Assassination Nation modernizes the Salem witch trials by simple substitution: witchcraft is replaced with black hat computer hacking; the women and men put on trial in 17th-century Salem are replaced with high school students; and the courtrooms of colonial America are replaced with the modern-day courts of social media and the internet, where people are unjustly put on trial every day. The film also deftly modernizes the hysteria that surrounded the supposed evils of witchcraft by portraying the victims’ accusers in the film as not only misogynistic, but homophobic and transphobic as well.
In addition to these modernizations, the film further Americanizes the hysteria—the angry mob brandishes American flags, is heavily armed, and the local police are complicit in the violence. The Salem witch trials are seen by many as being distinctly American despite the fact that they were largely a remnant of a then fading part of European culture. Assassination Nation, from its title to its flag-waving vigilantes, leaves no doubt about which society it is criticizing.
However, the film’s modernizations don’t eliminate the themes commonly found in works based loosely on the Salem witch trials. In Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible, for example, society’s mistrust of young women is weaponized to satisfy a personal need for vengeance. The modernizations in Assassination Nation adapt this theme, adding 21st-century elements to it: computer geek Marty capitalizes on the fictional Salem’s misogynistic hate for Lily (Odessa Young) in an attempt to save himself from vigilantes searching for the hacker that has been publishing people’s private photos.
Assassination Nation Is A Rallying Call Against Injustice
Throughout the film, Lily and her close friends Em, Sarah, and Bex, a transgender girl, are shown to be independent and vocal freethinkers who are not afraid to talk about sex and sexuality. They are persecuted and shamed at every turn for these qualities, which should instead be applauded. Lily’s jealous boyfriend, Mark (Bill Skarsgård), repeatedly calls her a whore and a slut simply because she is not afraid to talk about sex with her friends. The principal of her school criticizes her drawing of a nude woman masturbating: he calls it pornography, explicit, extreme—she calls it real life and explains to him that the drawing is a critique of society’s unattainable expectations of perfection for women.
When nude baby photos of the principal’s daughter are leaked from his personal computer, he is accused of being a pedophile. Lily defends the principal in a conversation with her parents, saying, “Nudity isn’t inherently sexual. And it’s the same thing with these photos: they’re not sexual—it’s you guys that are making them sexual.” Her parents don’t take her argument seriously, and her father accuses her of playing devil’s advocate. This persecution and incredulity is precisely what leads to Lily being falsely accused.
At the film’s midpoint, the hacker leaks nearly half the town’s private photos, including those of Lily’s older male neighbor, Nick (Joel McHale), with whom she has been flirting. To her horror, Nick’s leak includes the anonymous sexy selfies she has been sending him. Mark’s violence then takes a turn for the worse when he discovers the photos are of her. He and his friends attack her, take pictures of her body and publish them, revealing her identity to the entire town. She faces harsh consequences of this vengeance: her mother locks her out of the house, and she is nearly raped in broad daylight.
One week later, Salem is in chaos—the vigilantes torture Marty; he lies about Lily being the black hat hacker; and the angry mob, including the high school football team, converge on Lily, intent on murdering her. Lily and her friends emerge victorious in the final fight of Assassination Nation; however, it is not the final fight against injustice. Right before the true hacker is revealed, Lily makes a final statement to her pursuers in an online video where she says she is prepared to lay her life down for the cause, stating, “You may kill me—but you can’t kill us all”.