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The ManKind Initiative, a UK organization devoted to fighting domestic violence against men, recently put out a video that’s been getting a lot of attention in the media and online, racking up more than six million views on YouTube in a little over a week.
The brief video, titled #ViolenceIsViolence, purports to depict the radically different reactions of bystanders to staged incidents of domestic violence between a couple in a London plaza. When the man was the aggressor, shoving the woman and grabbing her face, bystanders intervened and threatened to call the police. When the woman was the aggressor, the video shows bystanders laughing, and no one does a thing.
The video has been praised by assorted Men’s Rights Activists, naturally enough, but it has also gotten uncritical attention in some prominent media outlets as well, from Marie Claire to the Huffington Post.
There’s just one problem: The video may be a fraud, using deceptive editing to distort incidents that may well have played out quite differently in real life.
A shot-by-shot analysis of the video from beginning to end reveals that the first “incident” depicted is actually a composite of footage shot of at least two separate incidents, filmed on at least three different times of day and edited together into one narrative.
A careful viewing of the video also reveals that many of the supposed “reaction shots” in the video are not “reaction shots” at all, but shots taken in the same plaza at different times and edited in as if they are happening at the same time as the staged “incidents” depicted.
Moreover, none of the people depicted as laughing at the second incident are shown in the same frame as the fighting couple. There is no evidence that any of them were actually laughing at the woman attacking the man.
The editing tricks used in the video were brought to my attention by a reader who sent me a link to a blog entry by Miguel Lorente Acosta, a Professor of Legal Medicine at the University of Granada in Spain, and a Government Delegate for Gender Violence in Spain’s Ministry of Equality. He goes through the video shot by shot, showing each trick for what it is.
The post in Spanish, and his argument is a little hard to follow through the filter of Google Translate, so I will offer my own analysis of the video below, drawing heavily on his post. (His post is still worth reading, as he covers several examples of deceptive editing I’ve left out.)
I urge you to watch the video above through once, then follow me through the following analysis.
The first “incident” is made up of footage taken at three distinct times, if not more. The proof is in the bench.
In the opening shot of the video, we see an overview of the plaza. We see two people sitting on a bench, a man in black to the left and a woman in white to the right, with a trash can to the right of them. (All of these lefts and rights are relative to us, the viewers.) The trash can has an empty green bag hanging off of it.
As the first incident begins, we see the same bench, only now we see two women sitting where the man was previously sitting. The trash can now has a full bag of trash sitting next to it.
In this shot, showing bystanders intervening in what is portrayed as the same fight, and supposedly depicting a moment in time only about 30 seconds after the previous shot, we see that the two women on the bench have been replaced by two men, one in a suit and the other in a red hoodie. The full trash bag has been removed, and the trash can again has an empty trash bag hanging off of it.
Clearly this portion of the video does not depict a single incident.
What about the reaction shots? The easiest way to tell that the reaction shots in the video did not chronologically follow the shots that they come after in the video is by looking at the shadows. Some of the video was shot when the sky was cloudy and shadows were indistinct. Other shots were taken in direct sunlight. In the video, shots in cloudy weather are followed immediately by shots in roughly the same location where we see bright sunlight and clear shadows.
Here’s one shot, 9 seconds in. Notice the lack of clear shadows; the shadow of the sitting woman is little more than a vague smudge.
Here’s another shot from less than a second later in the same video – the timestamp is still at 9 seconds in. Now the plaza is in direct sunlight and the shadows are sharp and distinct.
If you watch the video carefully, you can see these sorts of discontinuities throughout. It seems highly unlikely that the various reaction shots actually depict reactions to what they appear to be reactions to. Which wouldn’t matter if this were a feature film; that’s standard practice. But this purports to be a depiction of real incidents caught on hidden camera and presented as they happened in real time.
The issue of non-reaction reaction shots is especially important when it comes to the second incident. In the first incident, we see a number of women, and one man, intervening to stop the violence. There is no question that’s what’s going on, because we see them in the same frame as the couple.
In the second incident, none of the supposed laughing onlookers ever appear in the same frame as the fighting couple. We have no proof that their laughter is in fact a reaction to the woman attacking the man. And given the dishonest way that the video is edited overall, I have little faith that they are real reaction shots.
