Substantive Law - Movie Review Example

This paper intends to analyze from the substantive law point of view of the unfolding events within the movie “The Accused” as written by Tom Topper in 1988 (Ebert para 1-10). The movie is a description of unfortunate happenings that involve Sarah Tobias who is the accused of luring herself into the unfortunate rape ordeal and who is accused of the same. Moreover, in a rather twisty way, the case moves from her accusation and she becomes the accuser in trying to seek justice for her own misfortune.

The movie therefore depicts that rape victims would stand to be accused in causing it to happen. The drunkards in the bar where she goes and drinks uncontrollably, shows the substantive sides of the legal movie through the abuse of Tobias rights. The drunkard men blamed the accused for first over-drunkard-ness after which she engaged in provocative dance, which leads to her rape. Under the substantive law provisions, the public (represented by the people who were drinking within the bar at the time of the happening) had the right to disciplined dance by the accused, which was not observed when the accused engaged in dancing provocatively.

On the other hand, the accused had the right to personal security as against the assault through rape and jeering by the drunkards in the bar. . Moreover, while drunk, the accused disrupts the peace of the customers who were enjoying themselves in the bar through indecent dances, which provoked the men to rape her. This was therefore offensive and the accused would be rightfully accused under the criminal law of engaging in risky behavior in the public. On her side as the defendant, Sarah would argue that she was entitled to taking alcohol in the bar just as any other adult person was.

She would justify her dance with the fact that though she was drunk, she was allowed by the law to dance and as such, she was not responsible for any possible offence she would cause the other people through her dance. She was therefore not rightfully being accused for being the cause to her rape but rather, the rapists should have been accused for physically assaulting her and emotionally hurting her through the chanting and the jeers, which encouraged her perpetrators to continue with harassing her.

On the other side of the case was the accused accusing the rapists of causing physical and emotional harm to her through the rape as well as the jeers and the chants. With the plaintiff deciding to lower the charges against the accused in the cases for “aggravated assault,” the complainant feels rather assaulted in that the case involved had the magnitude of brutal rape in front of other people. The court under the substantive law framework had the responsibility to treat the case with the seriousness of such a crime against the complainant’s rights and freedoms.

The complainant’s argument was therefore that though she as a woman who acted indecently in the bar had the right to say no to the atrocities and be heard which was not