Good news everyone! “The Red Pill,” Cassie Jaye‘s long-promised documentary about A Voice for Men that was partly funded by people involved with AVFM and also to a much greater degree by Milo Yiannopoulos fans who want to stick it to feminism, will soon be hitting theaters!
Well, two theaters, in October.
CHECKMATE, FEMINISM!!!1!
The feeling of excitement is palpable at the We Hunted the Mammoth headquarters, though admittedly all of it involves one small cat who for some reason likes to RUN AROUND THE APARTMENT AT BREAKNECK SPEEDS after she poops, and none of it (the excitement, not the poop) involves the A Voice for Men Promo Reel Red Pill documentary at all.
But I can only imagine how excited the general public will be about the film. I mean who wouldn’t be THRILLED by the prospect of seeing a film centered around footage of a three-year-old total failure of a men’s rights rally that seems to have involved a little more than thirty people, with maybe half of them being rally organizers and other AVFM “staffers.”
FUN FACT: In the three years since that “historic” RALLY OF THE CENTURY most of the better-known AVFMers at the rally have ceased to be AVFMers. They quit the band, in other words, and are now pursuing highly unsuccessful solo careers.
In case you can’t read my SUPER LEGIBLE pic above with all the red text on it, here are the highlights, going from left to right, with some helpful links to posts of mine on them.
Nick Reading of Men’s Rights Edmonton … seems to have nothing to do with AVFM any more. I don’t know the details.
Dean Esmay quit AVFM, for reasons that are still unclear, and since then has kept quite busy on Twitter and on YouTube, calling women the c-word; calling feminist women of color “Aunt Jemimahs” [sic]; threatening to literally spit in the faces of some of his MGTOW enemies, and offering helpful gardening tips.
Paul Elam, seen in the pic modeling a very fashionable “I Heart FTSU [F*cking Their Sh*t Up]” t-shirt, just up and quit the men’s rights movement, stepping down as AVFM’s publisher (sort of ) and declaring himself a “former MRA” (kind of). He moved on to his next moneymaking venture, A Near For Men — sorry, An Ear for Men — which involves charging dudes $90 an hour to talk to him on Skype. No, really. His Ear for Men videos and posts, which all seem to end up on AVFM, are pretty much the same sort of crap he used to post there.
And then there’s Attila Vinczer. Hoo boy. Vinczer, formerly AVFM’s “Activism Director,” quit the site in a huff, sending fellow MRAs what I described at the time as “a bitter 8-page ‘Dear Paul’ letter full of accusations and invective and enough self-pity to fill a conference hall.” Then, logging back into his old “editor” account on AVFM, he posted a 4600-word screed attacking Elam, on Elam’s own site. It was deleted, but not before someone — who might have been me, I don’t remember — archived it!
Good times.
Actually, if the Red Pill film gets into this stuff, it might end up being worth watching.
If not, well, it should be a very exciting documentary about people who don’t actually do anything about the problems they claim are all-important, and then give up because activism is hard even if you don’t actually engage in anything that could really be called activism.
Over on AVFM, though, the locals are feeling pretty chuffed.
MGTOW-man has high hopes for the film and some thoughts about my underpants.
For most of my life I have wondered why can’t just one person, or one group, or one voice in mainstream television/communications with the real truth to tell make it into the big mainstream discussion to blurt out the lies being told? Why is it that every single time those speaking never are one of “us” who have nothing but truth to tell?
I hope this movie changes this. No wonder Futrell nearly soiled his undies. He knows the feminist bullies may have just shyt and fell in it …with it finally being in plain sight for the larger population to see.
Ray24, leaning heavily on the Milo Yiannopoulos catchphrase “Feminism is Cancer,” has more measured expecations.
[C]ancer has proven difficult to cure and I have my doubts that the societal cancer of radical feminism will be any easier to get rid of. Still, we have to keep working to find cures for killer diseases like cancer and feminism. I wonder which has caused the most pain & suffering & death, cancer or feminism? :-/
Shrek6 is a bit more confident about the feminism-slaying capabilities of the as-yet-unseen documentary:
I bet the bitches or was that ‘witches?’ Nevertheless, the bitches of East-wick, will do all they can to disrupt the public viewing of this movie.
Seriously though. If this movie is 100% balanced, level, fair and dinky die honest smack down the middle, it will still be a mortal blow to feminism.
On the Men’s Rights subreddit, the reaction has been a bit more mixed, but some of the regulars have given themselves permission to dream big.
Imnotmrabut thinks the film could have a big impact on the presidential election — and beyond!
I’m sure that it’s release prior to November will Stir up quite a set of questions for All Presidential candidates, in the media and leave many voters wondering about new questions.