The people who are in frame with the fighting couple are either trying resolutely to ignore the incident – as many of the onlookers also did in the first incident – or are clearly troubled by it.
I noticed one blonde woman who looked at first glance like she might have been laughing, but after pausing the video it became clear that she was actually alarmed and trying to move out of the way.
There is one other thing to note about the two incidents. In the first case, the onlookers didn’t intervene until after the man escalated his aggression by grabbing the woman by her face. In the second video, the screen fades to black shortly after the woman escalates her aggression to a similar level. We don’t know what, if anything, happened after that.
Is it possible that the first part of the video, despite being a composite of several incidents, depicts more or less accurately what happened each time the video makers tried this experiment? Yes. Is it possible that onlookers did indeed laugh as the woman attacked the man? Yes.
But there is only one way for The ManKind Initiative to come clean and clear up any suspicion: they need to post the unedited, time-stamped footage of each of the incidents they filmed from each of their three cameras so we can see how each incident really played out in real time and which, if any, of the alleged reactions were actual reactions.
In addition to the editing tricks mentioned above, we don’t know if the video makers edited out portions of the staged attacks that might have influenced how the bystanders reacted.
The video makers should also post the footage of the incidents that they did not use for the advert, so we can see if reactions to the violence were consistently different when the genders of attackers and victims were switched. Two incidents make up a rather small sample – even if one of these incidents is actually two incidents disguised as one.
Domestic violence against men is a real and serious problem. But you can’t fight it effectively with smoke and mirrors.
Right, because Bon’s comment was the epitome of class.
Anand, I thought you flounced?
I was really hoping Anand would stick to the flounce.
Anand, why is it only us that you tone police? Trolls have said numerous disrespectful things to us and you have yet to scold one. Yet another to disbelieve your claims that you are neutral.
well, whether it was fraud or not, here’s another video by ABC news done a few years ago, it takes 163 people to pass by a woman violently abusing a man in order for one group to call 911 and in this video the woman seems much more aggressive and outspoken.
essentially, the video does the same the thing is this proposed “fraud” above, but done by ABC news and with the same results
You did say that you were leaving, Anand. Is proving yourself not to be trustworthy one of your goals here?
RE: Peter LaCroix
If men saw another man being mistreated by a female would they come to his aid and even suggest calling the police, like the women did when they believed it was the man as the aggressor.
Stop acting like this is fucking hypothetical. I’m a man. One of the guys on the lower floor of my apartment got beaten bloody by his screaming girlfriend. I came and pounded on the door, got him to come out, and called the cops. I CAME TO HIS AID AND CALLED THE POLICE.
I keep saying this. Why do you guys keep acting like this is purely a hypothetical question?
RE: Anand
First response: “Shut up, Bon”
Classy.
Not like you, you are a PARAGON of decency. That’s why you keep taking your balls and storming off and then returning, even though nobody likes you.
I always wonder if these people act like this offline too. At dinner parties do they throw down their cutlery, scream “you are all horrible and I’m not talking to you any longer!”, and storm off in a huff, and then slink back to their seat again in time for dessert?
RE: cassandrakitty
Don’t be silly! Online isn’t REAL! It doesn’t involve people or anything, we’re all just little bits of computer code designed to entertain. Surely nobody has EVER made friends or been hurt by ANYTHING online!
*gag*
You mean that’s not how dinners go in your family?
woah
Does anyone here use shampoo bars? I tried them once and I loved them.
I use the LUSH one that smells like Lapsang Souchong. Yummy. Works well as a body soap too.
Anand: First response: “Shut up, Bon”
Classy.
What did he say that merits any other response?
I also see that you are taking another stand. A passive aggressive one, which attempts to control others, but a stand.
Aw man, pecunium, my sister would LOVE a lapsang souchong bar. I like peppermint myself.
1) Bon has a history of showing up, dropping turds like that one in threads, and never responding to replies. He’s talking AT us, not TO us, which is fucking rude.
2) His comment was so stupid, and his “points” had been addressed so many times, that there was no point in engaging with it. Plus, see #1.
