UPDATE 10/25/16: If you’ve come here after reading about a petition to cancel screenings of The Red Pill, I ask you to NOT sign any such petitions. It’s just free publicity for them. Read more of my thoughts on the matter here.
Dear Cassie Jaye,
Congratulations. You surpassed your Kickstarter fundraising goal yesterday, more than two weeks before the Kickstarter campaign was scheduled to come to a close. You’ve funded the postproduction work on your long-delayed documentary on Men’s Rights activists, and then some.
But I’m not sure that the person I should be congratulating is you. Last night Paul Elam of A Voice for Men – the central subject of your film – was doing his own victory lap online. And no wonder, because he seems to be the real victor here.
In a post on his site that managed to be giddy and vindictive at once, he offered his congratulations to you, then, well, to himself. “Even though the victory goes to Ms. Jaye,” he wrote, in an awkward attempt at modesty, “I have the need to offer up some thanks.”
And then he spelled out why he thinks your “victory” is really a victory for him.
For the past six years AVFM has had mud kicked in its face by a corrupt, left-wing media. Bottom feeders like Adam Serwer, Jeff Sharlet and Mariah Blake have performed endless unscrupulous acts, directly lying to their readers in order to attack AVFM, this movement and me personally.
Their work was not just to harm me, or to damage a website but to make sure if they could that the message we carry never found its way to the larger public. Their intent was and is to paint an indelible stain on all of us so hideous that we would never be taken seriously by enough people to matter.
They have failed, and I can now predict that they have failed miserably.
In other words, Paul Elam thinks he and his friends in what he ludicrously calls the “Men’s Human Rights Movement” have bought and paid for a feature-length advertisement for them.
And it’s not hard to see why Elam – and the other manospherians who’ve rallied around your film in recent days — think this. After all, they are the ones who have rescued your film from oblivion by pouring tens of thousands of dollars into your Kickstarter.
And all it took for you to unleash this torrent of money was an interview with one of the sleaziest figures in right-wing journalism, Milo Yiannopoulos of Breitbart.
In the interview, posted on Monday, you complained that “I won’t be getting support from feminists. They want a hit piece and I won’t do that.”
There was more than a little bit of irony in the fact that you were saying this to a man infamous for his many hit pieces on so-called “Social Justice Warriors.”
You also complained about an intern on your film who, you said, “had a lot of crying attacks and emotional experiences. She claimed everything I was showing her was triggering her.”
A young feminist “triggered” and crying. This is red meat to the Breitbart crowd, and I have to assume you knew this when you told Milo this story.
To an outside observer like me, this shameful pandering looks a lot like a Hail Mary play on your part. Having failed to convince most potential funders of the film that you would present anything close to an accurate picture of the Men’s Rights movement, you told Breitbart what its readers – and the broader manosphere – wanted to hear.
And it worked. Men’s Rights activists, self-professed “Red Pillers” and other assorted antifeminists rallied around your film, and the money started flowing.
On Reddit, the moderators of the Men’s Rights subreddit “stickied” an appeal to donate to your Kickstarter to the top of their front page, urging MRAs to open their wallets in order to show skeptics that “we can take part in some actual activism and not just post stuff in here.”
Even the regulars in the violently misogynistic Red Pill subreddit agreed to help bankroll your film.
And it wasn’t just Men’s Rights and “Red Pill” Redditors who organized support for your film. One right-wing Red Pill blogger, notorious for his harassment of ideological enemies, pledged to match donations up to $10,000, describing your documentary as “the Movie SJWs Do Not Want You to See.”
Meanwhile, on her blog, AVFM’s “social media director” Andrea Hardie (an internet bully better known under her pseudonyms Janet Bloomfield and “Judgy Bitch”) not only rallied her readers around your Kickstarter but also set up a gofundme of her own, raising money in hopes that it would buy Breitbart’s Yiannopoulos a producer credit in your film. (I hope that is out of the question, even if she raises more than the paltry amount she’s raised for this purpose so far.)
