Pencil on paper, 2015-2020
The Hunt (2020) is a sharp satirical horror-thriller that captures the raw tensions of a deeply polarized society. At its core, the film follows a group of wealthy, self-proclaimed progressive elites who orchestrate the abduction and hunting of ordinary Americans they deem irredeemable deplorables. These targets are stereotyped as gun-clinging rednecks, racists, bigots, homophobes, and conspiracy theorists—people judged not only for their views but for their class, education, looks and backgrounds. The hunters, led by a polished CEO played by Hilary Swank, convince themselves that they stand on the right side of history, making their actions not only justifiable but morally necessary. What begins as an exclusive game and a joke among the privileged quickly spirals into chaos when the prey prove far more capable than expected.
Central to the story is Crystal, a resilient woman portrayed by Betty Gilpin, whose life fits almost too neatly into the elites’ caricature of white trash. With parents lost to drugs and a history that includes military service in Afghanistan, she appears at first glance to be exactly the kind of person the hunters believe deserves elimination. Yet Crystal’s toughness, resourcefulness, and refusal to be easily categorized drive the narrative forward, exposing the fragility of the assumptions that fuel the hunt. The film excels at showing how quickly judgments are passed in today’s world, where online posts, accents, or political leanings can mark someone as beyond repair and therefore fair game. The need to hurt and feel contempt for lower classes and people who act undesirably and destructively is centuries old. Justification is the dying planet. Profiling plays an interesting part as does George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Little pig is yet more valuable than humans in this game. Pig is humanized by dressing it in a shirt, people dehumanized to pieces of meat that explode, get blown up, shot at. For the pig dying they feel sad.
What makes The Hunt particularly effective is its willingness to satirize the dehumanizing language and thinking that has become commonplace on both sides of the cultural divide. The elites casually refer to their victims with terms like tooth-deprived bigots or academically challenged racists, all while maintaining an unshakable belief in their own moral and intellectual superiority. This mirrors real-world rhetoric in which people on the “correct” side feel entitled to degrade, cancel, or even fantasize about violence against those they oppose. Kill terfs and Nazis is commonplace language. The CEO’s dismissive “It was just a joke” line when the operation leaks captures the casual gaslighting that often follows such excesses. The movie does not preach or take a simplistic partisan stance; instead, it reveals how both camps can fall into the same trap of viewing the other as less than fully human, justifying cruelty through ideology, wealth, or perceived enlightenment.
Beneath the gore and dark humor lies an uncomfortable truth about contemporary life. Society feels increasingly fractured along lines of class, politics, and culture, with hasty condemnations replacing empathy or dialogue. The film’s power comes from exaggerating these trends into grotesque horror while inviting viewers to laugh at the absurdity, even as the violence feels disturbingly plausible. In an era when podcasters discuss elite predation and conspiracy theories circulate about powerful people treating ordinary citizens as prey, The Hunt serves as both entertainment and a distorted mirror. It reminds us how easy it is to slide into the belief that certain people, once properly labeled, deserve whatever fate befalls them.
Ultimately, the movie succeeds because it trusts the audience to recognize the satire without needing heavy-handed moralizing. It portrays a world where trust is scarce and appearances deceive, where the protagonist’s hard-earned capabilities upend the expectations of her sophisticated pursuers. For anyone who has watched modern discourse descend into tribal contempt, The Hunt offers cathartic laughter alongside a sobering reflection on how divided we have truly become.
Aspect of the impoverished part of the nation, the thoughts they are expected to have or that they are uneducated, ignorate hillbillies, is what one doesn’t maybe expect educated people on the left to have, but yet again does. Crystal analysing Animal Farm to the CEO when they have their last fight: why am I Snowball, asked Crystal. Snowball is the idealist and wants a better world, you should be Snowball, says Crystal. CEO understands, she had made a mistake by thinking Crystal was unintelligeable expendable loser, who is a specimen, a representative of a lowlife without means and knows nothing of art and culture. Crystal flying private jet home eating caviar with the air hostess is a fine end note. She did have real life use for combat training.
