"Witch Hunt" is a heartbreaking documentary about the wrongful prosecution of people accused of child molestation in Bakersfield, California by an ambitious district attorney in the 1980's. Even after new evidence had been found to refute the original charges, it is not the end of their ordeals as damage coninutes to
be seen decades later.
However, there is no mention of the eerily similar McMartin Preschool case which would have lent more context to the documentary. This is worth mentioning for a couple of other reasons. First, when I watched an HBO movie called "Indictment: The McMartin Trial" starring James Woods, I believed going in that these charges were true, and watching this dramatization, I was blown away by the absurdity of it all. This comes from a presumption of guilt that exists in this country, no matter how idealistic we think we may be, especially when it concerns the most serious charges. Also, were the two cases connected or was there something in the drinking water in California at the time? So, the Bakersfield cases were not as isolated as stated in "Witch Hunt." In the end, a lot of the hysteria around incidents like these can be explained by what Bill Hicks termed Child Worship Syndrome which only shows how some people can get creepily emotional over children.
April 27, 2010
