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The reviews are in! Well, technically speaking, a review is in.
The Village Voice’s Alan Scherstuhl has posted his review of Cassie Jaye’s The Red Pill, her totally objective documentary about the Men’s Rights Movement that was funded in part by some of the people featured in it and that will be opening in theaters a theater Friday
Let’s just say he didn’t like it:
[F]or two agonizing hours, Jaye tumbles slowly down America’s stupidest rabbit hole, discovering that Men’s Rights Activists are actually just dudes who have been dicked over by a culture that punishes masculinity. …
Jaye acknowledges in the opening and closing minutes that MRAs sometimes spew nasty garbage online, but she never presses them on this in her many interviews. Instead, she lets them moan about how hard it is to be a dude in 2016, endorsing their anecdotal complaints about unfair family courts, incidents of men being tricked into being fathers and — I didn’t quite follow this one — one father’s conviction that the women who had custody of his son were systematically trying to make the boy fat.
One can only assume that they are fattening him up before they EAT HIM.
Confused MRAs, apparently unable to understand how anyone could possibly hate a film they’re pretty sure they’re going to just love, have responded to Scherstuhl’s review by crying “conspiracy.”
In a comment on the Village Voice, MRA David King (presumably the same David King who is the “Chief Information Officer” for A Voice for Men) suggests that “[s]omething definitely stinks, and it’s not the film under review.”
He submits these, er, facts to a candid world:
• September 29, Cassie Jaye tweeted “Events surrounding The Red Pill documentary are getting curiouser and curiouser”, the same day Scherstuhl tweeted that he’d “agreed to review” TRP, the same day Scherstuhl invited a well-known anti-male MRA antagonist to DM him via Twitter.
Just FYI, the “well-known anti-male MRA antagonist” in question is apparently little old me, though I’m pretty sure I am not actually anti-male. I didn’t DM Scherstuhl, though I think I retweeted a couple of his Tweets.
King continues:
• October 4, HP and Village Voice publish this hit piece using present-tense language (“this movie is playing in two American theaters”) strongly implying that the author has seen a film which doesn’t debut for another 3 days on October 7,
HOW ON EARTH DID A FILM REVIEWER SEE A FILM BEFORE IT WAS EVEN OUT oh wait that’s how film reviewing works.
• so Scherstuhl has not seen it at a theatre and cannot have seen it anywhere else unless either a) invited to by CJ (in which case HP and Village Voice, at which Scherstuhl is an editor, have violated the embargo such previews usually carry) or b) he has acquired a copy illegally.
Since both HP and VV have published this review already, since embargoes on unreleased films are the norm, and barring decent evidence of mismanagement on the part of CJ and her team, that rather heavily points at the latter. Whichever the case, violation of contract (best case) or breaking the law (worst case) doesn’t look good for either HP or Village Voice.
Yes, because films are NEVER reviewed before they hit theaters oh wait.
• If the author has not seen it, then he’s lying through his teeth both in the article’s content and about its provenance. He misrepresents the review as being based on an alleged viewing post public release but, owing to an editorial screw-up, the copy got released days before it should have been, proving that his article is a premeditated and contrived attack motivated by political animus.
• There are numerous tells in the language used in this article that strongly hint at an agenda and a prior conclusion (read: closed mind) so it almost doesn’t matter whether Scherstuhl did see it or not because the actual content of the film would make no difference to the content of the article.
King blathers on for a while along these lines, and even mentions me by name once! It’s good to be noticed.
Meanwhile, on Twitter, the lovable Dan Perrins seems to suggest that I might have actually paid Scherstuhl for his review.
A ? for the lawyers.
I'd also suspect some payola for the review as well.
Given @DavidFutrelle lack of integrity— Dan Perrins (@BlackBeard20096) October 4, 2016
Apparently Dan lives in an alternate universe in which men are oppressed and I am filthy rich.
Speaking of films, here is a short documentary about a capybara who jumps into a pool and plays with a pool noodle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=291Bry2FlsU
@ Roget’s Thesaurus of Un-American Bigotry
For the last fucking time: Ripping up the 1st Amendment at the first sign of trouble, because you have the backbone of a goddamn jellyfish, and instituting a religious test for anyone seeking entrance and potential future citizenship, is not “being careful”.
