The Accused

I screened Jonathan Kaplan's The Accused(1988) in class yesterday. We watched this in conjunction with chapters from Diana Scully's Understanding Sexual Violence.

The movie is about prosecuting a gang rape case, and it explores a number of significant cultural issues about how we understand rape, particularly rape myths that blame the victim.

It's kind of a straight forward issue-y movie that in some ways isn't very interesting. Jodie Foster's anger and vulnerability as the rape victim were very well portrayed, but I guess courtroom dramas never really totally do it for me.

I first saw The Accused when it came out. I was in college and it seemed at the time that feminists were very vocal about bringing sexual violence against women to national attention; that young women were particularly aware of the significant sexism inherent in rape myths. In a way the movie did not hold up after twenty years because somehow this issue has become less socially/culturally relevant. I wonder how the young men and women in my class received this (I'll find out, of course, tomorrow).