Over on A Voice for Men, noted human rights advocate Paul Elam has responded to criticism from a fellow antifeminist internet warrior in his typically logical, understated manner. Some highlights:
He’s whining, about jack shit, on behalf of a misandric cunt. …
Matt Forney just jerked off all over his bed sheets. And now it appears he is standing there like a virtual ‘tard, grinning about it and drooling.
At issue? Mr. Forney wrote a post some months back critical of the faux “offenders registry” called Register-Her, a pet project of A Voice for Men’s JohnTheOther in which female “bigots” – that is, feminists – are “registered” as “offenders” alongside female criminals. (Forney’s post originally appeared on the thankfully now-defunct blog In Mala Fide, but Elam only discovered it after Forney posted it on his own blog.)
In particular, Forney disagreed with Elam’s decision to “register” actress Katherine Heigl as a “bigot” after she made a Funny or Die PSA about spaying dogs and cats. The problem, for Elam and crew? That in the video she pretended to be a crazed testicle-hater obsessed with cutting off all balls, including those of human males. The AVFM crowd whipped themselves into a frenzy over this one, with Elam’s Number One Stooge JohnTheOther writing, in all seriousness:
Katherine Heigl’s supposedly humorous claim; that her advocacy of neutering pets is an outlet for her desire to chop human male’s balls off shouldn’t be taken out of context. The context being that she’s a creature of hollywood who lives in california – the same state which earlier this year saw Katherine Becker cut her husband’s penis off for the “offense” of wanting a divorce. …
We know it’s a joke. That’s the point. It’s both shocking, and plausibly deniable. It also wouldn’t be funny to most people if there was not an element of truth in it. Heigl’s “joke” included the word “yet”. This is an obvious nod to her awareness of increasing cultural acceptance of male-targeted violence and mutilation.
No, I have no fucking clue what on earth he means by that bit about the word “yet.” He goes on:
Male targeting violence persists and escalates because in the unconscious reptile corner of men’s minds, they think nodding along with whatever vile , violent, murderous shit the nearest vacuous barbie utters in her you-go-girl bubble of social enablement might get him approved for access to the magic vagina.
Like Elam, JohnTheOther apparently writes all his posts for AVFM with steam literally coming out of his ears.
Here’s the video in question. (Sorry, it won’t embed.) As you can see, the real butt of the joke is Heigl herself, and more generally narcissistic celebs who glom onto fashionable causes for all the wrong reasons. It’s not really a castration joke; it’s an actress making fun of her own reputation for narcissism. (And the video is also a serious attempt to raise awareness about the need to spay and neuter pets.)
Forney, in the blog post that roused Elam’s incredibly easy-to-rouse fury, suggested that AVFM’s claimed outrage about Heigl’s video was both silly and a bit unconvincing:
Were you honestly offended? Did that video get you mad? It didn’t get me mad. I thought it was stupid and unfunny, but aside from that, I don’t care about it. After watching it, I just shrugged my shoulders and closed the tab.
Forney went on to suggest that any MRAs who were offended by the video were, well, basically a bunch of “phony pussies,” a virtual mirror-image of the Politically Correct:
In trying to gin up indignation over Heigl’s ball-cutting comments, Register-Her.com and the MRM are seeking to perpetuate our politically correct regime, not burn it to the ground and piss on its ashes. …
The men’s rights movement wants men to keep picking at their scabs, to wallow in self-pity for all eternity. That’s not a satisfying goal for me, or countless other men who want to rise out of the mud. Until MRAs address this issue, their movement will be stuck in neutral, regardless of their occasional victories.
Yes, that’s right. A dude posting on In Mala Fide — which was known for its blatant misogyny and its proud racism, among other terrible things — is the closest we’ve got to a “voice of reason” in this particular debate.
Elam, an MRA scab-picker extraordinaire, lashed out in barely coherent rage to Forney’s charges:
[T]his kind of chicken-shit nit picking by a supposed sympathizer is far more pathetic that the Heigl video could have ever hoped to be.