It is the precise opposite of being careful.
It is bigotry, because it casts the evil of a few people onto an entire class of people.
And in so doing, it is dangerous, because the first line of any terrorist recruitment begins with, “They hate you.” You don’t know it, but right now, you are on the front lines for ISIS, fighting the information war for them. You are also fighting on the front lines for ISIS (and every other Islamist terror group) in the intelligence battle — our greatest asset in gathering intelligence about terrorists is having allies in communities that distrust and hate us. You, and everyone like you who thinks we need to be “careful”, are absolutely crippling us in this endeavor.
Also, as Viscaria pointed out, these are families fleeing violence — taking just the women and children is ridiculous and needlessly cruel. Moreover, since safety is your stated priority, it shouldn’t have to be pointed out that that kind of blanket policy is trivial to circumvent. (Hint: women are capable of killing. Terrorist groups have figured this out; why haven’t you?)
@Roger
Yeah, I don’t want them run in a bigoted way.
So now it’s poor=serial killer? Still irrationally bigoted. You can choose to be ignorant of how we really hurt one another as a species and you will face the social consequences. There are rich serial killers, and the rich have been preyed on by serial killers.
Then you will face the social consequences of being a lazy bigot.
No. Because the social focus needs to be on what a real threat looks like. If we learned what rape really looked as a society that would be part of any vetting process casually and professionally. Still irrational and counter productive.
Rapists love pointing at other people and you are in common cause with them. I will continue to rationally shame behavior such as yours and point out the groups where it resides.
It’s just like Mr. Trump said, “When Northern Europe sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” His push for a total ban on Swedes only makes sense.
@ Roger
Why are you so concerned about serial killers anyway? Unless you fall within certain demographics the chances of being a victim are so negligible as to not be worth thinking about.
You’re more at risk if your posh house comes with a dishwasher.
Yeah, I was just about to post what Dr.DeadAnimals said.
Roger is boring.
I’ve already tussled with enough argumentative, wrong-headed people today 🙁
I think this is, again, a epistemological problem.
It doesn’t seem likely to me that you understand how information works.
But that to one side – no, I don’t want to become an expert at identifying serial killers, criminals and rapists. No, I don’t want to live next door to serial killers, criminals and rapists.
If there is some easy way to reduce the chance that I might end up living to such people, I’m going to take it.
Maybe from your perspective, that makes me evil. Well, I think there are probably quite a lot of “evil” people.
Is there any chance I can get deported with all the other “evil”/”bigoted” people to a place where we can make our own immigration rules?
I think the serial killers are a “PC analogy” to Roger, but there may be other reasons.
You know, Roger, we speak a common language. You could actually, you know, address the points that have been made about how “being careful” actually makes the country less safe.
Or, when confronted with inconvenient knowledge, you could just bow out, like you’re doing, with some garbage about the theory of knowledge, and continue calling brown people (primarily Mexicans and Syrian Muslims) “serial killers, criminals, and rapists” in spite of the evidence.
Your shtick is boring, and weak.
@eli
You OK? <3
@Rommel (Yeah, I went there)
And luckily, seeing as you’re ordinary, you don’t need to be. Meanwhile, the rest of us, ordinary or otherwise, will try to figure it out. Both for ourselves and those we care about. Now, if you can stop wasting our time, some of us were doing just that before you showed up…
@Roger
Epistemology and bigotry are not mutually exclusive.
There is no other way to defend yourself from a threat except to understand it. The flack that you get from the people your flawed pattern detection affects is a legitimate social attack. You deserve the response from those irrationally tied to bad characteristics and their allies.
Well, I was more or less accused of being a pearl-clutching ninny. I mean…have you seen some of those 13-year-old girls!
Yes, this was “Pastor.”
Gonna try out this new-fangled quote button.
