Documentary Review: December
"My Neighbour the Rapist" Link
In July of 2018, the BBC released a 45 minute documentary chronicling the rape crisis which currently plagues, among many others, South African township, Diepsloot. The township's rapists rape endemically and with impunity, and the community goes unprotected by law enforcement officers (according to foreignpolicy.com, "National Police Commissioner Lt. Gen. Khehla Sitole told South African members of Parliament that there is a deficit of 62,000 police officers across the country." The rapists have caused HIV and AIDS epidemics throughout townships just like Diepsloot, and townspeople have started taking the law into their own hands. "My Neighbour the Rapist" covers the desperation and isolation which has led to a new rise in vigilantism-- vigilantism which promotes an extermination of rape (and thus an extermination of the rapists themselves). In places like Diepsloot, rapists are being killed in town squares, at the hands of their (rightfully incensed) neighbors. The film leaves unanswered the question of the morality of these vigilante's actions, and the watcher is compelled to consider the situation's subjective ethicality. Living in a place so different to Diepsloot, I feel invariably separated from the things I'm seeing on the screen in front of me. At one point in the film, the interviewer sits down with two of the township's self-acknowledged rapists, who spoke disgustingly nonchalantly about the execution of their vile acts against women. It was clear that it wasn't necessary for these rapists to hide what they'd been doing; they felt invincible, secure in the knowledge that they would go entirely un-prosecuted by the law and would stay, comfortably, within the good graces of their friends and family. It seemed reasonable for these vigilantes to want to remove these criminals from their positions of perceived supremacy and self-aggrandizement. It was a hard film to watch, but one which encouraged deeper contemplation about societal social contracts, abandonment, and human nature. I'm still undecided.
In July of 2018, the BBC released a 45 minute documentary chronicling the rape crisis which currently plagues, among many others, South African township, Diepsloot. The township's rapists rape endemically and with impunity, and the community goes unprotected by law enforcement officers (according to foreignpolicy.com, "National Police Commissioner Lt. Gen. Khehla Sitole told South African members of Parliament that there is a deficit of 62,000 police officers across the country." The rapists have caused HIV and AIDS epidemics throughout townships just like Diepsloot, and townspeople have started taking the law into their own hands. "My Neighbour the Rapist" covers the desperation and isolation which has led to a new rise in vigilantism-- vigilantism which promotes an extermination of rape (and thus an extermination of the rapists themselves). In places like Diepsloot, rapists are being killed in town squares, at the hands of their (rightfully incensed) neighbors. The film leaves unanswered the question of the morality of these vigilante's actions, and the watcher is compelled to consider the situation's subjective ethicality. Living in a place so different to Diepsloot, I feel invariably separated from the things I'm seeing on the screen in front of me. At one point in the film, the interviewer sits down with two of the township's self-acknowledged rapists, who spoke disgustingly nonchalantly about the execution of their vile acts against women. It was clear that it wasn't necessary for these rapists to hide what they'd been doing; they felt invincible, secure in the knowledge that they would go entirely un-prosecuted by the law and would stay, comfortably, within the good graces of their friends and family. It seemed reasonable for these vigilantes to want to remove these criminals from their positions of perceived supremacy and self-aggrandizement. It was a hard film to watch, but one which encouraged deeper contemplation about societal social contracts, abandonment, and human nature. I'm still undecided.
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