If you look at Cassie Jaye’s official bios, you might be forgiven for thinking that the director of the upcoming Red Pill documentary had won an impressive “best documentary” prize at Cannes for her first feature-length film.
On her LinkedIn page, Jaye writes that “Daddy I Do,” her film on the abstinence-only movement, “won the Best Documentary Award at the 2010 Cannes Independent Film Festival.” She makes similar statements on YouTube and on her official site, CassieJaye.com.
Press coverage of the young filmmaker has made much of her Cannes award. In a feature on Jaye, the San Rafael Patch reported breathlessly that “Daddy I Do soon garnered immense acclaim, culminating with the Best Documentary Award at the Cannes International Film Festival.” Feminist website Bust declared that the film “has already won Best Documentary awards in several festivals, including the Cannes Film Festival.” A writer at Rumpus.net started off her interview with Jaye by congratulating her for winning “Best Documentary at Cannes.”
But if you go to the official site of the Cannes Film Festival, and look at its list of winners for 2010, you will find no mention of Daddy I Do.
Hell, you won’t find a Best Documentary winner for that year at all, because Cannes didn’t actually have a Best Documentary award.
So what’s going on? Is Jaye lying? Well, not technically.
She did win an award with the word “Cannes” in it. But it didn’t come from the official Cannes festival.
It came instead from a knockoff event, the Cannes INDEPENDENT Film Festival, that many in the film business consider an outright scam, using the Cannes name in order to profit from entry fees, much as the makers of the Spader-Man action figures above hoped to make money from confused or perhaps overly thrifty fans of the real Spiderman.
A site called CannesGuide warns filmmakers not to submit films to the faux festival, declaring that
the Cannes Independent Film Festival (CIFF) is, in our opinion, a scam. It is not connected to the Festival de Cannes, Marche du Film, or any other official festival organisation. It is a coat-tails event, run from the UK, which likely seeks to capitalise on the prestige associated with the city’s name and famous festival.
Although CIFF is a real event, we have questioned its legitimacy in the past and continue to believe that there is little or no value to filmmakers in submitting a film.
Since that was written, the “festival” seems to have vanished entirely from the world. Take a look at what its official web site looks like now. (Seriously, take a look.)
Jaye’s supporters will presumably point out that she’s never technically lied about her award or claimed that it came from the official Cannes festival. Certainly it’s not her fault that reporters make mistakes!
Except that it kind of is. Here’s a screenshot from the trailer for Daddy I Do.
Most people seeing this flash by on the screen, I suspect, will remember the giant CANNES and won’t even notice the word “independent” underneath it. Or, like the reporter for the San Rafael Patch, they’ll change the “independent” to “international” in their minds.
At the very least’s it’s a graphic seemingly designed to capitalize on the confusion between the Cannes Independent Film Festival and the real Festival de Cannes.
No, Jaye isn’t doing anything illegal here. But trumpeting an award from a phony festival as if it were a real award is not only dishonest; it’s kind of pathetic.
Ok, this is the part that set my troll-dar on fire:
“Anita’s gaming detractors lost all claim to objectivity by going into full attack mode before Anita had shot a frame of her gaming videos.”
Now, do we agree with this? Because I believed we give exactly one (1) fuck about Anita’s detractors “objectivity” and all about them “being abusive assholes who harassed her with death and rape threats for years”.
Therefore, this passive-aggressive bit screams “concern troll” to me.
I don’t feel I need to defend myself for pointing out people sympathetic to the MRM also tendo to be bigots/frauds themselves.
I am prepared to be lectured by experience if the documentary exceeds my expectations, but NOT simply because someone who can’t tell harassment from criticism is trying to guilt-trip me into it.
As for calling this an “attack” or calling Cassie a “target” feels like absurdly falling into the troll trap, since none of us is even remotely planning to ever harass her, whatever the result of her work turns out to be.
And he brought up GamerGross specifically to make his point about us. He’s comparing our reactions to those against Anita.
So, I say fuck thee troll, and I bid thee fare well.
FFS, people! I will provide some quotes from the website of the scam film festival. While reading these, keep in mind that this festival is, according to cannesguide.com, in no way affiliated with the Cannes Film Festival or Marché du Film.
