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.
Still can’t figure out why the word “patriarchy” is so bothersome. Other than that it’s a word that icky cootie filled women often use.
I’m not seeing why children of different genders need separate talks. Both of them should be taught to respect consent. Both of them should be taught that if someone violates their consent that it isn’t their fault. Both of them should learn basic safety tips. Both should be told to watch out for their friends and make sure they’re safe.
Why accuse us of denying that men and boys can be victims of sexual and/or intimate partner abuse even though none of us ever did that and then go ahead and reinforce the men are predators, women are prey paradigm?
The lack of self awareness is staggering.
That’s not what patriarchy means. You should learn what the concept actually is before you decide that you oppose it.
@Shapman
Patriarchy isn’t about blaming men for the ills of society. It’s a social structure / hierarchy where men tend to be in power. It comes from the familial structure where the father is in charge of the household. It extends in most of the countries globally to politics (more men than women are in political leadership positions) and to our economy (more men are in leadership positions in corporations and are investing money capital ventures). That’s the super-abridged version. That structure is what says that men can’t be nurturing of their children, for example. It says men can’t be physically weak and so they can’t be raped and have to fight back when punched.
In short, we don’t blame men for the toxicity that causes women to be seen as weak and men as un-nurturing. We blame the current societal structure. I think you likely agree with us, even if you dislike the name for the structure we’re discussing. I don’t care what name you give it, personally. I just want things to be better for girls and boys, men and women alike.
@Shapman
Who is denying that men face a portion of the systematic discrimination? I am calling you out in that. Actually I’m going to start experimenting with my approach.
I suspect you just don’t like the community focus. When I can’t follow up on what you believe and you insist on coming back again and again I get to start looking for other motivations.
I’ll give it one more try with you.
I’m going to go and dissect up your very first post. I’m going to tell you what you need to do and if you act childish I’m going to start doing it by role-playing as characters from my little pony. I can’t make you do anything but I know how to be creative.
You appear to be here purely for social conflict terms, I’m going to give you time to explain yourself and and willing to answer any questions you might have. I’m going to post it sundayish so you have time to reply and refresh your memory.
Keep one thing in mind, criticism is not a bad thing. I’ve valued enormously from it.
I’m still waiting for a definition of man-hating, bee tee wobs.
(I’m also drunk, but that’s unimportant.)
@ Kupo
so what do you suggest men (and women for that matter) do when they get punched (and punched again)? Do they run away? Do they wait for the punching to end? I can tell you I have been punched/struck more than once (for the record by men/boys and women/girls) and despite everything you say the furthest thing from my mind was being raped. Front and centre was how I would avoid NOT being punched again. It is humorous that most (all?) of these theories come from people who have NEVER been punched.
On this we agree but I refuse to get bogged down in a feminist dogma as road to understanding and making things better for all people. There are other roads which can achieve this in my opinion.
@EJ
Hang in there. Also make sure to take the necessary steps for you to get home safely.
@Shapman
If we’re man-haters here, why are you bothering in “debating” (I use the term loosely) us about men when we (according to you) hate men? It just doesn’t make sense for you to spend your energy like this!
@Shapman
Actually that will be your first two comments because the first is very little material. I want to go through more of you than that.
@Shapman
There are ways to avoid violence that don’t involve punching. Personally I would try those first. If the only thing that will work is hitting back, I’ll do that. I’m not saying just let people punch you, I’m saying that society tells men they have to use violence to solve conflicts like this, and that’s not true.
Ok, so you agree that we need to make society better for both men and women, but you come on here to call us all man-haters because of the word that academics use to describe the societal structure we’re fighting against? Why not do something constructive instead? Why argue semantics with us?
Shitman,
I backed it up. I used your quotes.
Note: many of us, myself included, are parents, and know when a self-aggrandizing know-it-all suddenly does a soft-shoe away from his stated words to make himself look like a ‘woe is me’ victim of his own folly.
And then calls others what he, himself is: a snowflake? Laughably hypocritical.
Too much bullshit again. This is no reason. I never been in piracy situation but i still know what is and is not best actions to avoid this one. All you talk about is being hit like it some kind of trophy. All this poor people never got hit – they are not wise like you! Pity them, their small minds – like a children!
Just a note from a marketers mind (that is what I do for a living). I found this site when I googled “The Red Pill movie controversy” way back in October when I wanted to learn a little more about why some were calling for an outright ban on the movie before they even watched it. This is one of the first sites which popped up when I used that search. Could it be that David did a SEM campaign to boost his site’s traffic and maybe make some more money? Could it be he bid on phrases like the one I used? Could it be he is happy with the increased traffic and attention regardless of the opinion of visitors to the site? Hmmm, just a thought for those of you who are labelling people like me as “trolls”. David? The floor is yours.
