“Red Pill” director Cassie Jaye has responded to what she calls my “slanderous claims” about her. You can find her video on the subject, and a transcript of it, on her Kickstarter page. (The posts that offended her can be found here, here and here.) It would be quite an effective takedown of me, if what she wrote were actually true.
I was going to write out a detailed response but instead let me give you the tl;dr version as it played out on Twitter last night:
After her video went up, a small squad of her supporters headed here to share their lovely opinions with me. Their comments went straight into the trash, but, what the heck, I thought I’d fish out a couple of them to share with you all now.
I guess these are the heroes of truth and objectivity who are funding her documentary.
EDITED TO ADD:
But wait! There’s more! Jaye’s fans on Twitter also have some things to say.(Mildly NSFW.)
The attacks on me by @Cassie_Jaye 's fans on Twitter are reaching new heights of sophistication. pic.twitter.com/0lMglv0lz3
— David Futrelle (@DavidFutrelle) November 4, 2015
And here's another @Cassie_Jaye fan resorting to Argumentum ad David is Fattum. pic.twitter.com/WJhWhDzpMs
— David Futrelle (@DavidFutrelle) November 4, 2015
The whole “don’t say her scam award is a scam, that’s so meeeaaaannn!” thing I’m seeing is kind of mind-boggling, especially since the whole “Why can’t this CANNES WINNER get funding? Must be FEMINIST CENSORSHIP!” argument is what prompted Dave to look at it in the first place. Come on, people.
@Ellesar:
David does things that aren’t really muckraking, that’s true. I feel that his best work, however, has been in shining a bright light into the murky places and saying to the world “Here, look at this thing that this person said, you may wish to change your opinion of them accordingly.” It’s a valuable service which is a vital piece of journalism, and which – apart from Private Eye – simply doesn’t get done much any more in the UK.
With respect, I feel that we may simply have different reactions to the word “muckraker.” Would “investigative journalist” work better?
@Tyra: I tend to agree. I really don’t see any reason to be charitable and chalk anything she’s saying now up to naivete and ignorance. (Especially when doing so is, apparently, “misogyny”. Like, fine: you want the non-charitable version? If you have delved into the Red Pill forums, have read many of the articles up on AVfM, and you not only completely understand everything they are saying about women, but like and agree with it, then you are a terrible, disgusting person. Full-stop.)
I didn’t mean to express that I don’t believe that Cassie Jaye could have fully immersed herself in TheRedPill and Men’sRights subreddits, read all of Elam’s posts, etc., and come up with a rosy impression of the movement as a whole, but rather that it’s just hard for me to believe that anyone could. And, I guess, especially so when they have made the documentaries she has. And, seriously, how do you go from “Marriage Equality! Yay!” to: Mike Cernovich and Milo Yiannopoulos, what swell people!?
But even if she has been so intellectually lazy as to not read the actual forums and articles of the people she’s championing, ignorance is absolutely no excuse for supporting an awful movement, nor would it be an excuse for the terribly awful things that she has, for sure, done and said already. Complaining about her colleague being triggered being one of the worst (if not the worst).
I don’t know how much of her current actions are due to ignorance, incompetence, or mean-spirited cruelty, but they are all absolutely deserving of ridicule. She is making “documentary” about a controversial group, funded almost entirely by the controversial group, and that portrays that group in a glowing light. That alone is ridiculous for a documentary filmmaker.
Defending her misrepresentation of her “award” and accusing David of lying and misogyny is ridiculous, cynical and gross, and also deserves to be mocked, along with the rest of the horrible things she has said. I don’t care if it encourages more MRAs to donate to the film. It won’t give the film any more credibility. I care about truth, and I care about dishonesty. I’m not the type to say, “Don’t say anything about Chick-fil-A donating to anti-gay organizations, because then anti-gay bigots will rally behind them and boost their sales.” That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
There is a word for it: “Gamergate”
Moocow
“Interesting, I wasn’t familiar with the word gynophobia.”
There is also androphobia which is mistrust and fear of men and boys. Not misandry.
AnAndreajPejicBlog And Kat
Thanks! The meme is fabulous!