Oh, and the url for the website is cannesfest.org, conveniently leaving out the “independent” part.
I mean, come ON.
You know what? I’ve just looked it up and it’s clearly a scam, but the people being scammed are the people (like Cassie) who pay the fees in the hope they’ll win the award. She was all of 24 when she went in for this. Who knows? Maybe she was really, really thrilled when she got her certificate in the post, thinking it was worth something and she’s never retracted it since.
Should she? Yes. Is it a big deal? Only in that it’s strange that a legit documentary maker would keep using it.
These scams are not unusual in the creative arts. Who could possibly keep track of all the competitions that hand out shiny trophies for short stories and poems, where the entrance fees have been really high. They’re scams, but I’ve known people who are really proud of their ‘publication’ or their certificate.
Yeah, she should know better. But being a sucker for a fake award just makes you a sucker.
@dhag85 and Paradoxical Intention,
would you care about this if she wasn’t apparently cozy with the MRAs right now? AVFM is trying to grift more money for this by claiming that feminists are now attacking Jaye, and that this is ‘the film SJWs don’t want you to see’, isn’t David’s article playing right into their hands?
I doubt anyone here gave to Jaye’s kickstarter, so I don’t see why her credentials are of concern. Isn’t this a bit like when Sarkeesian’s detractors accuse her of ripping off her backers?
I’m seconding Luzbelitx on this one. Felipe be concern trollin’.
And also double seconding that bringing up the actions of GG against Anita and somehow conflating us and them devoid of the context that GG is notorious for harassing people while we are not is gross and really uncalled for.
I sense some huge business opportunities — I’m going to set up a “School in Economics” in London (Ontario), and a cooking school called “The Sorbone” in Paris (Texas).
@Bodycrimes,
given what we already know about Jaye, it shouldn’t be surprising she fell for a scam. She’s shown herself pretty naive recently, either by falling for Elam’s schtick, or by foolishly thinking she can pull a fast one on the guys who are promoting and funding her film. A pity as ‘Daddy I Do’ looks pretty good.
But I still think it’s a bad idea to dig dirt on her at this stage.
Her documentary may turn out to be great, but this effort to puff herself up with a fake award — which she must certainly know is fake — does not make her look credible, IMHO. You would think that credibility would be an issue in making documentaries.
But she continues to not correct people when they misrepresent the facts. It’s dishonest.
Again, slightly dishonest, but still dishonest.
I can’t speak for everyone here, but yeah, I would care about this if she wasn’t cozy with the MRM right now.
Because she’s making a documentary about The Red Pill and MRM “philosophy”, and if she makes this film be feminist-leaning, or if the roles were flipped and it was feminists funding the documentary, then the MRAs would undoubtedly bring up the fact that this is a scam award themselves, and they’d be right to do so, if only because she keeps using it, despite the fact that the group behind it has been debunked by the actual festival.
The difference between Jaye at the moment and Sarkeesian is that Antia’s work isn’t prefaced or publicized by any sort of awards, just her degree and her love for her work.
Again, I’m not saying this makes Jaye an awful person, but it is something worth noting here, and it’s something that will undoubtedly be used against her in the future if the MRM decides to shred her for not doing a good enough job.
@sn0rkmaiden
You’re basically asking if I would care about this if I didn’t know about it. It’s this like a zen trick question?
Seriously though, yes, I think this would be equally dishonest if a feminist did it. I don’t know why you’re even asking that. The answer should be obvious.
bodycrimes is right, in that Jaye exaggerating her credentials is in itself not a huge deal. My biggest problem with this is that she’s being funded by AVfM and she lets AVfM outright lie about this award, while in return she’s making this movie for them. Yeah, I think that’s a thing worth pointing out.
As for the whole idea that criticizing manospherians only benefits manospherians, let’s just say I don’t agree at all.
“It’s this” = “Is this”
If David Futrelle paid Cassie Jaye to make a documentary about We Hunted The Mammoth, while writing blog posts about her winning a Cannes Film Festival award, I’d call him out on it. I guess that’s the shorter answer.
dhag just said it better than I could, honestly, though I would point out that Cassie Jaye identifies herself as a feminist.
