# "The Hunt:" A movie about hunting "deplorables" for fun
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunt-a-movie-about-hunting-deplorables-for-fun/838385
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Tags:** movies
**Created:** [August 9, 2019, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunt-a-movie-about-hunting-deplorables-for-fun/838385 "2019-08-09T01:50:45Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2019, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunt-a-movie-about-hunting-deplorables-for-fun/838385/1 "2019-08-09T01:50:45Z")
NBC Universal Pictures is filming a movie in which [people to get to stalk and shoot “deplorables” for fun. Titled “The Hunt,” it stars Hilary Swank,](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ads-pulled-hunt-wake-mass-shootings-1229829) but its ads have been temporarily pulled in wake of the El Paso and Dayton shootings. The [studio still plans to go forward with its release, though - September 27.](https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/nbc-universal-pictures-the-hunt-release-backlash?fbclid=IwAR1kGKwQe1u5I0DVoXCDYawtYVx42rZ7LEkUOJmQnaht1lYL-IasB9I7bLc)
(thread is more Cafe than Elections, but probably intersects)
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### Author:  [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2019, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunt-a-movie-about-hunting-deplorables-for-fun/838385/2 "2019-08-09T01:55:10Z")
That sounds like an incredibly bad idea for a movie. Or a book. Or anything, really. I can’t believe they got funding at all, let alone that they got people to act in it, etc… Show some sense, people.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2019, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunt-a-movie-about-hunting-deplorables-for-fun/838385/3 "2019-08-09T01:57:12Z")
Wow, that just sounds like a terrible idea no matter how you look at it.
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### Author:  [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2019, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunt-a-movie-about-hunting-deplorables-for-fun/838385/4 "2019-08-09T01:58:21Z")
Why? You’ve seen _The Most Dangerous Game,_ haven’t you?
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlLIquCiyUw)
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### Author:  [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2019, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunt-a-movie-about-hunting-deplorables-for-fun/838385/5 "2019-08-09T02:02:20Z")
I didn’t realize that Hilary Swank’s career had fallen that low. It looks like the type of movie that usually doesn’t star anyone who has ever been off the “C”-list.
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### Author:  [@Alpha\_Twit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alpha_Twit)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2019, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunt-a-movie-about-hunting-deplorables-for-fun/838385/6 "2019-08-09T02:04:33Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#):
>
> I didn’t realize that Hilary Swank’s career had fallen that low. It looks like the type of movie that usually doesn’t star anyone who has ever been off the “C”-list.
It’s possible she simply supports the idea of the project.
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### Author:  [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2019, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunt-a-movie-about-hunting-deplorables-for-fun/838385/7 "2019-08-09T02:50:15Z")
Meh, it looks and sounds terrible in many ways but people seemed to like The Purge movies, as well as ton of other garbage, so whatever.
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### Author:  [@Sefton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sefton)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2019, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunt-a-movie-about-hunting-deplorables-for-fun/838385/8 "2019-08-09T03:13:04Z")
That’s it, Hilary. We’re _through_. I could live with you ignoring my emails, phone calls, and skywriting, but this is the last straw.
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2019, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunt-a-movie-about-hunting-deplorables-for-fun/838385/9 "2019-08-09T03:28:40Z")
Have people, including the OP, actually read the article the OP linked to? You might be interested in some of the content.
> [@](#):
>
> A high-level insider says top executives want to stand by Blum, one of the studio’s most prolific and successful producers, as well as filmmaker Craig Zobel, and see the project as a satire addressing an issue of great social importance. …
>
> a Universal executive, who says the movie “is meant to show what a stupid, crazy world we live in,” adding, “It might even be more powerful now.”
AFAIK, nobody outside the insiders has read the script or seen any footage. (Even Fox News had to make this disclaimer.) People are going crazy based on a soundbite.
Sure, it might be exploitative, awful, insulting, and just plain wrong. Or it might make an important point about guns and our society in an entertaining way that would reach people. The only thing we can know for sure is that condemning something based on absolutely no information is the worst way to proceed.
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### Author:  [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2019, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunt-a-movie-about-hunting-deplorables-for-fun/838385/10 "2019-08-09T03:31:14Z")
Shades of [Turkey Shoot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey_Shoot_(1982_film)), beloved of Quentin Tarantino but not so much by anyone watching it without drugs. Strong drugs.
Could we argue that splatter flicks like _Texas Chainsaw Massacre_, _Halloween_, _Mothers Day_ and so on already represent hunting of normo-Democrat types by ‘deporables’ and this is an enviable attempt to re-balance the genre?
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### Author:  [@Sefton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sefton)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2019, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunt-a-movie-about-hunting-deplorables-for-fun/838385/11 "2019-08-09T03:35:54Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#):
>
> AFAIK, nobody outside the insiders has read the script or seen any footage. (Even Fox News had to make this disclaimer.) People are going crazy based on a soundbite.
