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.
Cassie is right, you are a misogynist.
You clearly think that after two and a half years of filming and interviewing opposing viewpoints that Cassie cannot tell fact or fiction.
Your perception that women are to stupid to discern that something is truth or a lie is disgusting.
You should seriously seek to understand your assumptions about the various genders before posting more content.
Yer blowin’ smoke out the arse…take a course in logic and make SOME point, other than just being a critic.
I’m looking forward to seeing this movie! Sounds like it will be a real eye-opener since Jaye is a self-described “feminist”.
A feminist is finally taking the step in understanding and also educating the world about what the Red Pill Philosophy actually is. And suddenly the other feminazis are sensing a disturbance in the force. Let this documentary come out. And let people see it. What are you whiny feminazis afraid of? If your movement is strong and unshakable you don’t have to fear a harmless documentary. If after seeing the documentary you still have a problem with the things shown in it, then you can critique it point by point. It is so much better than your smear campaigning that you are doing now.
Hmm. Not enough time to go into the whole thing in detail, but I’ll stick with this little bit:-
Why, if someone says “the victory goes to Ms. Jaye” is that “an awkward attempt at modesty”, rather than simply an acknowledgement of victory to Ms. Jaye?
What, in any of the words you quote, makes you think he’s offering congratulations to himself?
What, in any of the words you quote implies that he’s somehow retracting what he’s just plainly said (that the movie is a victory for Ms. Jaye), and claiming that the movie is “really” a victory for him (in the sense of somehow diminishing or excluding or usurping it being a victory for her)?
Can’t the movie be a victory for Ms. Jaye in one sense (in the sense of being a great movie that she makes, that’s been difficult to make, but she’s managed it, and is going to get it released) and also be a victory for him in another sense (in the sense of being the very first representation to any major media format anywhere, of what these people are actually saying, in their own words)?
Seems to me like it’s quite possible to mean both those things, without one being a retraction of the other, without one overriding the other. If you don’t think that’s possible, why not?
Uh, George, did you not read any of my post beyond that one line you quote? It’s crystal clear from the quotes from Elam why he considers it a victory for him.
Aw, look at all these cute drive-by trolls who nobody noticed.
Wow. There’s a lot of missed drive-bys!
It’s like socks under the bed. You don’t notice them until you find the first one, and then you look closer and it’s a little colony of all the missing socks you’ve been trying to find and thought were eaten by the dryer-monster!
Okay, not a perfect analogy.
…I actually get excited about finding socks.
No David, it’s not “crystal clear” at all.
I explicitly said I was only dealing with one point from your article. I read the whole article, but the point I picked up on seemed the most salient.
So are you going to respond to my post or just drive-by? Up to you.
Wait. Is the necro troll accusing David of drive by trolling his own blog? What?
Feminism?
Is there a god or not?
Those with the voice to be heard always have coin?
Might not have a job by the end of the week ?
Not really took much interest in these arguments, any money to made from it?
Can’t wait to see this movie, will invite as many people around as will fit in my living room. Delighted to see you spreading lies about it to your drones David, just one of many signs that people are waking up to this bull and you lot are getting worried about it. Long live Milo, Cassie and every other person who puts themselves in the line of your wrath to spread the truth!
“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.”
Why “ludicrously” and why “bought and paid for”? I see nothing wrong about a humans rights movements be it for men or women so really, what’s so so ludicrous about it? Bought and paid for when they don’t have any creative control over it and cannot take their money back? How come? That’s called supporting/donating/contributing, not buying.
“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.”
Why “sleazy”? You don’t tolerate offense as per the comments policy and yet you do it gratuitously, not much of a role model for your readers.
“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.”
Isn’t this an unfounded accusation? Do you have at least a bit of evidence that you can link? The documentary isn’t even out yet so how you know what’s going to be in there strikes me as a complete mistery.
“Even the regulars in the violently misogynistic Red Pill subreddit agreed to help bankroll your film.”
Never knew the Red Pill subreddit but went there just to check your claim of “violently misogynistic”, read 20 titles one of which seemed to possibly be misogynistic e read that article, no violence or misoginy there, quick glance through the comments, same thing, so, yet again, you’re gratuitously offending people.
“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.”
That doesn’t even hint to ill intent, quite the contrary, if they believe SJW’s misrepresent them it’s quite obvious that they would think that SJW’s don’t want to see a realistic portrayal of them.
“And then there was Elam himself, on Twitter, calling on his followers to, in his words, “Help fund #RedPillMovie because fuck feminists!”
Again it’s easy to see why would they be displeased at feminists if they blame feminists for misrepresenting them.
“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.”
