm

    Feminists see fleas only where they want to.

  27. Matt_SE
    November 20th, 2015 @ 9:04 pm

    I’m getting the feeling more and more that the left is becoming unhinged (er…more so than usual). I think they see their narrative unraveling worldwide; see themselves being proven to be fools and their egos can’t handle it.
    There are many things progressives can swallow in the name of The Cause, but they will not tolerate being made to look like rubes. Their self-esteem is the center of the universe.

  28. Matt_SE
    November 20th, 2015 @ 9:07 pm

    Uh oh, you said the word “trigger.” That triggered me. Oh! I said it again!

  29. Ilion
    November 20th, 2015 @ 10:26 pm

    But, I have no children of my own, so I’m no one’s patriarch.

    Plus, about 1/4 of my ancestors were Red, so my Victimization Points ™ trump yours.

  30. Ilion
    November 20th, 2015 @ 10:28 pm

    Man. I’ll bet watching the Roy Rogers Show was a no-go at your house.

  31. Ilion
    November 20th, 2015 @ 10:29 pm

    Can you blame them. If they saw fleas where they are, they’d have to avoid mirrors.

  32. DeadMessenger
    November 20th, 2015 @ 11:38 pm

    I think not. 1/4 of my ancestors are of the Weyanoke/Nottoway/Tuscarora tribes of Granville Co, NC. In fact, speaking of my Native origins, one scholar writes, “This is why these families are so interrelated across state and county borders because of centuries of documented intermarriage.”

    Plus, another 1/4 of my ancestors are crazed Scots, and look what happened in Braveheart. We were totally oppressed. The remaining 1/2 came through a long line of German Lutheran ministers. This mixture ought to explain a lot about why I’m the way I am. 😀

    AND, fully half of my ancestors are oppressed women, like me, lol.

  33. Jeanette Victoria
    November 21st, 2015 @ 8:32 am

    I was just reminded of M Scott Pecks’ book People of the Lie……describes progressive to a T

  34. Jeanette Victoria
    November 21st, 2015 @ 8:32 am

    I was just reminded of M Scott Pecks’ book People of the Lie……describes progressive to a T

  35. Jeanette Victoria
    November 21st, 2015 @ 8:34 am

    Another person with crazy Scot ancestors.

  36. Jeanette Victoria
    November 21st, 2015 @ 8:34 am

    Another person with crazy Scot ancestors.

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  38. News of the Week (November 22nd, 2015) | The Political Hat
    November 22nd, 2015 @ 4:57 pm

    […] “Rape Culture” as Stalinism: Propaganda Tactics by “Hunting Ground” Makers Even while the new movie Trumbo engages in a whitewash of a notorious Communist, dishonest Stalin-era Soviet propaganda tactics have been given a new digital-age update by feminists […]

  39. Ilion
    November 23rd, 2015 @ 8:04 pm

    “AND, fully half of my ancestors are oppressed women”

    Now, just hold on a minute here! I have it on good authority that fully half my ancestors were also oppressed women (*), so you don’t get any more Victim Points on that score than I do.

    (*) If you recall the old Virginia Slims commercial with the “old timey” woman pulling the plow herself, that was my grandmother!

    “In fact, speaking of my Native origins …”

    This woman is my ancestress (by marriage, at least, even if not by direct genetics), and thus I am distantly related to her cousin. Most of my Ward cousins were shipped out west during the Trail of Tears (and several died on the way).

    I’m descended from some who didn’t get shipped west (and some of whom served in the Union Army during the so-called Civil War) — which facts, decades later, were used to prevent them being entered on the various Rolls which were used as the basis for settling Cherokee collective and individual claims agains the federal government.

    “Plus, another 1/4 of my ancestors are crazed Scots,”

    Aren’t those the people who oppressed my Irish ancestors? some of whom were so oppressed that they wouldn’t even admit to being Irish.

    And while 1/4 my ancestors may not have been crazed Scots, some of them were Scots. Plus, others were Welsh, and they’ve been oppressed since soon after the Normans began oppressing my Anglo-Saxon ancestors.

    “ and look what happened in Braveheart.”

    My brother looks like Mel Gibson. The resemblance to Mel’s character in Braveheart was spooky.

    “The remaining 1/2 came through a long line of German …”

    Germans! I’m pretty sure those are the people who oppressed my Jewish ancestors.

    “… German Lutheran …”

    And possibly chased my German ancestors to these shores.

    OK, so I’m a mutt … and thereore, oppressed.