The [casting](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8244784/) supports the article. All the main characters are white and at least two of them (Ethan Suplee and Macon Blair) have played ignorant hicks in the past.
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### Author:  [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2019, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunt-a-movie-about-hunting-deplorables-for-fun/838385/12 "2019-08-09T03:48:02Z")
It’s obvious to everyone that this is a grotesque right-wing fantasy, right? I mean, the “deplorables” comment is remembered far more by the right than by the left; and the old-as-shit trope about elites hunting regular Joes is always and 100% on the side of the regular Joes, who end up killing the elites.
This sounds like a garbage fantasy. Come on, Hollywood. I know you’re cynical, but this cynical?
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### Author:  [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2019, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunt-a-movie-about-hunting-deplorables-for-fun/838385/13 "2019-08-09T04:03:29Z")
This film will be fodder (or ammo?) for more idiotic alt-righters to do more idiotic shit.
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### Author:  [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2019, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunt-a-movie-about-hunting-deplorables-for-fun/838385/14 "2019-08-09T14:03:53Z")
It seems typical of Blumhouse Productions films; low cost horror so it doesn’t have to do big box office to be profitable. Wikipedia says it cost about $18 million, which is actually a lot compared to many of their films, which often cost less than $5 million. They’ve had a winning formula.
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### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2019, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunt-a-movie-about-hunting-deplorables-for-fun/838385/15 "2019-08-09T14:21:50Z")
It sounds like “outrage marketing”. It panders to fantasies the right wing has about the left, and the idea is probably to get lots of right wingers loudly condemning it in order to advertise the film for free. And maybe to get left wingers to watch it in rebellion against the right.
It would hardly be the first time a really awful film tried to get market share by making a show of being offensive.
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### Author:  [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2019, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunt-a-movie-about-hunting-deplorables-for-fun/838385/16 "2019-08-09T14:23:43Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#):
>
> It sounds like “outrage marketing”. It panders to fantasies the right wing has about the left, and the idea is probably to get lots of right wingers loudly condemning it in order to advertise the film for free. And maybe to get left wingers to watch it in rebellion against the right.
>
> It would hardly be the first time a really awful film tried to get market share by making a show of being offensive.
I think you have it backwards: this sounds like a film marketed to the alt right. I just about guarantee that the MAGAhats will be the heroes of the film. Most Dangerous Game films NEVER vilify the hunted.
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### Author:  [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2019, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunt-a-movie-about-hunting-deplorables-for-fun/838385/17 "2019-08-09T14:30:05Z")
Here’s the plot description from Wikipedia, although I don’t know if it’s accurate. “The film follows twelve strangers, referred to as deplorables in the trailer, who mysteriously wake up in a clearing. They do not know where they are or how they got there. They discover that they have been chosen to be hunted in a game devised by a group of rich elites. The hunters gather in a remote facility called the Manor House, but their sport gets derailed when one of the hunted, Crystal (Gilpin), fights back and starts killing them one by one.” Sounds like the “deplorable” played by Betty Gilpin is the protagonist.
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### Author:  [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2019, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunt-a-movie-about-hunting-deplorables-for-fun/838385/18 "2019-08-09T14:59:25Z")
I saw the trailer for that movie. I didn’t associate “deplorables” with any political statements. I just thought they were criminals or whatever. And they were being hunted by rich people and one of the hunted starts getting back at them.
This isn’t the first movie to have this theme, not sure why it appears some of you are shocked by it or think it’s a bad idea.
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### Author:  [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2019, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunt-a-movie-about-hunting-deplorables-for-fun/838385/19 "2019-08-09T14:59:27Z")
> [@Banksiaman](#):
>
> Could we argue that splatter flicks like _Texas Chainsaw Massacre_, _Halloween_, _Mothers Day_ and so on already represent hunting of normo-Democrat types by ‘deporables’ and this is an enviable attempt to re-balance the genre?
When I first heard of this movie I actually thought, “It’s about time.” The unfortunate problem is most “deporables” lack the intellectual ability to understand this.
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### Author:  [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2019, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunt-a-movie-about-hunting-deplorables-for-fun/838385/20 "2019-08-09T15:11:53Z")
> [@Slash1972](#):
>
> I saw the trailer for that movie. I didn’t associate “deplorables” with any political statements. I just thought they were criminals or whatever. And they were being hunted by rich people and one of the hunted starts getting back at them.
You may not have associated deplorables that way, but the most famous use of the term was by Hillary Clinton in August 2016, when she said, “You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? They’re racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic – Islamophobic – you name it. And unfortunately, there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people – now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric. Now, some of those folks – they are irredeemable, but thankfully, they are not America.”
It’s hard to imagine that the film is using the word to refer to a different sort of people.
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