Why would the Heigl video hope to be pathetic? Also, how exactly can a video hope?
I write people like you off all the time. But then you have the gumption to parrot a bunch of keyboard courage about crushing your enemies? And you make fun of guys who get fucked over by the system? What a laugh. I don’t mean what you said, but you, personally.
You may be every bit as brave as your words. I doubt it, but I don’t know. What I do know is that your article is a misandric piece of shit. Based on your rhetoric, though, I would lay dollars to doughnuts you have never crushed so much as a Dixie Cup at a water cooler. Your kind of man never does.
Says the man whose entire life is devoted to bashing out angry internet screeds, and whose only known attempt at real-world organizing collapsed before it really even began.
You just shit on those out there taking the hits and doing the work, likely because you lack the conviction to stick your neck out for anything really important to anyone but yourself.
Personally, I would not talk to MRA’s about picking scabs until you quit being one.
I’m not sure if Elam is calling Forney a “scab” as a sort of random insult referring back to his mention of scabs, or if Elam thinks that Forney is a “scab” violating some imaginary MRA “sex strike” – or “cock blockade” – by not hating on the ladies every second of every day. I’m guessing it’s the latter, because Elam really is that delusional.
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EDITED TO ADD: Matt Forney has responded to Elam’s little tantrum here. At the end, he says this:
And since I can’t end this post without mentioning that David Futrelle has (reluctantly) defended me on this issue, mainly because Elam’s neckbeard fans are going to brandish Futrelle’s article as proof that I’m an evil crypto-feminist racist mangina, let me just say that Futrelle is an even more pathetic bitch than Elam, and I don’t want his support.
Don’t worry, lil dude. I don’t actually support you. I simply agree with you on a couple of points: that Elam is a total drama king, and that anyone who believes (or purports to believe) that Heigl’s video is something to get ENRAGED about is a twit.
The link to human castration leaves little to the imagination when Katherine hands her husbands testicles in a jar back to him so he can be “allowed” to have a night out with the boys ( twice in one week even) . Can you imagine Michael Douglas , giving Catherine Zeta Jone her ovaries back in a jar to have a night out with the girls, or a list of the “cons” of ovaries , would that pass as humour. You have excelled in idealogical blindness this time manboobz!
Holy shit, you know what else happened in California? The Manson family’s murders! Clearly Heigl is attempting to start a race war by the cutting off of balls. It’s a prelude to invasion.
Helter Skelter!!!1
Greg, Billy Crystal and Danny Devito appeared in a movie called Throw Momma From the Train (directed by Devito), in which they attempted to, well, throw momma from the train. It was a comedy. No one protested it, because no one was goofy enough to think that either Crystal or Devito thought actually throwing mothers from trains was funny.
It’s always fascinating when they fight. “You sound like our enemies! You know, those intolerable people who try not to perpetuate injustice with their actions and speech! Gross!” “Oh yeah, well you don’t hate women enough!” “Violent rhetoric!!” “Even more violent rhetoric!!1!”
Simmer down, fellas.
For the record it is not a fashionable cause for Heigl. She has an animal welfare charity founded in the name of her late brother. 6 to 7 million animals are killed each year in US shelters which is not only morally reprehensible but makes no economic sense either because tax payers foot the bill to care for the animals, feed them, and ultimately euthanize them. There are better ways – in particular spay/neuter which reduces the number of animals being abandoned in shelters. Her clever PSA which got a lot of attention – some of it from lunatics like the people in your article was for spay and neuter but I am guessing “I Hate Balls and Ovaries” probably wants as catchy and the visuals dont really work. Have you ever seen an ovary? Anyway, those quoting misandry are just morons to be honest with nothing better to do.
Another example: Charlize Theron recently appeared in a comedy called Young Adult; she played a character who was in many ways a terrible person. A sort of running gag in the movie was how poorly she treated her little neglected dog. The joke there was not that real abuse of pets is ha-ha hilarious, but that she was so self absorbed she barely remembered to take care of her pet.
