Assassination Nation
Assassination Nationmodernizes the Salem witch tryout by simple-minded transposition : witchery is replaced with black lid calculator hacking ; the women and men put on trial in 17th - 100 Salem are replaced with high schooltime students ; and the courtrooms of colonial America are supersede with the modern - day court of social media and the cyberspace , where masses are unjustly put on trial every daylight . The pic also dextrously modernizes the delirium that fence the hypothesize evil of witchery by portraying the dupe ’ accusers in the film as not only misogynous , but homophobic and transphobic as well .
In add-on to these modernization , the picture further Americanizes the hysteria — the angry gang flourish American flags , is to a great extent armed , and the local law are complicit in the violence . TheSalem hag trialsare seen by many as being distinctly American despite the fact that they were mostly a oddment of a then fading part of European acculturation . Assassination Nation , from its rubric to its flag - waving vigilance man , leaves no doubt about which society it is criticise .
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However , the photographic film ’s modernization do n’t eliminate the themes ordinarily found in works base loosely on the Salem witch trials . In Arthur Miller ’s playThe Crucible , for illustration , society ’s distrust of young cleaning woman is weaponized to satisfy a personal motivation for vengeance . The modernizations inAssassination Nationadapt this theme , adding21st - one C elementsto it : computer eccentric person Marty capitalizes on the fictional Salem ’s misogynous hate for Lily ( Odessa Young ) in an attempt to spare himself from vigilantes searching for the hacker that has been publishing people ’s private photograph .
Assassination Nation Is A Rallying Call Against Injustice
Throughout the film , Lily and her close friends Em , Sarah , and Bex , a transgender girlfriend , are shown to be independent and vocal freethinkers who are not afraid to babble out about sex and sexuality . They are persecuted and dissemble at every turn for these qualities , which should instead be applauded . Lily ’s jealous fellow , Mark ( Bill Skarsgård ) , repeatedly calls her a tart and a slut only because she is not afraid to speak about sexual urge with her friends . The school principal of her school criticizes her draftsmanship of a bare woman masturbating : he calls it pornography , denotative , extreme — she calls it real life and explain to him that the drawing is a review of society ’s unattainable expectations of beau ideal for adult female .
When naked baby exposure of the corpus ’s girl are leaked from his personal computing machine , he is accused of being a pedophile . Lily defends the principal in a conversation with her parents , saying , “ Nudity is n’t inherently intimate . And it ’s the same thing with these photos : they ’re not intimate — it ’s you guys that are making them intimate . ” Her parents do n’t take her arguing seriously , and her Father-God accuses her of playingdevil ’s pleader . This persecution and incredulity is precisely what leads to Lily being incorrectly accused .
At the cinema ’s center , the cyberpunk leaks nearly half the townspeople ’s private photos , include those of Lily ’s erstwhile manly neighbour , Nick ( Joel McHale ) , with whom she has been flirting . To her repulsion , Nick ’s leakage admit the anon. sexy selfies she has been sending him . Mark ’s wildness then takes a turn for the worse when he discovers the photos are of her . He and his friend assail her , take pictures of her body and publish them , revealing her identicalness to the entire townsfolk . She faces abrasive consequence of this vengeance : her mother locks her out of the business firm , and she is nearly raped in broad daylight .
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One week later , Salem is in chaos — the vigilantes torture Marty ; he lie about Lily being theblack hathacker ; and the angry gang , include the high schooling football game team , converge on Lily , absorbed on murdering her . Lily and her friend come forth victorious in the final fight ofAssassination Nation ; however , it is not the last fighting against injustice . correctly before the true hacker is uncover , Lily constitute a final statement to her pursuers in an on-line TV where she says she is prepared to put her animation down for the cause , stating , “ You may kill me — but you ca n’t belt down us all ” .
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