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to go after Jaye, but I do think that the title of the Cannes piece was shitty and sub-par. The content was good, and relevant! Exactly the sort of thing I want and expect from Futrelle. That click-baity title though, just poorly thought out.
Criticizing a woman for being “overly trusting” and “naive” is not misogyny? When you haven’t seen her film? When you have no real idea what it was that changed her perspective?
Cassie Jaye says that she only began changing her perspective about MRAs (going from seeing them as monsters to seeing them as complex people with legitimate concerns) after she sat down with several of them in person and talked to them at length. Which is something that David Futrelle and the commenters here simply have not done.
This person who has done something significant that you have not done — might she have discovered something that you have not?
Somehow, David and many others here knew the answer right away: No. The immediate assumption was that Jaye was naive, that she was simply a babe in the woods who got fooled by the awful MRAs.
This was the immediate assumption. It wasn’t even allowed that she might have had good reasons for her turnaround. That maybe an experienced documentary filmmaker doing an actual shoe-leather (not internet) investigation of MRAs had discovered that the issues around men’s rights were more complex than the standard rhetoric deployed against MRAs suggests.
For the majority of commenters, it was not even considered within the realm of reasonable possibility that Cassie Jaye’s direct exposure to the actual people in the MRM legitimately gave her a more nuanced perspective about MRAs and their concerns. Rather, commenters here apparently believe that it is the people who experience MRAs almost exclusively through the internet who know the real truth, and Cassie Jaye must simply be naive. She got fooled.
Jaye is right to wonder why she, a filmmaker of demonstrated competence, is given zero credit for being able to listen, observe, inquire and think for herself. There is no question that she has been pre-judged.
No, criticizing an individual woman does not make you a misogynist. How in the fucking world is this so difficult to understand.
@Tim G
Which MRA do you suggest we sit down and talk to? Paul Elam, who constantly fantasizes about beating women? Esmay, who seems to be on a 24/7 screaming rampage on Twitter? Cernovich, who can’t go 2 minutes without yelling homophobic slurs? Roosh, who wants to legalize rape? Bloomfield, who wants to murder us with a crossbow?
I don’t see how having a cup of coffee with these people would help. And, frankly, I’m not sure it would be safe.
I don’t think she got “Fooled.” I think she saw big shiny dollar signs and tossed her morals (and career) on the trash heap.
No, it’s not, because women are perfectly capable of being “overly trusting” and “naive” because they are human beings, and pointing it out when a woman has been isn’t sexist. (Saying she was “overly trusting” and/or “naive” because she is a woman is very sexist though.)
We’re “criticizing” her for her use of an award from a scammy kind of film award group that shares a similar name to a very famous and well-respected group to pad her resume, and then not correcting people when they assume that it’s the famous one.
She’s deliberately leading them on, and then she turned around and calls David a “misogynist” for pointing it out.
We’re also “criticizing” (read: We’re raising legitimate concerns about) the fact that she’s getting tons of support and funding from MRAs, and wondering if that will skew her bias.
We’re also wondering how she hasn’t seen the old arguments we’ve all seen hundreds of times from MRAs, and have been discussed heavily in feminist circles (and the MRA’s version has been proven to not be too close to the truth). We’re not criticizing her for being sympathetic towards actual problems men have, we’re being a little wary that she’s accepting the skewed truth that MRAs presented her wholesale.
Apparently you’re new to this comments section. We have spoken to several MRAs “at length”, and not a once have they come here to simply “talk”. More often than not, they’ve come her to:
– Gloat about something
– Yell at us for somehow destroying humanity because we want the right to be treated like people instead of sex toys
– Act like they’re willing to talk, but refuse to listen to anyone but themselves and just repeat themselves ad nauseum.
– Hurl slurs at the community.
– Call David fat, among other things.
So yeah, we’ve actually talked with MRAs. They come around here all the time.
Even if they didn’t, David goes and looks at what they say and presents it here to us. Some of us who are braver than others and can stomach that shit have also gone out into the world and found some of the things they’ve said. We’re not saying they’re terrible people based on nothing at all. We can read what they’ve put out on the internet, and none of it is good.