And then there was Elam himself, on Twitter, calling on his followers to, in his words, “Help fund #RedPillMovie because fuck feminists!”
https://twitter.com/AVoiceForMen/status/658700057311506432
Accepting money from these people would seem to be a pretty clear violation of the principles you set forth in your own Kickstarter video, in which you declared that
in order to keep this film non-partisan, and respectfully show all sides to this debate, we won’t accept funding from organizations that inevitably have biased agendas.
Instead, you have chosen to take money from people who see your film as a chance to say “fuck you” to feminists. You have chosen to take money from the actual subjects of your film.
You are making a film about Men’s Rights Activists, funded to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars by Men’s Rights Activists. You are making a film about A Voice for Men funded in part by A Voice for Men.
Does that not trouble you at all? It should. In your interview with Breitbart, you noted that “films that support one side and act as propaganda do better than those that try to have an honest look.”
You said this, presumably, to set yourself apart from such propagandists. Now you seem to have cast your lot in with them.
Which I suppose makes sense, since the clips of your film that you’ve posted online so far look a lot more like propaganda than they do like any sort of honest look at the Men’s Rights movement,
I felt uneasy about your project from the start, concerned that you had been pulled in by the soothing but misleading rhetoric that MRAs spout when they are trying to sound more respectable than they really are, rather than on what MRAs actually say and do when the cameras are off of them.
But I knew you had a good reputation as a filmmaker, and heard good things from several feminists who knew you better than I did. So I held my tongue and tried my best to give you the benefit of the doubt, even when you posted clips from your film that portrayed AVFMers as heroic underdogs rather than the misogynists and malicious harassers that they really are.
When I wrote you a little over a week ago with some of my concerns, you assured me in the phone call that followed that the clips you had posted were only part of the story, that you were well aware that the MRAs you had interviewed were on their best behavior when talking to you, and that the real story of the Men’s Rights movement is far less rosy-hued. Against my better judgement, I continued to hold on to some kind of hope that you would live up to your reputation in the end.
And now, frankly, I feel like I’ve been played.
Unfortunately, it looks like you have been played too, much more spectacularly than I have. I suspect you are doing far more damage to your reputation than you even know.
One thing I have learned in five years of watching, and writing about, and dealing with, the Men’s Rights movement, is that if Paul Elam is happy about something, that thing is almost certainly terrible.
I suspect, sadly, that you will ultimately learn this lesson yourself, the hard way.
PS: In our phone conversation, you suggested that if you were able to fund your film, you might be able to finally film the interview with me that we originally had planned to do, but which fell through due to financial and other practical obstacles during the original filming of The Red Pill. At this point, I am sorry to say, that is completely out of the question.
@Oogly
I think it’s related to the bug where replying directly to a post causes the post to float down the page.
@Oogly
No, just his short story and open letter. Fuck, these people all blend together
Yo, so it ain’t just me? Wish I knew…
I wish John would go back to talking about movies. That’s far less tedious than this Berniebro crap.
I was watching Saw: The Final Chapter the other day. Is that a red pill movie or is it liberal propaganda?
On the one hand, the trap in the opening sequence features an unfaithful and manipulative woman being killed by her two boyfriends. Totally red pill!
On the other hand, the second trap gruesomely kills a group of white supremacists. That’s not very red pill at all!
Have any thoughts, John? Are the Saw movies misandrist? Do you plan on seeing the new installment this fall?
@ JS
If not before. Check out the “Edict of Expulsion”.
It’s because of all the times that Jerry and John (and others) have replied by email instead of on the page directly – the responses that are embedded into the post they’re replying to. They screw up the posts-per-page counter because wordpress is kinda garbage :\ So the post number thinks the most recent is on page 30, whereas it’s actually on page 31, so it just gives up and moves you to page 30. womp womp.
@Rhuu – apparently an illiterat
Thank you, I aim to please.
@kupo
@Scildfreja Unnyðnes
That makes so much sense.
@Axecalibur: Middle Name Danger
Not our fault that these people are unoriginal.
@Scildfreja: OHHHHHHHHH.