It will also act as a Thorn in the next US president’s side for their first term, and I’m sure it will be delightfully painful for all in politics. Why worry abut just an election when you can have 4 years of the best show in town and some real ass kicking all for free!
EricAllonde, meanwhile, is looking forward to what he sees as the inevitable FEMINIST RIOTS.
If you remember the feminist riots on campus that we saw for people like Warren Farrell, Milo or even Christina Hoff Sommers – the level of violence by feminists trying to block a screening of this film would be multiple times greater. That would provide fantastic publicity for the film.
Note to anyone thinking about maybe blocking a screening of the film, please don’t. It would provide fantastic publicity for the film.
I, in turn, will do my best to ignore the film. After all, there are more important things to focus on between now and November. We have a Trump to beat.
H/T — r/againstmensrights
I think the people blocking access to Warren Farrell’s talks at least were members of some sort of Trotskyist organization (maybe some RCP Maoists also). They’re not people from a mainstream feminist or broadly left wing feminist group.
The fuck? It’s okay to kill people if we don’t like what they “give us”?
@Axe:
“Might I ask, are you new? Don’t remember seeing you around. If so, welcome aboard! if not, wassup anyway ?”
Not new, but not really a regular, either. I often read here, but usually by the time I get to a thread whatever I might have wanted to say has already been said by someone else, so I tend to just lurk.
As for Sherlock rants, eh, maybe? Perhaps when it isn’t around 2am (I’m in Israel). Anyway, tl;dr version was that I felt it was badly written and used some bad plot devices, that the general Victorian premise was sort of fandom-pandering and self-indulgent, and that the solution of the case(s) was ridiculous, bordering on insulting.
I was uneasy about it since the trailers, but watched it because I was paid to write a review; I did try to come to it without too much prejudice, but, well, my notes actually include a giant underlined UGGHHH at one point, and several WTFs. Still, that’s just me. Like I said, if you had a good time, good for you.
(Would it surprise you to learn that the aforementioned review, which included some feminist-leaning comments on the case solution, received several comments along the lines of “You clearly didn’t understand the episode, feminists just try to ruin everything” etc.? I’m sure it wouldn’t.)
@Penny
Welcome package to the right
One of my favorite parts of the episode was imagining the manboy meltdown. Both from those who thought it was feminist propaganda and those who thought it wasn’t feminist propaganda, so stop talking about that, dammit! Sorry you had to be on the receiving end tho 🙁
Seconding Kupo:
However, I’ll elaborate a bit.
But first, throwing this bit of disclosure out there: I’m a huge fan of Andy Warhol’s work. When I was a teenager, I got to go see one of his shows, and it’s stuck with me ever since. I loved the bright colors, I loved the subject matter that other artists wouldn’t touch, and I loved the personal connections he had to his work (for instance, his mom used to make him Campbell’s soup every day after school, and for my favorite piece, he actually used to work in a shoe factory) and it heavily influenced my belief of “advertising is art”. So, feel free to say that you aren’t going to take what I have to say seriously because “bias” or whatever.
I’m still going to say it though.
My elaboration: Being okay with someone being murdered because you don’t feel like they have contributed enough to society really smacks of eugenics. And that shit isn’t okay.
You know why? Because I hear similar shit about disabled people all the time. Yes, even in 2016. And it’s still not fucking okay to say it.
So, no, I’m not okay with that. I’m not okay for advocating for murder under any circumstances, and I’m especially not okay with advocating for it on the premise of something so arbitrary, selfish, and personal (“What am I getting out of this person being alive?”).
A person’s worth should NEVER be decided based on what they can contribute to anything.
A life is a life.
@runsinbackground, I deleted your comment, I mean, seriously, WTF.
Minor correction: Her dog wasn’t killed, and from what I remember of the very few times she’s been honest about it, wasn’t even badly hurt. Some jackass, probably a kid, shot at it with a BB gun.
It’s like the telephone game for MRAssholes.
@runsinbackground I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt that you were making a joke given the subject matter, because otherwise you are the most obvious and stupid gotcha troll in history. Being a fan of Solanas’s work does not mean being a fan of shooting men, or Warhol, or misandrony. Either way, your “joke” was in poor taste. Unlike the men in Solanas’ writings, Warhol was a real person that was basically physically ruined by Solanas.
On to the rest of your post. Warhol & Friends said that he gave Solanas $25 and a small part in his movie and that was that. Solanas obviously felt otherwise, as she said she shot him because he was stealing her work, a conclusion she reached partially by his loss of her play. Let’s be honest, what Warhol did to Solanas was kinda messed up.