@EJ
How’s that evening going?
I suspect I’m drunker than u, and have just been to see ‘An Inconvenient Sequel’. Which I have issues with, but overall approve of. Gore… not sure. There’s something..
@Shapman
Yeah, I got punched at school. A lot. By people who looked a lot like you.The PE types, the popular, the privileged. Self righteous, whining little shits. Wasn’t strong enough – in the arms – to punch you back. Glad that life did it to you instead. Now fuck off.
Totally off topic, but I am tipsy & wondering:
Do other people love ‘The Abyss’ as much as I do?
Especially when the Underwaters get all, no, don’t nuke the world!
Great film, is all I’m saying.
@EJ
I’m high, and also awaiting said answer.
These trolls are tedious and boring, have to make our own fun.
@ Valentine
Did I say being hit was “some kind of trophy”? If I believed that would I be telling my kids to “have at it” when the first sign of a conflict arose?
My point was that pointy headed researchers often make conclusions without even studying those who have been in that situation. If you asked most men in North America “was there need to strike back because they feared being raped?” I am guessing those outside the prison system would almost universally reply “no”. Where does this “theory” of fear of being “raped” come from? It may apply in some countries but come on, you really believe that in North America? If you do we have now entered The Twilight Zone.
I refuse to see correction when its given if it revolves around a scientist dogma like evolution. Evolution is, like, just a theory, man!
Shapman. Old buddy you know we can replicate the search right? And ok, so David wants his website to be found, like most people who take the time to put up websites? This means what exactly. This is the most exciting game of football I have ever seen. The ball is glued to the ground but we score goals by moving them goalposts.
Also it didn’t seem like you came in here looking for answers. I can’t really remember your exact words of the true-true when you came here in the before time, but I remember you coming in guns blazing and saying things to the effect of “Don’t even BOTHER gais. They too feministnazi to listen.” So yeah, bully, brute, unwilling to listen or learn and name calling and negging. I have no idea what you came here to do but you really suck at it. Like, consider another vocation.
Edit: “Theory” of being “Raped?” Can somebody please tell me if I even want to try to understand what he is talking about and if the answer is maybe-yes explain it?
A marketer huh? You want to be careful what you say about yourself Shapman. I’ll not be personal without reason (and point it out when it’s a thing that can’t effectively be made to feel good), but seriously. I might just role-play anyway if you are giving me background material. There’s more than Cheerilee. For now I’m not using “trolls”, I’m using “parasprites”. That’s what we called them on Ponychan (my definition “person who triggers a conflict”, there are good and bad versions).
@Shapman
Considering the purpose of this site is to mock misogyny (and now trump supporters / alt-right as well) we don’t mind the extra bonus hilarity of some trolls swinging by to drop their own thoughts on the matter. We also help with the cost of running the site by donating, so we’re not going to mind if he does some Search Engine Optimization/Marketing to increase his revenue. Because we like this site and want it to continue. It’s not like he’s using that money to kick puppies or something.
Edit:
Where is this fear of rape B.S. coming from? From my reply? Dude, I used rape as *one* example of where men are disadvantaged in this society because no one takes them seriously. I didn’t say that the reason men don’t fight back is because they might be raped. (I mean, wtaf?)
And pointy-headed researchers? Do they come from France?
http://www.brandchannel.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/state-farm-coneheads-shoot-600.jpg
The floor is yours.
@Shapman
You’re strawman-ing again
Here you go again, putting words in the mouths of people who never said any of that.
Also, searching for “The Red Pill movie controversy” today, this site is not in the first 5 pages of links from google, so I think you’re mis-representing things yet again.
If you’re trying to help us understand why we’re wrong, when I don’t think we’ve actually said most of what you accuse us of, then I’m thinking you don’t understand what we’re actually saying, and are more interested in misinterpreting it to forward your own agenda.
(cis white male here, too, in case you’re thinking we’re in the minority here)
@Shapman
This is another white, cis, het guy reading your posts.
And wishing you would just fucking stop.
You, sir, are an embarrassment.
Genuinely, you are the worst.
@ds
I am giving you a chance to walk back from the cliff. Are you truly telling me the battle to have The Patriarchy to be accepted as fact is the same as the discussion of Evolution vs. Creationism? If so, I am speechless.
Ой пиздец. Again i made that mistake with the quotes.
Shitman,
You seem to have a real problem with people inferring shit with your posts, but yet you seem have to have no problem inventing straw feminist arguments, arguing against them, and presenting them as things we actually said.
I suggest that if you don’t want to be labeled an intellectually dishonest troll, you do not act like one.
And you are hardly in any position to demand anything of David; your sense of entitled privilege is off the charts. Best work on that, snowflake.