You’re in luck!
https://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2015/04/01/4-uninhabited-islands-that-pickup-guru-and-wannabe-island-nation-founder-roosh-v-should-consider-moving-to/
@ Roger
I think where you fall into into error is only considering one factor in isolation. That leads you to a single solution to address that perceived problem. But then you fail to consider the unintended consequences of that solution.
I’m in the UK so I’ll be addressing this from a local perspective.
Let’s say you’re correct and some serial killers will arrive as immigrants. You therefore ban all immigrants. You’ve saved a handful of lives.
But 24% of the people propping up our health service are immigrants. Now though we’ve excluded those people . So how many lives are lost as a result of that?
So even excluding all the common decency reasons for migration, just applying grim utilitarian maths we’re already worse off under your proposal.
@ eli
Barf. I work around 13-year-old girls, but I’m thankful that it’s in a setting where I’m duty-bound to report such comments. My sincere sympathies.
We’re talking about different things – you guys are trying to develop a theory of how to identify exactly what each individual is going to do only by looking at information on the level of an individual – and until we can do that, do nothing.
I’m saying take advantage of whatever information we have to make the best possible decision.
To me, your way seems arrogant at best, utterly misguided at worst. I don’t think you can really blame me all that hard if I don’t have absolute faith in your ability to spot each individual bad guy, or if I don’t want to join you in your endeavours.
But, good luck to you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_crime#Sweden
@eli
There is literally 0 context that can possibly make that statement OK
Well, shit… Dream job, huh? So sorry. Hugs if you want em <3
@Alan – presumably those doctors/nurses weren’t unemployed in their home countries?
Anyway – if someone is highly qualified, obviously that’s another factor you have to take into consideration.
Still – there should be plenty of female doctors/nurses without having to take in male ones.
@ Roger
Indeed not. In fact one genuine criticism you could make about migration is that it has a negative effect on the original countries. We’re effectively stealing the best talent.
But that’s the irony when people use ‘economic migration’ as a boogey-man. It’s actually highly beneficial for the host countries. We’re getting the benefit of a group of self selecting highly motivated individuals. Adds about £20 billion to the UK economy.
Be happy in haste, repent in leisure…
It’s not just the UK. I’ve met highly-trained medical professionals from Eastern Europe working housekeeping in U.S. hospitals.
But in the other thread you argued that we ought to be willing to eat a piece of pizza (i.e. vote for Trump) of very questionable provenance and only decide whether to repeat the behavior iafter we were either violently ill or not. Now you’re taking the opposite position.
I’m sure it’s entirely a coincidence that, in the other thread, you were arguing that others should be willing to accept risk for the sake of your comfort whereas in this analogy you’d be the one taking the risk.
@Roger
Utter bullshit. We learn the ways to identify the behaviors now. In fact many people have ways of doing that but they tend to get opposed by bigots and the rapists/murderers among their number who try to defend themselves from consequences and change.
Also do you agree that the people affected by your actions should critisize you and socially oppose you? You are pushing for something that does affect them as a group.
To do list:
*Learn what people who study and have experience with rape/murder say about it’s nature and signs. Actively support standards of behavior informed by them so so we can fix the actual problem.
*Learn how rapists/murderers are taking advantage of bigots in my group in order to take attention off of themselves.
*Treat individuals as individuals as a society so that they are willing to help when someone in an affiliated group rapes/murders, instead of rationally acting like the larger society is threatening because of bigots.
Oh yeah,
*Stop being a bigot so you are not cognitively vulnerable to rapists and murderers in your in-group, who threaten you and those you care about at a higher likely hood than out-groups, and who manipulate you to reduce the social attention to the people and behaviors that actually constitute rape instead of a literal scapegoat.
That should keep you busy for a bit and you will feel safer when you have an idea about what the real threat looks like.
No one here is doing that. We’re mocking your logic. This isn’t a place of serious proposals, you nincompoop.
To hear racist white guys tell it, they are the best boot strappers and most skilled survivoralists in the world. What exactly is stopping you all from boot strapping on over to an uninhabited island and creating the lily white right wing utopia you all want so bad? Just go. You’ll never deal with those pesky feminists, POC, immigrants, Muslims and LGBT people ever again. We’ll all be better off for it.
Go your own way! Be free!