Film Analysis: The Invisible War

Sexual Assault was not a well-established topic until the 1970’s when victims of assault started to come forward with their stories. The media played a huge part in reliving the victim’s stories and drawing forth the emotions and empathy of the public. It also played a fragment in the victim shaming and blaming because most did not believe that a survivor of sexual assault was telling the complete truth of their assault. The most well established part of mass media that tells the victim/survivor’s story in a more empowering way is movies.
The Accused (1988)
The Accused was directed by Jonathan Kaplan in 1988. The movie is based upon a true story of a victim’s story of how she was gang raped in a bar. The story takes place in the year
It was premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, where it received the United States Documentary Audience Award.
The film features interviews with veterans from multiple branches sharing their stories surrounding their assaults. The veteran’s stories showed mutual themes which include; a lack of recourse to an impartial justice system, retaliations against survivors instead of against their attackers, the absence of emotional and physical care for survivors, the unimpeded advancement of their attackers’ careers, and the forced discharge of the survivor from the service. The film documents the survivors’ attempting to continue their lives and their struggles even years after the aftermath of their assaults.
The Invisible War has such a powerful response to its audience, that even after the Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta viewed the film a few days later her issued a direct order that all sexual assault cases to be handled by senior officers at the ranks of a colonel or higher which ended the commanders adjusting these sexual assault cases within their own