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Trouble in paradise! Just days before the opening of The Red Pill, the apparently quite awful Men’s Rights documentary, one of the film’s biggest backers is mocking Men’s Rights Activists as a bunch of sad men “who clearly need to improve their lives by going to the gym.”
Mike Cernovich, the notorious alt-right Trump superfan and steroid enthusiast, basically bought himself an associate producer credit on The Red Pill with a big donation. But he wants everyone to know that he’s no wimp, like the dudes interviewed in the film.
“When I joined The Red Pill as an Associate Producer, and agreed to match contributions up to $10,000, there was a mutiny among my readers,” he writes in a post on his blog.
How dare I fund a film by a woman? Clearly I went soft, becoming a white knight. (None who cried about me joining The Red Pill as an AP were making their own films.)
But despite the heroism he showed by shoveling money at the film, Cerno doesn’t have much sympathy for the sad men it depicts:
[T]hese sad faces are why I’m not an MRA (and why MRAs have disavowed me many times).
I have no tolerance for male weakness, and many MRAs are men who clearly need to improve their lives by going to the gym. My lack of compassion is rooted in a patriarchal view of traditional masculinity. When life hits you, hit harder.
While he likes the film, and says that he wishes MRAs “nothing but the best” in their struggles against the evils of gynocentrism, or whatever it is they’re fighting against, he reports that
The Red Pill is a reminder that the men’s rights movement isn’t for me. MRAs aren’t my audience and I’m not their voice.
In life you impose your will on reality, or you lose. That’s especially true for men. While MRAs seek to reform the system, my vision is for you to Unf*ck Your Mind.
It’s really kind of amazing that he managed to avoid the alt-right’s favorite c-word — cuck.
Cerno’s sentiments have not gone over well with some of the staffers at, and fans of, A Voice for Men, the Men’s Rights hate site at the center of the film, and they have swarmed the comments on Cerno’s blog to express their vociferous objections.
AVFM “Chief Public Relations Officer” Suzy McCarley launches an attack on all of those men who, in her view,
make juvenile pretenses of superiority, while digging ever deeper into their own pits of bitterness. They have given up all hope for anything, even for their own potential autonomy.
I wonder which does more to undermine the well being of the male half of the species – the smug traditional proponents of male disposabiliy, or the snarling dogs in the manger. And are either of them better in principle than feminists and gynocentrists?
A commenter named Bryan Scandrett, meanwhile, takes aim at “Mikes affected manliness,” declaring that
Mike seems happy to tread on the wounded man out of misguided ‘manliness’ and some belief in the unmanly weakness of the wounding. Weird.
He’s actually got a point — one that would be a lot stronger if the Men’s Rights movement actually did anything to help “wounded men” rather than exploiting their pain as an excuse to attack women and scapegoat feminists.
Cerno himself has moved on to attacking Alan Scherstuhl of the Village Voice, who gave the film a pretty scathing review yesterday, on the grounds that Scherstuhl, a professional film critic, “has never produced or directed a film people want to see.”
Wait, what?
Add “film reviewing” to the long list of things that Mike Cernovich does not understand.
NOTE: Today’s Pledge Drive Capybara prefers terrible shark movies to terrible documentaries.
Who has the popcorn concession this week ?
I wish I’d invested a bit of cash in some of Gale Anne Hurd’s films.
I could argue that Cernovich hasn’t really produced a film either. He just bought a producer credit. But, of course, actually producing a film would actually be work.
Someone get out the umbrellas because shit’s about to hit the fan! ?
1. Neither have you
2. This is a requirement for being a film critic now?
“… Charles Atlas says he can give me a real body! I’ll gamble a stamp and send for his FREE book…)
I saw those four-panel strips so many times in so many comic books, I can do them from memory…. Also in the comics and later in the car magazines I gravitated to as a teen, was the (not-so-free) tutorial “How to Pick Up Girls”….
I never gambled that stamp nor took the plunge into the PUA world…. Would’a, should’a, I could’a been a CONTENDER!! I say that mockingly, but in a very real, very personal sense, it is NOT funny.
I’m a nerd, in the old-world, 1960’s way, from the “time before it was cool”, I got to adulthood with some shaky social and interpersonal skills. I listen to the whining of the MGTOW, etc. bunch, and I understand the frustration. (NOTE: “understand” does NOT come from the same root as “accept”, nor from the same root as “agree”!!) I struggled through my teen year and many’s the time I choked on my tongue trying to ask a friend for a date. I was fortunate to grow up in an environment that allowed me to develop a sense of social conscience and that did not reinforce the social biases so pervasive in suburban white America.
A few events transpire a little bit differently, and I gamble that stamp and I buy that PUA book… then, maybe I’m crying on Facebook about how mistreated I am, and I’m the one in the BMW shooting up a sorority house.
Five bucks this dude has called some man a “mangina” or “cuck” and doesn’t understand the irony of this statement.
Juicebro –
Does Mike C. think that everyone who goes to film school makes movies? There actually are degrees available in Film and Media Studies, fer Pet’s sake!
