Roll Red Roll is Nancy Schwartzman's incisive documentary chronicling the 2012 Steubenville, Ohio, high school rape case. Schwartzman makes it clear that such "campus" sex assaults are just as much an individual crime (committed by the actual perpetrators) as a societal one.
The circumstances of the crime are laid out by the investigating local detective coupled with video interviews of those involved. The main culprits, two juveniles by the name of Trent and Ma'lik, are eventually charged with raping and sexually abusing an intoxicated female student at three different locations over a period of a few hours.
A good deal of the evidence of the crime was uncovered by a Crime Blogger, Alexandra Goddard, who made copies of social media posts (including texts and photos made by the perpetrators themselves and their friends) and then publicized them on her blog. Not only were Trent and Ma'lik implicated but there were many disturbing posts supporting their crude boasts by other (principally male) teenagers. One video was particularly damning as this one particular teenager did everything he could to further humiliate the victim through additional crude taunts and boasts.
Equally disturbing were the reactions of many of the townspeople who minimized Trent and Malik's culpability with the usual "boys will be boys" explanations, playing down the severity of their crimes. Particularly damning was the head high school football coach's reaction-instead of at the minimum suspending Trent and Ma'lik, he was only concerned about reports that they may have been drinking alcohol-but since even those lesser allegations were unproven, and to accept them may have suggested they were guilty of the more serious sexual assault charges--he decided to keep them on the team.
Even some of the teenage girls in the town blamed the victim, arguing that by getting drunk, she invited the assault upon her. The push back got so ugly that Crime Blogger Goddard became subject to numerous death threats.
Nonetheless, the publicity enabled some victims of sexual assault to come out of the woodwork and there were rallies pushing back against the views of many of their largely openly hostile or indifferent neighbors. The victims' cause however was not helped by the aid of the notorious Anonymous hackers. With their scary Guy Fawkes masks, they provided a menacing presence to the denizens of the solidly conservative town, who were already suspicious of those who were seeking to make a cause célèbre of such an explosive issue.
Ultimately Trent and Ma'lik were found guilty in family court and sentenced to two years and one year placement, respectively. The rest of those involved were not charged due to their cooperation; others could not be criminally charged, despite the fact that they were guilty of uttering awful things designed to humiliate the victim further.
Did these two kids learn anything at all? Ma'lik (who was more the follower between the two) appeared to express genuine remorse as he broke down in court. On the other hand, Trent, made a simple perfunctory apology, mainly apologizing for disseminating pictures of the victim over the internet (not for committing the sexual assaults).
When a community decides to protect perpetrators and vilify their victims, there's something very wrong here. Nancy Schwartzman's exposé does a great deal in getting at the truth but also suggesting we have a long way to go in defining just and proper behavior for male adolescents when their community is still bent on protecting them, despite being quite aware of their grievous and inexcusable conduct toward the opposite sex.
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