A. Warhol intentionally or unintentionally misplaces her play.
B. Solanas demands payment for her lost play. Warhol denies he lost it, tells her to stop looking for a handout, and offers her a part in his movie for a small amount of money. A homeless Solanas accepts.
C. He then proceeds to forget about her work.
As to whether or not Solanas was “rational”, I tend to believe that a schizophrenic’s behavior is perfectly rational considering their perception. Schizophrenics can be delusional, but that doesn’t make their thinking or decisions automatically irrational, although people will assume so.
Yes. I occasionally hear that it would be better if both physically and mentally disabled people would be killed (or if they “hadn’t been born”). And yes, the United States in 2016. It’s fucked up to even say that as a joke because, if you have a disability, a substantial number of people will think you’re nothing more than a burden on society (even if you’re doing well for yourself).
Shit, that’s the entire message of and reason for the anti-vaxxer “Movement.”
@SFHC
“Shit, that’s the entire message of and reason for the anti-vaxxer ‘Movement.’ “
Wait, what? They seriously say that? Please tell us more.
@mrex
They’d rather risk their children dying from preventable diseases than “risk” their child becoming autistic. (The second risk is in scare quotes because there’s no evidence of increased risk.)
Also violent schizophrenia is extremely rare. Criminal responsibility is a thorny issue still and you need specialized professionals to determine how responsible someone is.
The vast majority of people with schizophrenia are not violent. It’s more likely that some violent person is pretending to be mentally ill than that the violence was caused by clinical delusions.
An antivaxx movement of one stripe or another has been around since the invention of vaccines, and has always been shrouded in a fog of conspiracy theories. Antivaxxers today, though, were revitalized and have been fueled by a few different factors, most importantly (in my mind) including:
1) the increase in Autism Spectrum diagnoses over the past 20 years (an increase due to several factors, including a broadening of diagnostic criteria and an increase in detecting the signs of autism which in the past may have been misdiagnosed)
2) the resurgence of a kind of vitalism, or belief that “natural = superior”
3) the negligent and erroneous linking of AS disorders to the MMR vaccine in a fraudulent paper published (and later retracted) in 1998 by Andrew Wakefield in the Lancet medical journal.
Antivaxx wasn’t always so closely tied to ASD but because the appearance of initial symptoms often coincides with the time at which most children receive several vaccines, in many peoples’ minds the correlation = causation. Despite it being intensively studied and debunked, the belief persists.
The main thing to consider with today’s antivaxxers is that they believe their “normal” child was “stolen” from them by autism caused by vaccines, and that they can reverse the condition and thus bring back or recover their “real” child. It always reminds me of the folktales you read in so many cultures of a child being replaced by a doppleganger of some kind.
It’s really sad and really kind of terrifying, that so many antivaxx parents seem to not even believe their child is their real child to them it’s almost like a cuckoo chick appearing in their nest, an alien and not connected to them, who stole the life of their real, perfect child. After all, these are usually parents who “did everything right” and feel they are owed a neurotypical, healthy child for following all the “rules”.
There was at least one case where a mother killed her low-functioning autistic son; the torture many parents put their autistic children through on a daily basis is bone-chilling – strict dietary regimens, supplements, a reliance on quackery such as homeopathy, even bleach enemas.
To say that they promote eugenics is not far off the mark, although I have not heard it put so baldly from them. I have seen that they don’t consider their own children to be their real children, so it wouldn’t surprise me to find they believe that their children are not really human, either.
Holy shit. I thought we stopped believing in changelings. ._.
Autism Speaks wants to find a genetic marker for autism so autistic children can be aborted, despite it being non fatal or life shortening, or having no way of knowing the child’s future or capabilities.
I’m so tired of organizations like that prioritizing parents over children. It leads to a dearth of resources for independent adults and neglect or worse in childhood. It doesn’t stop at autism either.
I have ADHD and I can’t find much information on how to cope outside of “be more organized!” Anything else prioritizes romantic partners, because apparently ADHDers are bad at relationships. :/
And fuck the homeopathy movement! It’s leading people into not medicating thier children when they have ADHD, and it puts their lives at risk when they have s serious disease.
I’m in favor of herbalism if it’s supported by science. Medicinal plants are real, like cannabis and st. john’s wort. It is true that some stuff you have in your home can help, but a line needs to be drawn.
@Axe:
Thanks! Like I said, been here a while, just mostly as a lurker, so have all the chair-scented candles I need, but a welcome is always nice. 🙂
As for the Sherlock stuff… Don’t know, I’m just kinda meh? I mean, I can get passionate about it, because I’m a nerd, but it’s mostly fun to rant to someone who might agree with me, I don’t like feeling like I’m trying to spoil people’s enjoyment. That being said, I kinda feel that (trying to avoid spoilers) the main plot device they chose let them get pretty self-indulgent. Like they feel they can get away with “But this is all intentional! That’s just how he thinks! Ha ha ain’t I a cad”.