No one has launched a campaign against Theron as a result of her role in this movie because, again, no one is goofy enough to think that her role as a neglectful pet owner means that she really, truly wants people to neglect pets and thinks its hilarious.
Does Elam remind any one else of Rumplestiltskin? He’s asking his followers for gold and hopping with rage.
In these cases lets reverse the video “I’m seen as a promoter of spaying cats, and some people say that this is because I must love cats but no, I hate vaginas and ovaries, you see female genital mutilation is illegal but spaying cats is legal so until I can chop off a woman’s clit I’ll satisfy myself with ripping out ovaries and the uterus of cats”
WTF, Another MRA? Sense, do you make it?
The difference being, Another MRA, that FGM is a thing that happens in the real world. Often. Castration is not. Also that doesn’t make any sense because FGM != removing ovaries or uteri. (Correct plural? Blah.) Also, why cats? Because cats R for ladiez and dogs R for doodz?
Elam can fucking talk. He offers money to people to find the home address of women he doesn’t like but can’t lift a finger to build a DV shelter for men.
Wow, ummmmm… they know that “mala” is not Latin for “male” or “men” right? I don’t even think it’s a word, though if it is, I’m pretty sure “sickness” would be the closest translation.
Yes, refer to women you dislike as cunts. Are they even trying to hide the misogyny anymore?
Dammit, just a few minutes ago I had decided I really need to spend less time on the internet and more time doing important things, and then something like this happens and reminds me how much I need the funneh.
In case you thought you were hallucinating: yes, MRAs are indeed here to teach us about “idealogical” blinders.
Elam is modeling the approved form of interaction for manospherics: the man who has the floor is the only man and must rank on anyone and everyone. Ladies first of course – always – but it’s an excellent show of strength and loyalty to the cause to rat out a fellowmale.
Yes David, I guess humour, as in beauty or art or music, is in the eye or ear of the beholder.
Personally find the Heigl advertisement devoid of anything that could be construed as humour, perhaps that has something to do with my not being an American and a general distase for much of sitcom type trash produced in your country. The add never appeared on Australian TV so I have not been able to judge a response to it here.
Do you support the critiques of advertising here – http://radfemimages.wordpress.com/ David ?
Good. Grief.
Greg, no I don’t. Not all feminists are radical feminists. Even a quick glance reveals that blog to be blatantly transphobic, and I have no interest in further exploring it to see what else is wrong with it.
There’s a difference between not finding a particular thing funny, and recognizing that it is in fact intended as humor. People get that, right? I don’t find most romantic comedies particularly funny, but I’m still aware that they are in fact comedies.
“But then you have the gumption to parrot a bunch of keyboard courage about crushing your enemies?”
too lazy for caps or block quotes, Elam projects again.
It’s only the recent posts that have become transphobic, (following Radfem 2012 conference being denied use of Conway Hall) , the early work on the blog takes everyday advertising examined from a feminist perspective see the list at http://radfemimages.wordpress.com/the-gears/ and look at their early posts if interested.
” Not all feminists are radical feminists” and indeed Not all MRA are fringe lunatics either David.
An advertising campaign that recently aired in australia was removed after much negative public response. The makers of paracetamol ( Panadol) created “WAMF” “women against man flu” to help sell their product. https://www.facebook.com/PanadolColdandFlu
I clicked Greg’s link and was treated to a bunch of transphobia and shaming women for making decisions about their own bodies, and then I had a sad. You’d think I would know better, yes?
And yet they still think it’s wrong to say “hey, maybe you shouldn’t tell rape jokes to people who were raped, because that’s a really common thing and you could possibly do a lot of harm to them!” But over-the-top parodies about castration (which, as Viscaria pointed out, is absurdly rare) are OFF LIMITS!
Huh. Interesting.
Isn’t it great when MRAs fight amongst themselves?