(Not to mention they claim to care about men’s issues, but have yet to do anything to help the situation beyond blame feminists for it or demand that we do something about it.)
When they talk to Cassie Jaye, they’re talking to someone who they think can give them good publicity and who is agreeing with them and defending them, so they’re on their best behavior. You’re assuming that they’d give every feminist who wants to have a discussion with them the same treatment.
Hey Tim G,
How about you start off by not telling me who I am or what I’ve done. You don’t know me or what I do on a daily basis, so really you’re just making an assumption about my making assumptions. For shame.
MRAs are complex individuals- they are people, after all – and perhaps somewhere amid the tangle of privilege and anger there are legitimate concerns. The problem, though, is manifold
1)Where there are legitimate grievances , MRAs immediately place the blame on women regardless of evidence
2) Where there are legitimate grievances, MRAs do nothing to actively aid suffering men
3) Most men who are concerned with correcting these problems have long since ditched MRAs for ideologies that actually do seek solution (like, y’know, feminism)
4)Having legitimate concerns does not excuse their abhorrent behaviour.
The internet is not some magical place where shit happens. It affects life offline. The truckloads of horrid shit that is poured out daily does not disappear when an MRA steps outside.
That is why Cassie is being called naive: not because she is a woman, but because she is ignoring the vast wealth of evidence coming from their own mouths, hands, what-have-you that these people have horrible views of women.
“Cassie Jaye says that she only began changing her perspective about MRAs (going from seeing them as monsters to seeing them as complex people with legitimate concerns) after she sat down with several of them in person and talked to them at length. Which is something that David Futrelle and the commenters here simply have not done.”
yeah, she did this, and aside from their dirty money, what did she get? A creep calling her in the middle of the night. I wouldn’t be alone in a room with a man like those for even a million dollars.
I know, though, we were not there. We didn’t hear GENIUS arguments like “we get paid more but women live longer”, if I only was there, I’m sure I’d take Elam home out of compassion.
You all think this woman is dumb and naive. I disagree. I still think she is smarter than all of us. She is doing the young, blonde, fragile woman baffled by the smartness of the older, experienced men. There is nothing sexier for guys like these, believe me. They will give her whatever money she asks for.
As for a name and a career… Well, she never had much of that in the first place, did she? I do believe she will make much better money working with manospherians than working with documentaries in general. Compared to the guys who usually make manospherian videos, she is someone with the cinematic geniality of Kubrick and the sex appeal of Nicole Kidman. This woman is in for a very comfortable life as long as redpillers and mras exist.
“You all think this woman is dumb and naive. I disagree. I still think she is smarter than all of us. She is doing the young, blonde, fragile woman baffled by the smartness of the older, experienced men. There is nothing sexier for guys like these, believe me. They will give her whatever money she asks for.
As for a name and a career… Well, she never had much of that in the first place, did she? I do believe she will make much better money working with manospherians than working with documentaries in general. Compared to the guys who usually make manospherian videos, she is someone with the cinematic geniality of Kubrick and the sex appeal of Nicole Kidman. This woman is in for a very comfortable life as long as redpillers and mras exist.”
Paul Elam’s not going to like that. He has the donation-receiver position cornered and he’ll oust any competition he has to in order to avoid getting a real job.
@AnAndrejaPejicBlog
GAAAAAAAAAAAH! If ayeayes are at the front of the parade they’ll scare everyone away which totally defeats the point of a parade. Maybe they can bring up the rear, I wonder if they can be trained to ride little lemur-sized tricycles that look like motorcycles. Even if they can’t, a feminist lemur parade should work out much better than my last attempt at organizing a parade involving llamas and alpacas.
dhag85:
Agreed. But look at the form the majority of the attacks on Cassie Jaye immediately took. She’s “naive.” Only a minority took the position that she is “terrible.”
If the filmmaker behind The Red Pill were a man, would that majority/minority proportion be the same, or would it be reversed?
I would agree that Cassie Jaye is being attacked primarily because she is departing from the preferred narrative about MRAs — that “who they really are” is a bunch of despicable, worthless, hateful garbage people whose concerns should never be listened to by anyone.
