The Invisible War Introduction

This is just a rough introduction of what I am trying to aim for.
     Kirby Dick’s revealing documentary The Invisible War emotionally exposes serious moral and political injustices that have constituted the United States military judicial system since women were allowed in uniform. Since the beginning of the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, U.S. servicewomen, more than ever before, have become subjects of sexual brutality and victims of violent rape crimes by fellow soldiers; their male comrades have become the enemy. Premiering at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, The Invisible War gained top viewer recognition and won the Audience Award for Documentary.
     Film scholar Bill Nichols suggests that in documentary film, one such as The Invisible War, how the logic and perspective is conveyed defines its voice (p. 69). The voice of The Invisible War takes on the logic and perspective of needing to establish and maintain equal constitutional rights for both male and female beings in the military justice system. The voice Dick portrays is insightful and infuriating. Through the display of textual facts from government surveys about the growing rape attacks in the military, and through personal stories from victims who suffered rape or sexual assault while serving in the armed forces via interviews, Dick’s voice for this film aims to strictly appeal to audiences’ emotions. It is through the editing choices of the recorded interviews where Dick subjectively emphasizes the seriousness of the violent crime by focusing solely on the emotional, psychological and spiritual breakdown of the rape victims and their families as they struggle for justice in this rape epidemic.
     Dick seems successful with achieving his goal to inform. However, as he informs through personal stories and professional interviews, he also reveals the deeper, darker and core problem to this heavy issue. Comments quickly mentioned in the film about how rapists “are serious criminals” and rapists “stalk their prey,” implies a mold that a rapist fit—and therefore involves complex psychological and personal history issues of the perpetrator—which is completely ignored in the voice. There is no direct definition given of the term “rape” in the film, and there is no mention of rape being a violent crime solely for power and control of another. Interviews conducted outside of the film itself as well as the film’s production notes and other written statements reveal a much deeper issue of the misogyny and traditional military culture—or male domination and control—however, that is exactly why there is a military rape epidemic.