Explaining Those Confusing “Snowball” References In The Hunt

In the new controversial thriller, The Hunt, Justin Hartley gets blown to shreds by a grenade, a woman falls into a pit of mutilating spikes (a day shy of her birthday, no less!), and two women duke it out in one of the most intense fight sequences of the year, turning kitchen tools into deadly weapons. There’s much for gorey goodness for genre fans to enjoy, but there’s a hidden, deeper meaning beyond all the blood: The many references to George Orwell’s Animal Farm throughout the film will make any book lover feel seen, even if the movie’s characters don’t quite have a handle on their allegorical fiction. 

(Beware: Spoilers for The Hunt, ahead.)

In the film, Hilary Swank plays the intimidating Athena, CEO of her own company until she is fired from her high-profile position over satirical texts between her and her “liberal elite” friends. The viral leaked group text details the gang’s annual hunting party at “the Manor,” during which they murder the same “deplorables” who approve of their (unnamed — but you can guess) president. Athena promises she was kidding, and she was — but that doesn’t stop conservative conspiracy theorists from finding their own proof that “Manorgate” is real, and that Athena and her friends are truly evil.

Instead of, I don’t know, hiring a great public relations firm to do damage control, Athena and her friends (all of whom suffered a loss of money and reputation due to the backlash around the texts) decide to teach these conspiracy theorists a lesson: They round up 12 people who spread the Manorgate rumors on the internet and hunt them down for real. What started as a joke becomes reality. 

Crystal (Betty Gilpin), a war veteran who miraculously has the fighting skill sets of James Bond and Black Widow combined, is one of the dozen Athena chooses to be hunted during Manorgate. Towards the end of the movie, once most of the circumstances around the bizarre killings are explained, we learn that Athena has given Crystal the nickname, “Snowball.” 

At first mention, it sounds like the nickname is derived from the modern political put-down “snowflake,” which many conservatives call liberals in mainstream media arguments. Rather, it’s from Orwell’s 1945 allegorical fable about the events surrounding the Russian Revolution of 1917. The book takes place on a “Manor Farm” (get it?) which is run by Mr. Jones, a neglectful farmer whom the animals despise. Pigs Snowball and Napoleon stage a rebellion, and for a short time, the animals on the farm are happy, living under the principles of “Animalism” which declares all animals equal. (To really drive home the Animal Farm references, there’s also a real pig named Orwell running around in The Hunt.)

After the uprising, Napoleon gets greedy with power. When Snowball — who has taught the other animals to read and write — declares his plans to build a windmill and modernize the farm, Napoleon steals control, and pushes Snowball out. He spreads lies about Snowball and the other animals who defect to Snowball’s teachings. Eventually, he rewrites the key principle of Animalism to “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

In their final confrontation, Crystal asks why Athena chose the name  Snowball for her, since the Orwell character is an “idealist” who wants to make the world a better place, whereas Athena views Crystal as someone who spreads falsehoods for her own gain. Athena is surprised to learn that Crystal knows Animal Farm at all: Crystal, with her dyed blonde hair and Southern accent is, presumably, less educated and cultured than Athena, who, despite being a kidnapper and murderer, considers herself to be the upper-echelon of class. 

When Orwell wrote Animal Farm, he created Snowball as a stand-in for Leon Trotsky, and Napoleon a representation for Joseph Stalin. It’s a story about the dangers of dictatorship, published the same year as the end of World War II, which was marked by Adolf Hitler’s expanding control of Europe. 

In today’s society, however, it’s President Donald Trump, — the person that, we can presume, Athena loathes above all else — who is most often compared to Orwell’s Napoleon. Salon called Orwell’s book a “guide to the rise of authoritarianism in the Donald Trump era,” while The Washington Post cheekily compared Trump to one of the “really smart” pigs in the novel, meaning Napoleon. In 2018, author Stephen King used an Animal Farm quote about the swine dictator to criticize Trump on Twitter. 

Is this why Athena chose Snowball as Crystal’s codename? Maybe. It’s possible she sees Snowball as someone who worked with Napoleon, in this case, a stand-in for the current president. If that’s the case, though, then Athena likely hasn’t read Animal Farm, or at least, doesn’t have a great grasp on the literary material. Snowball and Napoleon are not on the same side, even if they initially start out as allies. 

Either way, this Crystal should have never been Athena’s so-called “Snowball.” Athena didn’t kidnap the woman who spread lies about her online — she kidnapped a different Crystal, who, in reality, is an innocent person sharing the same name and hometown with Athena’s real target. At the end of the day, Athena didn’t seem to care that she got the wrong woman: Her burning hatred for the ideals she believed Crystal represented was enough. 

Skewing the truth in order to better align with one’s desires is taking a page out of Napoleon’s book — and in that moment, it’s Athena who seems like the real Orwellian pig. 

The Hunt is in theaters now.