Man or woman, Cassie Jaye would be under attack right now for not subscribing to that narrative.
But why is the dominant form of attack that she is naive? Treating a woman like she is a child incapable of mature thought is a common form of misogyny. And when a woman who so very clearly can think for herself is treated this way, is she wrong to wonder if misogyny is in the mix? To wonder if her enemies, perhaps without even articulating it to themselves, felt that this line of attack would do the most harm because she is a woman?
Wouldn’t a man at least be presumed malicious instead of naive?
Cassie Jaye apparently felt the same way (Reddit AMA):
She thought MRAs were all rape apologists. She was “absolutely terrified” to meet Paul Elam. In other words, from reading about MRAs on the internet, she felt about MRAs the way most people here do.
Then she met several MRAs in person and talked to them in depth. And her perspective changed. She hasn’t said that it completely reversed, she said that it changed — based on new information that she gained through her own lengthy, real-world investigation of the MRM.
And she is given zero credit for that. The possibility that her new, more nuanced perspective on MRAs might actually have emerged from having an intelligent, open mind as she encountered new information is completely dismissed by most commenters here, and by David Futrelle as well.
It simply isn’t considered possible that MRAs could be more than idiotic brutes with absolutely nothing of value to say. Everyone already knows that’s all they are and nothing more.
Therefore, Cassie Jaye was fooled.
Paradoxical Intention:
You seem to think you have a good handle on MRAs by observing them with the following method:
–Read the stories about MRAs that David collects from various places and posts here
–Interact with self-selected MRAs who post here in the comments
But that was not the method that Cassie Jaye used to make her film. Her method was long, repeated, face-to-face interviews, conducted, I presume, with an open mind and in good faith. That’s a significantly different method of research.
Don’t you think it’s at least possible that Cassie Jaye’s perspective is different because her method was different? Isn’t it at least possible that a smart and curious feminist could reach different conclusions about MRAs from personal interviews than from reading a blog openly dedicated to selecting the worst of the worst in order to have targets for mockery and ridicule?
Drezden:
Sorry to have offended you by assuming that you have not conducted multiple face-to-face interviews with MRAs. Have you?
So “perhaps” that is exactly what Cassie Jaye discovered? If WHTM focuses exclusively on the “privilege and anger” part, does that mean that Cassie Jaye must restrict her documentary to that same focus? She shouldn’t explore those potential “legitimate concerns”?
Do you know that Cassie Jaye did not interview MRAs who do not reflexively blame women? If an MRA she was interviewing did blame women for a problem, do you know that Cassie Jaye did not challenge them on it?
Do you know that Cassie Jaye did not confront the MRAs she interviewed with this common criticism of MRAs? Do you know that she did not find MRAs who actually do productive work to aid suffering men?
Do you know that Cassie Jaye did not address the issue of whether MRAs are even necessary in her film? Do you know what answers she received?
Do you know that Cassie Jaye does not address abhorrent behavior by MRAs in her film and confront her MRA interviewees with examples of that behavior?
Do you know that Cassie Jaye ignores this wealth of evidence in her documentary? Do you know that she doesn’t confront Paul Elam with his “Bash A Violent Bitch” article? Or confront other MRAs with their similarly violent rhetoric?
I don’t see how you could know any of this. And to assume that Jaye does not address these concerns in her film is, I think, fairly rash. I see no logical basis for the assumption, and her past work argues against it, to put it mildly.
Tim G, “Then she met several MRAs in person and talked to them in depth. And her perspective changed. She hasn’t said that it completely reversed, she said that it changed — based on new information that she gained through her own lengthy, real-world investigation of the MRM. ”
They’ve come off extremely misogynistic online and very crass, anti-intellectual. Maybe if they would have come off as reasonable, refined men and women of substance and respectability, we’d all feel a bit different. And Judgy Bitch/Jane Bloomfield is one of the most crass.
The medium is the message.
Christ almighty, Tim is wordy.
Looks like it’s time to play another round of the Name the Non-misogynist MRA Challenge!