3) I notice you’re not chastising him for failing to be classy, and are once again policing the replies to assholes more harshly than the assholes themselves. AN ASSHOLE COMMENT DOES NOT MERIT A POLITE OR “CLASSY” REPLY. I AM SICK OF EXPLAINING THIS TO YOU.
[CN: transmisogyny, murder]
Even if this were true in at least one case (which it isn’t), there are quite a few women who are even more marginalized and dismissed when they are abused. Examples:
-women of color
-trans women
-disabled women
-neurodiverse women
-non-hetero women
-indigenous women
Oh, and female sex workers.
I would say, our society is morally bankrupt when people will sit and ignore such an offense taking place to a young boy. And I would say society is morally bankrupt when people will ignore violence against men in public by women also.
this is another example – similar to the one this story is about – from a few years ago – I suppose this is faked too, right ? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRCS6GGhIRc
you will find no reason to censor this video, I trust.
oh – I just noticed steve sleave beat me to it ! but yeah, that videos been doing the rounds for a while – this one is interesting also – > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Moz-X8bC8IQ – a woman steals from a homeless guy – and people are reluctant to call her on it. when a man does it – everyone intervenes.
how about 5 women sitting around a table on TV – with, what sounds like an all female audience – laughing and applauding stories of women severing their partners penises. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muuFygvXPAM
@Steve Sleave
Wow. You found another video. well that negates everything we’ve said in 500+ comments. Aren’t you awesome!
But wait a minute:
How many years ago? Is it still relevant? Where is the equivalent version with a man violently abusing a woman and how many people pass by in that one? How many times did they run this scenario and is 163 typical or was this the worst (or best or mean) scenario? Or the only one? How many of the 163 people laughed?
And what do you think “the same” results are, exactly? That people don’t intervene when a woman abuses a man but instead laugh? That people’s reaction is different when a man abuses a woman?
What do you think you are proving, exactly?
That violence against men is bad? Not exactly news here. That people often don’t intervene in violent situations? Yep, we knew that too. Come on Steve, what are “the same” results, here, that are so earth-shattering?
Anyway – what is this whole story and these comments here ? This is a campaign by ManKind Initiative, a UK organization devoted to fighting domestic violence against men – trying to raise awareness of violence against men – and you people are trying to trash it ? what kind of site is this btw ?
what does trashing efforts to raise awareness and compassion for male victims of domestic violence have to do with womens rights ? I know what it has to do with feminism. but how does it help womens rights ?
how does it hurt women to help men ? – thats what Ive never understood about the particular breed of feminists that seem to hang out on forums like this.
you are the stereotypical man-haters, arent you ? what a joke.
They also put at the end ‘40% of domestic violence is directed to men”” You’d have to be on another PLANET to think that was a correct statistic. The source sited was National office of Statistics – however the NOS UK actually estimates about 80-90% of domestic violence is directed to women by men, all reliable statistics are similar from USA and Australia, further most family violence toward men is perpetrated by men.. fathers to sons, for example. Despite being well versed in these kids of statistics becuase I did a social work degree and majored in DV, I really didn’t think you’d even need to know the stats to raise one eyebrow at the 40% ”’statistic” on this video. I’d be interested to call the ‘mankind” hotline, and see if it’s even connected – the site looked VERY amateurish and like a free one, and comes across as a font for MRA propaganda.
Oh look, Woody has YouTube videos! Everyone knows YouTube videos are science!
Woody,
If you had read the whole thread you would know that Mankind Initiative is an anti-feminist group that only wants to help men by throwing women under the bus. Literally no one here is arguing that violence against men is OK.
Also, what about man on man domestic violence? You MRAs only to seem to care about woman on man violence. Where is the manosphere outrage about Johnny Weir and his husband?
I know, right? David hates men so much he has a list of links entitled “Resources for Men,” which lead to organizations that actually help men in abusive situations. It’s over there, to the right. If you really want to bask in the misandry, you can look at the “Resources for All” links, where there are more groups that are specifically male-focused but which offer help to everyone.
“there are more groups that are *NOT* specifically male-focused.”
Sigh. Failing at words today.
From the original post:
Our point is that they are doing a disservice to this issue and the men affected by it by posting a deceptively edited video, and pretending it is real. Why did they do this? Maybe it’s just sloppiness. The involvement of Erin Pizzey makes me a little suspicious though.