Heck, any schmoe can read a book or take an extension school course on film appreciation and know what makes a film good or bad beyond saying “loved it!” or “DO NOT WANT!!1” or whatever.
Taking shots at film critics is just a deflection used by the makers of bad films and their minions.
If they succesfully did so, wouldn’t they stop buying your shitty Nietzsche ripp-off books?
Reproduced without comment
Snarling Dogs in the Manger
Totally stealing that for my band’s new name.
Ha, that’s the most logical thing in his entire argument. “improve … lives … gym” Yep, seems reasonable if you can’t get exercise at home or something, and are able to leave the house. Rest of it… not so much.
How… no… why… no… nevermind, MRA cognitive dissonance, it hurts.
Hold up. I just realized something.
The film is called The Red Pill but it’s not about TRP? It’s about AVFM? HOW CAN THIS BE
Is there any practical difference between “impose your will on reality” and “live in a delusional bubble”?
Reading anything written by Cernovich hurts the brain. Also, does doing traditional, patriarchal masculinity include being bankrolled by your ex-wife’s alimony cheques?
Wait, so I’ve been hitting the gym. Does that make me not weak or am I still weak because I’m feeeemale?
@kupo
Yes ?
@Buttercup
That’s an excellent observation.
Juicebro’s statements about the critique of the movie remind me of Twihards back in the day. More often than not, I’d hear this whenever I critiqued the book/movie or aspects thereof: “Why don’t you try writing a book/making a movie and see how easy it is?!”*
I never said making a piece of media was “easy”. I simply said they’re doing it wrong, and I also gave my reasons.
Besides, I don’t need to be a chef to know when food tastes disgusting, do I?
*Apparently all you need to do is throw money at people to do it for you. Much difficult. So work.
(My favorite “comeback” that came up when I would discuss Twilight was “You’re just jealous!”, mostly because, yeah. I was jealous that Meyer can shovel that much awful crap and still somehow make millions of dollars and get international fame. The mind still boggles.)
@JS
Not even that. Many people literally can’t ‘just go to the gym’; gym memberships cost money, getting to and from usually costs more money, and it requires carving time out of your schedule, which isn’t really feasible for many people, especially parents. That doesn’t even mention the social atmosphere of the gym which can make going in a trial for many, nor go into disability issues.
Leaving all of that aside, the reality is that regardless of whether they theoretically could do so, most people simply won’t. I mean no moral condemnation by this statement; indeed, I’m among that group. Going to fence or swim, sure (These are my preferences; substitute any other active recreation you may enjoy). Going to lift heavy things and put them back down again in the same place? Nope. Not for me. It takes a certain type of personality to maintain the motivation to go weightlifting regularly, and IME that motivation is most often a desire to be better at some type of athletic competition.
I’m not knocking weight gyms, if they’re your thing, cool, but from a public health perspective, they’re not a solution to anything. There certainly are some public health concerns in the U.S. relating to limited physical activity, but saying ‘just go to the gym’ doesn’t address any of them. The only way to increase e.g. aerobic fitness (which reduces incidence of various chronic diseases) is to organize things in such a manner that it’s convenient to incorporate physical activity into daily routine. That means walkable cities, shorter work weeks (Which has to include higher wages, obviously, and/or universal basic income), more parks and rec centers with fewer fees, skate parks, basketball courts, etc.etc. That will increase general levels of aerobic fitness (and make it safer and more pleasant to chase Pokemon or battle rival wizards or whatever the next generation of augmented reality games is, which is a nice positive feedback if you like.) Plus, it’d also make life in America a lot more pleasant in general.
Sorry for the Teal Dear, that’s kind of a bugbear of mine.
I do love it when awful people attack each other instead of non-awful people.
I suppose it’s no surprise that Juicebro is enthusiastic about the “triumph of the will”, but Cassie Jaye is no Leni Riefenstahl.
@Tovius
Like clockwork when one of their projects flops it’s time to browbeat your way out of humiliation. Sever all ties and claim No True MRA.
Ah good, they’re turning on each other already, that did not take long.
Tbh, I would genuinely like to see a balanced, truthful documentary about the MRM; you don’t need hit pieces when the facts speak for themselves. Something along the lines of Louis Theroux’s documentaries on the Westboro Baptist Church, where he was able to show the ugliness of their organization while also revealing their humanity. It would be interesting to know more about what drives so many men to hand over their hard earned money to a bunch scam artists like Paul Elam and Karen Straughan.
Unfortunately Jaye breached journalistic ethics when she allowed her subjects to raise money for her, meaning she lost objectivity, and presented something which sounds like a heavily biased and poorly researched puff piece. I can’t see this winning her any awards.
@snork maiden : I think a balanced and fair documentary about the MRAs is useless. The only people fooled by them are, in my experience, people who fool themselves voluntary.
Which is depressingly common among white males. It’s the same problem as with Trump supporter ; showing the ugly side of Trump is totally useless to convince them, while the people who did not drink the kool aid are already frightened by Trump.