Nobody has won yet.
Maybe Tim will be the one!
Go ahead, Tim. If David is taking MRAs out of context, or cherry picking the worst ones, surely you must know of some non-misogynist MRAs. If you can name one. You win.
I’ll be waiting right here.
So, someone who thinks a scam award is real, and MRAs are not such terrible guys, shouldn’t be seen as naïve, because…?
Look, Timmeh: If the shoe fits, Cinderella should own up and WEAR it, already.
First of all, gee, you are one boring guy. It’s like you grab the same paragraph and reword a billion times.
Who is attacking her? David? If his attempt of attack is writing polite blog posts about her, then he is doing a terrible job. He should take classes from manospherians.
Yes, this is what this blog is for, actually. mocking, or, in your words, attacking manospherians and their ideals. We wouldn’t be talking about her film if her film wasn’t inserted in the manosphere, and we wouldn’t be talking about the things she says if they were contrary to the manosphere. Again, this is the purpose of the blog. We mock MRAs and MRA ideas.
MRA and Redpill philosophy benefits men and hurts women. If I work to help my group while hurting other group, I am malicious. If I work to help other group and hurting mine, I am seen as naive. Obviously.
Awwww, isnt that sweet? I think it was really deep. The “women live longer” argument was eye opening for me too!
You mean unlike the fantasy-world investigation David has been doing for years?
Oh, David, if only you have researched about them for a few weeks and had a coffee with Paul Elam, you would know details you have ignored all these years!
Yeah, let me tell you something from someone with a “Beauty and the Beast” complex: when I was just beginning in feminism, I was pro mra, after all, men have problems, and someone has to adress them. I went to their forums, listened to their problems, I truly believed they must not be that bad. Guess what, they’re worse. The few non misogynists that accidentally end up there don’t last 6 months. I won’t even mention red pillers. So, no, not buying that.
Tale as old as time… song as old as rhyme… Cassie and Paaaul Elaam!
There’s a lot of ridiculousness in your post there Timmy, but I’d like to address this bit in particular.
How do you know that other feminists haven’t tried Cassie’s “method”? How do you know that some of us here aren’t ex-MRAs or “Whattabout-the-Menz”-ers? How do you know we haven’t tried making nice with MRAs, or tried talking to them or listening to them?
How do you know that we’re not “smart and curious feminists”? Do you think we’re not “smart and curious feminists” because we don’t agree with MRA bullshit? Do you think that we’re not “smart and curious” because we don’t want to have to dig through AVfM or Return of Kings for all the garbage that floats there? Because we don’t want to sit down and have coffee with someone who took Domestic Violence Awareness month and turned it into Bash a Violent Bitch month?
How do you know that we’re only selecting “the worst of the worst”? Granted, the worst of the worst can be funny sometimes, but we can’t just constantly post a stream of “the worst of the worst”, otherwise this place would be filled with the sads. Yes, David sometimes posts terrible articles about shootings and rape and violence, but he also sometimes just posts random dudes saying things like “Women are ruining everything because they only like simple chord progression!”
Chord Progression Man hardly seems like “the worst of the worst”.
Tim G, I HAVE interacted with MRA’s. I gave them the benefit of a doubt. I was called filthy liberal, bitch, and skanky Jew. Of course, I wasn’t filming. Maybe MRA’s are capable of portraying decency when a camera is rolling.
1) this one’s just JAQ’ing off
2) never invite camelids to a parade, they’ll just spit on everyone
3) alpaca fur is the best fur
4) come on now WWTH, after FIVE YEARS how do you know no one has found that magical MRA? You can’t possibly know this! /snark
5) hey Tim, you don’t happen to go by + do you? Cuz yes, I am *that* Argenti
I find it telling that Tim is leaving out a significant step in Jaye’s progression towards sympathizing with the MRM.
1. Was a self-identified feminist
2. Started an MRM documentary
3. Had coffee with MRAs
4. RECEIVED A BOATLOAD OF DONATIONS FROM THE MANOSPHERE
5. Decided “you know what? MRAs totally have some reasonable points you guys!”