@Oogly
Come now, of course it’s our fault. Everything is. Somehow… ?
Also, went back and saw the fibbinnazi. Missed it before. Genius ?
@Scild
Ah! Perfect sense. Much appreciated!
John can take the time to tell us that he isn’t reading Jerry’s posts, but can’t take the time to admit that he made an unsupported, unsupportable, untrue statement as if it were fact and based his entire digression about Clinton’s speeches to bankers on an incorrect reading of history.
Huh. It’s almost like he’s still avoiding that like the little whiny baby boy he is.
A post similar to that fibbin-nazi sequence went pseudo-viral on twitter. Got thousands of likes.
I’m lucky if I get 23 likes on a post, like the following:
“Is it possible his tweets are more self-aware than he is?”
Regarding, WWTH, your message of 10.03am.
Activists need a politician with integrity as well as power, not just one of those qualities. If a politician desires making as much money as they can, they’ll have to please big business. Activists, and indeed the general public, can moderate them to an extent, but not nearly enough. To illustrate with events from my country. British governments, Labour, and the Coalition of Conservatives and Liberals that followed it, bailed out banks with a publicly funded subsidy of gigantic proportions. Bankers used this cash to increase their own pay, doubling it according to the Bank of England. They starved small and medium businesses of credit, preferring riskier investments that produce a quicker return. Additionally, bankers were found to be engaged in unethical, and criminal, behaviour for years. Misselling financial services, rejecting claims for misselling they knew to be valid, helping billionaires dodge tax, fixing Forex and Libor rates, and more. Yet none from the top have gone to prison, or been made to pay any price, apart from a couple of scapegoats. Why? The long list of British politicians who, after leaving office, were then hired by banks at high salaries is a clue.
As to being polite. Was Dr King ever rude or sarcastic? I know of no instance.
An area of social justice in which progress has been made in the UK is gay rights. As recently as the eighties politicians dare not admit to being gay, newspapers and comedians on tv regularly mocked gay men and women, there was even a law requiring schools to teach children anti-gay propaganda. Today there are openly gay people in Parliament, a comedian who mocked gays on tv would be sacked and would be lucky to get work anywhere, and same sex marriage is legal. This change was brought about by the gay community making clear to us hets the wrongness they were being made to suffer, which won public sympathy. In doing so gay rights activists refrained from calling the rest of ‘fuckwits’, or ‘asswaffles’, or any such insults. At a wild guess I’d say that had they done so the public sympathy that was needed for change would not have been forthcoming.
Does that make me worth listening to? Even if only a bit?
@John Devalle
Again this isn’t the UK, stop thinking the US government works like the UK’s government.
Not really since you’re still tone policing on top of saying your screeds merit the same respect as Gay Rights Activists.
Omg, this guy is REALLY butthurt at being called an asswaffle and a fuckwit.
To hear him talk, and to compare his “victimization” to those hurt and killed for their basic civil rights, is fucking nauseating.
My God, the entitlement oozes from every post. What an asshole.
@
I mean, I agree that antisemitism is pathetic… Was that your whole point?
It’s pathetic to say criticism of bankers is anti-semitic. That there are such critics who are anti-semitic doesn’t change that.
Ninjaed?
I’ve been listening to you, John, and it’s hard figuring out what point, if any, you’re trying to make.
Now, it’s “bankers are really evil”, and “civil rights leaders weren’t rude”. I think.
Neither of those is generally true. If MLK had been the “nice to everyone” person you seem to think he was, no one would have assassinated him, and he probably would just be remembered as a pastor in favor of Civil Rights. That “I have a dream” speech? That was sarcastic as hell if you pay attention to what was happening at the time. The March at Selma? It was very dangerous for a black man to say and do things like that, which offended many white people at the time, as proved by his death for saying and doing things like that.
You have a serious misunderstanding of American politics, and as long as you keep ignoring what people have shown you, that misunderstanding will continue.
And “gay people were nice with their complaints” isn’t true either. They frequently offended conservative straight people while making their point that “gays are people, too”.
You’re either not paying attention, or arguing for the sake of argument. Probably both.