Indeed that’s conflicting with what her text of nonpartisanship said, however, backers don’t have any creative control nor can they cut funding so she’s going to do whatever she wants to anyway. Also, for the movie to exist it had to backed by someone, doors have been closed on her by SJW-minded people for telling that she wanted to show MRA’s for what they really are, so, if that tells me something is that MRA’s support a movie about how they really are, which is a good thing, and SJW’s don’t, which is debatable.
“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”
If you had a biased notion of MRA’s that what you’d say, but you don’t, do you?
“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.”
How would you know what they say when cameras are off? What evidence do you have? What part of their rhetoric is misleading? How do you define “sounding respectable” and why would they sound more than what they are? No evidence given, slanderous claims made, again, gratuitous insults.
“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.”
Again, no evidence, just insults.
“At this point, I am sorry to say, that is completely out of the question.”
Why? Based on this gigantic wall of text you made you have nothing bad on her.
I just saw Cassie Jaye being interviewed on the Rubin Report. Classy lady – you could learn a lot from how she presents herself in public. Your article is a ridiculous hit piece on a strong, independent, self-identified feminist (at project onset) who was spurned by the feminist community for not believing there should be any conflict between advocating for men (in specific areas where they are disadvantaged) and advocating for women (in specific areas where they are disadvantaged. You know, that whole gender equality dictionary definition that feminists always trot out but never really seem to actually follow.
Hilarious
The 3rd wave botnet going full retard over a movie. Too funnay!
You are selling reasons I am not buying.
Feminism is a dogma one is expected to buy whole cloth. If not you will be tarred as a woman hater and regressive. You sir are a troll. No better and no worse than Milo. A true Scotsman if you dare look in the mirror.
Hell, if they’re really as bad as you say, give them the rope and they’ll hang themselves.
I’ve seen the movie. It makes some points about areas men are disadvantaged and interviews the men who are trying to push for equality and help.
It’s not misogyny to point of differentials in homelessness, suicide etc. or to question why there are no shelters for men who face domestic abuse.
Men’s and women’s rights doesn’t have to be zero sum game, but the women (mainly) protesting this film seem to operate as if it is.
so because Paul Elam is a jerk you can discredit the idea that nobody wants to talk about men’s issues?
there may be a bias to this film, as there usually is in any media, but that doesn’t mean men’s rights are total bs.
people in general are marginalised all of the time and it’s when you deny them the chance to say something you end up with Trump for a president.
good fucking work guys
I’m with Melissa. I don’t understand why you think the film is so wrong. Thousands of men aren’t fairly treated by family courts – assuming they can afford to use them; thousands are homeless; thousands of infant boys are genitally mutilated; thousands of men commit suicide; thousands are victims of domestic violence and are under-supported. What is wrong with drawing attention to that?
I can accept you don’t like Elam’s style on his site etc., but I could see nothing misogynistic in what he said in the film and, in fact, the photo that heads up you piece it taken from a scene where he jokes “Are you going to put a disclaimer that says no feminists were harmed in the making of this movie” – and they weren’t.
A local police office came to hear I’m trying to promote the film in the UK and told my partner he thought it was an important thing to do because when men report to his station that they have been assaulted by female partners, they are laughed at. Just try to step into their shoes for a moment.
The film also includes significant sections where leading feminists are given a platform to put their views, and that seems like a perfectly reasonable and balanced approach to me, so I really can’t see and real substance to your objections, other than you don’t like some of the funders and some of the people featured.
As both Elam and Farrel say in the film, we’ve had 50yrs of focus on women, and rightly so, but there are issues that only effect men that have been subducted beneath women’s issues as a result. So what is really so wrong with letting our voices be heard?
I’m new to this whole MRA vs Feminist thing and I’m kinda confused.
Have you guys seen the film yet or you making all these judgements based on the trailer?
Is it THAT far fetched that an individual who felt passionate about advocating for human rights through feminism would then evolve her views as she learned that the “mammoth” was actually a bunch of human being with feelings?
I’m not involved in this little drama both your groups have going on but from my point of view you both seem SO prejuduced against one another that you might as well be warring Supremacy Groups.
You BOTH truly seem to believe the other group is sub-human.
When in reality you’re both just made up of regular flawed human beings who want to be respected, feel safe and love their lives.
What’s sad is that there are many who don’t fit the extremes of your opposing ideologies. There are men and women out there suffering from real problems and both of your groups spend so much energy hating the other that nobody is saved.
Why can’t you put down your pitchforks and just see the film. Let “the other” speak. Do you not understand that men can suffer too and is it THAT crazy of an idea that with their very specific gendered roles in society that they might have specific problems as well?