Well, I am done with this show. There’ll be others. Maybe someone will make a good Fandorin miniseries, someday.
And in the meantime, The Great British Bake-Off will return pretty soon, so I’ll be eagerly watching that.
Re antivaxxers, I have a bunch of friends in the anti-antivax movement, here. Doctors and scientists and other dedicated people who spend a lot of time online trying to counter the bullshit. It’s so sad that even now the “vaccines cause autism” lies are still so prevalent, and people prevent children getting life-saving vaccines because of it. And amazing to see the work these people do to try and get parents who were frightened by this stuff to calm down, and to bring them real factual data.
Which is why yesterday, when a lady sitting next to me on the bus was talking on the phone about a chickenpox problem with her kids’ peer group and her worry for her kids, and I heard her saying “Why should it be better if they catch it early? There’s a vaccine now!” I actually gave her a literal thumbs-up.
(Also, yeah, the ablism/eugenics undertones there are terrifying.)
@mrex
Just Google “Better dead than autistic.”
Then open a beer/light a joint/engage in your relaxational vice of choice, because you’ll need it.
Penny Psmith is definitely a regular, and is one of those faces that one gets used to seeing around now and then. Just because she doesn’t post much doesn’t mean that she isn’t beloved.
The thing about the antivax movement that makes me really sad is the people who lead it.
Desperate parents acting desperately is something I can’t find it in my heart to condemn; one can’t make one’s best decisions at such a time, I get that. I can feel compassion for those parents even while I’m horrified by the actions they take.
On the other hand, people who are promoting the activities but aren’t so emotionally near to it… they can fuck off, all of them. Especially Andrew Wakefield: the dude has built a career on encouraging parents to abuse their children. I wish I believed in a hell so that I could wish that he would go to it.
Off-topic:
Scildfreja and any other maths nerds who follow FiveThirtyEight’s polling predictions: I’ve been looking through their model and I have a prediction of my own.
I think that in the next two weeks, the Polls-Plus is going to shift heavily in Clinton’s favour, even if she loses some ground in the Polls-Only. This is because the model tracks the deviation from the expected level, and the expected level assumes a convention bump. If Clinton maintains her current polling even after the conventions recede into the past, the deviation will grow that much larger and the numbers will shift to match.
Thoughts?
@mrex
I first read the S.C.U.M. manifesto recently (within the past couple years) and I always legitimately thought it was satire. Of all the feminists I’ve known in my life I could probably count on one hand the number that have actually read the manifesto. So much for it being a central philosophy of feminism.
@Penny
Sorry for the presumption. I guess I’m the newbie then 😀
Yeah, I feel ya 🙂
I think I know what you’re getting at. I don’t disagree. Avoiding spoilers, the massive contrivances involved were, well, massive. I just have a really hi tolerance for absurdity. Also Mycroft. Huge Mycroft fan since the Brett series
Thanks for the chat ?
@SFHC
Total square (my vice is sleep). Googled it and bailed after a few minutes. If I break anything in my house, I blame you ?
While I don’t believe for a second that vaccines cause autism, I can understand why people sometimes hold that belief given many anecdotal bits and pieces about autistic regression and the real and shocking side effects of vaccines. When I was a teenager I met a family whose child had a post vaccination seizure that left him with permanent and devastating brain injuries which turned a healthy toddler into someone who could not walk or talk or perform basic self-care. I do not know if the vaccine caused the seizure. I do know that the family in question, who were scientists (but not bio-scientists) believed that it did. Given that almost everyone had measles vaccination at the time, that child would have had a better life outcome without the vaccination. Vaccines are not perfectly safe. They are simply stattistically much, much safer than common and sometimes devastating infectious diseases. If I could have successfully avoided exposing my own baby son to that tiny risk, then I would have. But I feared the risks of infectious disease much, much more. My son has had full jabs. And I am considering Chicken Pox, but it’s more difficult to get those in the UK.
We are failing as a society to communicate the relative risks of these approaches. You know you are exposing your child to the risk of vaccination, but you don’t know if your child will be exposed to measles which you’ve probably never seen and which most people survive unscathed.
But even though I understand the impulse behind anti-vaxx, it still makes me angry that people are gambling with their children’s lives and choosing the bet with the worst odds and the bet which has the potential to harm a lot of other people, too.
@Other EJ:
*blush*
@Axe:
I found the special’s Mycroft horrendously fatphobic, to be honest. But that might fall under your tollerance for absurdity.
Yay! You use “MRAssholes” too!
Not to be pushy, but I still haven’t gotten my welcome package 🙁