How exactly is Sarkeesian supposed to have ripped off her backers? Sorry, I haven’t kept up with all the GG nonsense.
@Paradoxical Intention. Look, I agree with you. She should correct the record and not use it.
But I come back to the point I made before – right now, she’s being love bombed by the MRAs. They’re offering her tea and cuddles, loads of money, and loads of money.
They’re a crazy paranoid cult. And right now she’s spending time with them and, whether she’s playing a long game with them or not, she’s breathing in the same paranoid air they do. They’re going to love, love, love this attack on her. It bolsters their case.
@Paradoxical Intention
Yeah, thanks for the correction. I knew that, but screwed up.
And also, we don’t know if she IS making a documentary that’s sympathetic towards them. There’s nothing she’s said in either her kickstarter campaign notes or her Breitbart interview that has her unequivocably coming down on the side of the MRAs.
I’d be very interested to see what she said when she was raising money for Daddy I Do. I wonder if she used the same tactics.
I think the reason this leaves such a bad taste in people’s mouths is because it *feels* petty on David’s part, like he deliberately went out looking for dirt to dig up on her to discredit her. The fact that it comes on the heels of a falling out between these two makes it seem personal. Might have been more appropriate to wait until the documentary started filming/previews came out with the glorified award/etc.
I guess I should say for the record that I don’t know a thing about Cassie Jaye other than what’s been expressed here by me and others. She could be a wonderful person and I wouldn’t know. And, crucially, I don’t need to know any of that stuff in order to understand that she’s been dishonest in several ways.
Guys, it’s about ethics in documentary film making. Seriously though, it is.
@bodycrimes
Sorry for the caps, but WHO CARES. Did you not read any of my previous comments? Past actions are not magically undone by the contents of a future documentary. How is this so difficult.
At worst, her pride in this bogus award is dishonest on her part, an attempt to make herself look more important/critically acclaimed than she is.
At best, it makes her look heartbreakingly naïve and easily sucked in, and raises legitimate concern that her subject, by financing her, will influence how favorably they are shown in the film.
Either way, it doesn’t make her look good. And it is perfectly legitimate to bring that up.
@NothingClever
I think you’re onto something there, to be honest. I guess it could feel petty if that’s what you want to believe. I don’t know David to be particularly petty from his previous blogging, so I’m more inclined to believe he found this information as a natural consequence of writing about her in the last few days. When you gather information about a thing, you learn about the thing.
Except it’s not an attack? It’s literally David going “Hey, that thing that AVfM and a few other people said about Jaye is wrong.”
Of course, everything we say is construed as an “attack” against the MRM though, and I don’t see how this would be any different, nor do I see how this “bolsters their case”, beyond their usual argument of “everything feminists say against us is an attack on everything we love, and thus they’re all evil, conniving bitches!”
I don’t recall saying that this movie was going to be sympathetic towards MRAs, but that was a worry we talked about in the previous thread as well, if the money gifted to her to fund this thing was going to sway her opinions and such.
However, we discussed this in the last thread, and a conclusion was drawn on my part, with the help of other commenters: Either way, it’s not going to end well for her.
If she makes the movie sympathetic towards them, she’ll be shunned by feminists and a large group of other people for making gross people sympathetic, and there’s a scarily large chance that even if she does, she won’t do it exactly to Elam and Co.’s liking, and will be attacked for it.
And if she makes the movie not sympathetic to them, she’ll be attacked by Elam and Co. for taking their money and using it to make them look bad, most likely by showing the truth.
They did the same thing to Jeff Shartlet, who they thought was going to write an awesome article about them for GQ (although he wasn’t backed by their money, which might make Jaye’s case worse).
I think maybe I need to clarify that while Jaye has definitely been at least a little bit dishonest, the people I’m really criticizing are AVfM and the other manospherians. They’ve paid a person to make a documentary about them, while acting as if this person will be unbiased despite being funded by the subjects of her own movie, AND lying about the film maker’s credentials. That’s pretty shady behavior.
@Paradoxy
I have to ask. I’ve seen you spell Sharlet’s name as “Shartlet” twice now. Is this a mistake or is it some sort of inside joke? Either way, it makes me smile every time. :p