Do you all really lack compassion that badly that you’ll let few loud mouthed rude men will have you turning your backs on young boys who are raped and beaten and have no shelter to turn to the way women do? From human beings who commit suicide and are suffering from depression and PTSD and told to “man up” when they ask for help and mocked online with the little “male tears” jokes you guys like to make?
Again, I’m just a regular person. I’m not a feminist I’m someone from the mainstream view. But most women DO care about helping other people-even if they happen to be men. Just like most men DO care about women.
Why are you discussing this film with people who are not willing to accept other points of view, the film is made by a women any way.
Men are bad and women are oppressed, they have based their world view on this and that is that.
i do not care about men’s issues.
I only care about people I KNOW not the so called PEOPLE.
You have already lost the argument fool
Thanks Erin
Well put. I don’t speak for all men, I will speak only for myself. But I feel much as you do. Why is there this blind fear of ideas. If we ban certain points of view it only emboldens those the extremes. I think that is really the underlying motivation of those opposed. Confrontation rather then reconciliation.
I get tired of hearing about my male privilege. Doubly so when I am accused of added benefit of being white. A long ago I worked at a coal mine. I was one of last hired had to wait while the lucky ones were hired first. Anyways I ended up in a low paying job in the coal lab rather then underground. I was willing and wanted to make more money there but fate intervened. On May 9th 1992 at Westray Coal mine in Plymouth Nova Scotia there was an explosion that killed two of my friends and 24 others. If I had been lucky it would have been me. I cannot stomach people especially the young, the snowflakes, telling me to keep quiet while they speak. I willing to risk my life for a job to feed my family and yet these SJW’s will whinge about I am oppressing them.
Men, especially young men, are and always have been disposable top society. We were mining coal to burn to generate electricity to enable the comforts that this world provides. When I see people in my face with an accusing finger I think of those men lost that day. Everytime they flip a switch to turn on the lights they get blood on their hands.
My name is Robert Gerrard Thompson I am 51, white and proud to be a man. Those folks who want to ban this movie should step back and think about what they are doing.
I could write for days about this but nobody really cares. Instead I spend my days reading newspapers about bathrooms and safe-spaces.
After the explosion all I got from government was some benefits for a limited time and the implicit advice to shut the fuck up and get another job.
It is just a fucking movie. The folks opposed to it being screened should find something better to do.
Get a fucking life!
Oh goody, we’re being swarmed today by people tilting at windmills made of straw.
No one here will disagree with you that men are disadvantaged in a lot of ways. However, a lot of the men in the movie (Paul Elam especially) aren’t trying to push for “equality and help”, they’re fully committed to kvetching on the internet about “females” and how, apparently, we’re the source of all men’s problems.
No one said it was.
No one here is protesting the movie.
Where did anyone say this?
What we’re saying is that Paul Elam specifically doesn’t want to talk about men’s issues. He wants to attack feminists and women he doesn’t like on the internet.
No one said this. We’re saying specific people are full of shit.
How the fuck are these two statements connected? Because we don’t think Paul Elam’s ideas are worthwhile, Trump’s going to be president?
What the fuck?
You’re welcome.
I do think we’ve explained it time and time again should you actually care to take a look instead of just go “I don’t understand”.
Nothing. No one here disagrees that men should be able to bring their issues with how men are treated to light.
The problem we have is when certain men (like Elam et al.) provide “solutions” that equal “punish women for my problems! Women are the cause of all my problems! Feminists are evil!” etc.
We don’t take issue with men’s issues, we’re taking issue with some nasty people’s proposed solutions.
I’m glad you didn’t see anything misogynistic. But, I can assume that you’re a man, right?
If you are, then you’re not an expert on what is and isn’t misogynistic. Just like a white person (like me) isn’t an expert on what is and isn’t racist.
You can say “I didn’t see any misogyny here!” but that doesn’t change the fact that Elam’s platform is hugely misogynistic, even if he managed to be respectful for the time he talked to Cassie Jaye.
Many of us have and do. I’m a rape survivor, so I try to reach out to male rape victims.
Men are laughed at when it comes to DV stuff, and that’s really fucking shitty, but a lot of the Manosphere are the ones doing the laughing.
They think men who get beat by their female partners are “weak” or “should have put her in her place”.
This is Toxic Masculinity in action, and feminism aims to fix it.
Which “leading feminists” were featured in the film? All I’ve heard was Erin Prizzey, and she works for AVfM and is rabidly anti-feminist.
Nothing. The problem comes, again, when you insist that women shut the fuck up so you can talk over them, or you blame them or want to punish them for your problems.
The problem is misogyny.
I guess this piece got linked somewhere fun.
Look at this herd of necrotic teal deer sweeping majestically across the Plains of WHTM. Afraid of active threads so they’re trying to sneak the last word in here I suppose.