@WWTH
Afraid to know what you’ve aligned yourself with? Or is that you do know what you’ve aligned yourself and know you can’t defend it?
There are seven years of posts chronicling the virulent misogyny and the accompanying racism, classism, homophobia and transphobia in the red pill and MRA subcultures. There are seven years of posts showing them enmeshing themselves more and more with the alt-right.
Cassie Jaye and her movie are defending them. You’re defending them.
You think you have any progressive creds when you defend people who are stand for everything that progessivism is supposed to be against?
Read Jerry’s posts. Read them and deal with who you’ve climbed into bed with.
Don’t be such a coward. Have a little integrity.
I haven’t read Jerry’s posts as the ones I glanced at concerned maths, or engineering, or something like that, and I’ve no interest in those subjects. Jerry’s made a lot of posts, if you like to recommend one or more that illustrate your point I’ll read them and give you my opinion.
As for the Red Pill. Some are nutty extremists (I can think of another site where that also applies) but not all. I’ve never defended the nasty fanatics, has Cassie ever?
I’m sure you don’t! I’m sure you think Dr. King politely whispered the I Have a Dream speech and then politely stood in front of a bullet. There’s a lot more to him than the sanitized fairytale we white people keep telling each other.
Haha, what? I’m pretty sure I know a lot of gay activists (or LGBTQ+ people, who are often presented as the same thing) who say things like that all the time.
I don’t usually like to be all gatekeep-y, but… L2 internet? Maybe try Google?
His entire fucking career was a giant middle finger in the face of white America. You are so fucking ignorant.
@WWTH
Have any thoughts, John? Are the Saw movies misandrist? Do you plan on seeing the new installment this fall?
Never seen any of the Saw movies. I’ve heard they are slasher films, that’s not my kind of film.
John, Comment Policy.
@John: Was Dr. King ever rude or sarcastic?
I’m not familiar enough with his words to be able to tell you more than the fact that the man was arrested for protesting in places where he was told to not protest.
So while I can’t speak to the words he said, I CAN say that he wasn’t just standing on a street corner asking people to nicely treat African Americans as human.
Also, if you must bring up LGBT activism, have a few actual events where people were maybe not the nicest, because that is not how you get shit done.
Stonewall.
Toronto Bathhouse Raids.
The UK part of the GLF.
Here are some words of someone who was at London’s first Pride Parade.
So basically, shut up asswaffle. This whole “you’ll make more friends with honey than by telling them that they are perpetuating dangerous ideas that get people killed” is bullshit, and you should frankly understand that by now since SO. MANY. PEOPLE. Have explained.
You are wrong. Your ideas are wrong, and contribute to people having shittier lives. Why are you so mean? Why can’t you take the time to self reflect to see that the ideas you have (perfect!Bernie as a politician who would have never compromised, that change can happen if everyone is sweet to you) are damaging?
Because repeating the same ideas again and again make you look like an idiot. An assbutt, as it were.
http://data.whicdn.com/images/117832470/large.jpg
~I’m just sayin’~
@Scilfreja
It’s because of all the times that Jerry and John (and others) have replied by email instead of on the page directly – the responses that are embedded into the post they’re replying to. They screw up the posts-per-page counter because wordpress is kinda garbage :\ So the post number thinks the most recent is on page 30, whereas it’s actually on page 31, so it just gives up and moves you to page 30. womp womp.
Sorry. What should I be doing?
Bruh…
You do realize that the LGBT+ rights movement in the states started* with a fuckin riot, don’t you?
Thing is, simply being queer or brown or female or foreign or poor etc etc is seen, to this day, as an insult to the privileged. Any act of resistance to oppression, be it violence, angry yelling, or silently taking a goddamn knee, is equal in their eyes. Fuck off
*not actually, but y’all know what I mean
@JS
And “gay people were nice with their complaints” isn’t true either. They frequently offended conservative straight people while making their point that “gays are people, too”.
No, they offended some people by saying gays are people.
@ John
Paul Elam:
Cassie Jaye: