Filmmaker Cassie Jaye seems to have developed a weird affinity for bigots.
First, she cozied up to some of the most hateful figures in the Men’s Rights movement during the filming of her documentary The Red Pill.
Then, when her funding for the film ran out, she happily accepted financial assistance not only from the actual subjects of the film but also from a motley assortment of far-right ideologues — among them a notorious quasi-journalist who was famously tossed off of Twitter after his fans barraged Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones with racist abuse, and a delusional Trump superfan who literally believes he gave Hillary Clinton the flu with his mind. (After a big donation to Jaye, he got himself an associate producer credit on her film.)
Now she’s trying her best to drum up interest in her film, which has barely drawn any notice at all outside the overlapping spheres of alt-right lady haters and MRAs since it premiered at a New York theater earlier this month.
While The Red Pill got a glowing, if rambling, “review” from new pal/volunteer fundraiser Milo Yiannopoulos at Breitbart, and a somewhat less-enthusiastic thumbs-up from Cathy Young at the right-wing internet tabloid Heat Street, the two real film reviewers who’ve bothered to give it a look have panned it.
Katie Walsh at the Los Angeles Times took issue with the film’s “uncritical, lopsided” argument, complaining that Jaye “twists herself in knots to justify the movement’s misogynist rhetoric.” The Village Voice’s Alan Scherstuhl dismissed Jaye as an inept “propagandist” and warned potential viewers that, as the headline to his piece put it, “You Can’t Unsee ‘The Red Pill,’ the Documentary About a Filmmaker Who Learns to Love MRAs.” (His review of what he described as an “agonizing” film caused much wailing and gnashing of teeth amongst the MRA crowd.)
With little hope of attracting positive attention from film critics, and apparently desperate for any publicity she could get, Jaye agreed to appear on the podcast of an internet-famous bigot who has been described by one critic, not without reason, as “THE MOST WARPED USELESS PEICE OF SH*T THAT I HAVE EVER HAD THE DISPLEASURE TO ENCOUNTER [on the] INTERNET OR ELSEWHERE.”
I am talking, of course, about the rape-excusing, abuse-encouraging, lady-hating, gay-baiting white supremacist Matt Forney — he’s the one on the left in the photo below.
https://twitter.com/basedmattforney/status/787198238575120384
She didn’t just give Forney a couple of minutes of her time; she sat down with him for roughly three-quarters of an hour for his podcast “This Alt-Right Life.” It’s a singularly unedifying discussion. At one point she mentions that she used to get into arguments with her boyfriend every month about nothing, something she now jokingly blames not on PMS but on her (former) feminism.
Badump-tsssh!
She also expressed sympathy when Forney mentioned that he himself had been the victim of a “false” rape accusation. (Imagine that, the author of a blog post titled “Why Girls Rarely Mean No When They Say No” being accused of rape!)
Not that long ago, Jaye was by all appearances a staunch opponent of pretty much everything Forney and his alt-right pals stand for.
In 2012, she released a documentary titled “The Right to Love,” which, according to its description on IMDb, is the portrait of a “Californian married gay couple and their two adopted children,” fighting against the forces of “discrimination, ignorance and hate” who would deny them their right to marry and raise children.
Now she’s appearing on the podcast of a guy who is a virtual embodiment of this ignorance and hate.
It’s not as if evidence of Forney’s despicable views is hard to find, and not just in the WHTM archives. The name of his podcast contains the phrase “alt-right.” In the list of “popular posts” highlighted in the sidebar of his blog one finds such lovely titles as “How to Crush a Girl’s Self-Esteem” and “Why Fat Girls Don’t Deserve to Be Loved.” (Neither title is meant ironically.)
And then there is the endless stream of racist, misogynist and homophobic abuse that is his Twitter account. Some highlights from the last several days:
https://twitter.com/basedmattforney/status/790064680907792386
https://twitter.com/basedmattforney/status/790364983171354625
https://twitter.com/basedmattforney/status/790367816360857601
https://twitter.com/basedmattforney/status/790050589598162944
https://twitter.com/basedmattforney/status/789976518596362240
https://twitter.com/basedmattforney/status/789633067791122432
That last tweet — a reference to Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s practice of murdering people by throwing them from helicopters — is technically a death threat, aimed at a National Review writer who has gotten many such threats from Forney’s colleagues in the alt-right, including photoshopped images of his 7-year-old daughter being gassed in a Nazi death camp.
Are these really the sorts of people Jaye wants to align herself with?
In his “review” of The Red Pill, Milo claimed, without evidence, that a virtual army of feminists was “scrambling to stop Cassie Jaye” and her film. In fact, feminists have mostly ignored The Red Pill. And the person who has done the most to damage Jaye’s credibility is, well, Jaye herself.
@EJ:
I’m also a liberal of that generation, and while you’re right that respectful disagreement was the norm years ago, in the US we’ve watched the slow erosion of civic discourse over the past few decades, from disagreement to disrespect to contempt to outright hatred. It’s become downright dangerous to give the right wing an inch any more, because they’ll shove the Overton window a mile. They don’t want to co-exist. They want to utterly destroy their opposition.
Of my circle of liberal friends and relatives over 50, I can’t think of anyone who advocates for giving the other side even more of a platform than they already have. Goodness knows the right wing is loud enough as it is. They’ve systematically discredited media, academia, science, and government, and replaced them with their own amplified network of right wing universities, think tanks, pundits, Twitter trolls, and cable news shows. Most liberals my age abandoned the “both sides deserve equal consideration” fiction years ago when it became clear the right wing was pushing actively harmful beliefs and on top of that, wasn’t interested in extending our side the same courtesy. We’re still willing to address alternative viewpoints and grievances, but that willingness ends when the alternative viewpoint is not only detached from reality, but hateful and eliminationist. There’s a point where the canyon is just too big to bridge.
So, yeah. Usually I give people the benefit of the doubt, but I do get a little suspicious when a drive-by internet commenter goes out of their way to establish their bona fides (“As a 52 year old liberal….”) before stating an opinion that asks everyone to Just Consider Both Sides. It’s a sign of someone who believes who you are should carry more weight than what you believe.
(As an aside, I get an extra kick out of comments that start with “As a…”, because in the agile software development world, that’s the standard syntax for user stories requesting improvements: “As a (insert role here), I need (insert wish list or complaint here)”. Sorry, anti-feminists, your bugs aren’t valid, and your requirements are impossible to implement. Women are working as designed.)
@Alan
Oh, yes. Our cats have been cooperating with that plan – I got so many requests for hugs and pets when I got home. Also, in the first couple weeks back from the hospital, one of the main things I was able to do was help feed them, which reassured them that the rightful order of the universe was being restored. They still like to glomp me and want reassurance that I’m not going away. Nothing like being surrounded by kitty love when I’m on the couch.
@ Fruitloopsie
Apologies if this has been brought up. but are your pet allergies something you have had issues with or just positive test results? I have horrible dust and pollen allergies that definitely affect my life. When I got tested in childhood, they also said I was allegic to dogs and cats but it has never affected me in the slightest, even around cats that others were reacting to.
You can’t give away the game in your first post! The script calls for you to establish deniability first. Sheesh, trolls these days.
@Buttercup Q. Skullpants
Heh, that agile comparison is great 🙂
So this is the Lindy West comment that our drive-by was referring to?
https://twitter.com/thelindywest/status/774015779301826561
Yeah, I’m pretty sure that the drive-by is a troll.
Okay, so I saw this comment last night, and I had to sleep and I already abandoned my workstation for the evening, (and I had to go out today to get proper work shoes, which I’m excited for because maybe I’ll be able to walk after work now!) so I’m just getting to this now, but here we go!
Are you suggesting that she wouldn’t feel compelled to show those people in a good light out of gratitude for her funding as well?
Especially when said people have a nasty habit of attacking anyone who criticizes them in the smallest manner, especially when they’re women?
I don’t really see anything “authoritarian” about “I really don’t want to hear the ‘side’ of the people who very obviously hate me for existing”.
I think it’s more self-preservation than anything else, really.
This isn’t a free speech violation. This is, again, people not wanting to give bigotry and hate a platform. Free speech does not guarantee a platform to people, nor does it guarantee an audience.
If your views or talks are viewed as unwanted or unwelcome by a particular audience, then you’re more than welcome to find a place to speak elsewhere.
That’s assuming, as others have mentioned, that the other side is willing to take your point of view, and not just attempt to shut you down, mock you, or, worst case scenario, assault you.
Here’s my questions:
1. Why are we the ones responsible for “upholding the rules for respectful discussion and debate”? Why are you here, chiding us for not following the rules, instead of, oh, I don’t know, AVFM or Breitbart?
2. Why do you assume that the ideas of the alt-right are worth discussing, considering they’re openly based on a platform of hatred and bigotry?
3. Why would you want to encourage people to consider this toxic ideology and the ideas presented within as worth consideration?
Again, No Platforming isn’t a free speech violation, as free speech doesn’t provide you with a platform and an audience.
Free Speech only guarantees that you won’t be dragged off by the government for what you say, not that people have to let you speak, give you consideration, or even listen to you.
You mean like what most alt-right and manospherians do now? They already consider us not worth listening to, on account of being women, or feminists, or even just liberals in general (“libt*rd” is a common epithet nowadays).
Why do you feel like we have to give hate speech a platform? Why do you feel like we, as liberals, have to be fair to the other side, even if they won’t give us the same consideration, and their platform is nothing but “[insert group here] is full of evil, awful people because [mostly made-up and demonstrably untrue reason], and the world would be better off without them and I would very much like to be the one to end them”?
Why are these ideas, as they’ve been shown to be hateful and demonstrably untrue so worth protecting to you, and why do you feel that I, as a feminist, girlflux, pansexual pagan, or anyone else here or in other liberal circles (who also might fall under some of these categories), should be subjected to listening to the words of someone who so very obviously hates us for existing?
Why should I have to even give these ideas that I’m not worth the air I breathe because of the way I am consideration?
Unrelated, and perhaps linked previously? I dunno. Just very angering. Two doodads. First, we’re now getting sexual assault in virtual reality, and the tech companies responsible are taking a Twitter level of responsibility for it:
http://money.cnn.com/2016/10/24/technology/virtual-reality-sexual-assault/
Second, looks like Koei and Sony are teaming up to publish Sexual Assault: The Game. A charming VR harassment and assault training game for your Playstation!
https://www.engadget.com/2016/08/29/dead-or-alive-vr-is-basically-sexual-assault-the-game/
That isn’t even exaggeration – the player gropes, grabs and fondles a mostly-naked woman who looks frightened and repeatedly tells them to stop in no uncertain terms. There’s a video in the article. Worst part of it wasn’t even the graphics, it was the occasional pan-away to the player, who’s way too into-it, and the guffaws of the tech dudes as their virtual woman cries out in discomfort.
I really hate this planet some days.
Well, gosh, Paradoxy, of course. Are you implying that she might be corruptable? She’s as pure as driven snow, and how dare you imply that she has anything but the most noble of intentions!
Also, lobbyists give money to the government out of the goodness of their hearts instead of a cold calculation of return on investment, and politicians always act for what’s best for their constituents, and never for the good of the lobbyists who give them money.
I am shocked, shocked I say!
@Buttercup Q. Skullpants:
Applause.
I didn’t intend to suggest that all liberals of the previous generation were like that at all; my apologies if that was what came across. Your generation has done amazing things and continues to do amazing things.
Re: “Authoritarian Left”.
They exist, but that’s still a argument. How is making observations about the person who made a documentary about the “men’s rights” movement authoritarian? The way a person responds to a group with a large number of sexist, misogynistic and racist people is important.
It’s fair to look at why many men feel angry, sad, disgusted and fearful. It’s also important to look at the thing that they are feeling about in terms that give an overview of all the good and bad fairly represented. It says much about what they consider “Rights”. What is in those scare quotes is not of the political left as I experience it.
Marginally related, there is apparently a slight tendency among left-leaning people to accept authority. The studies are still small and new, but they’re otherwise sound, as far as it seems.
(Background, this is the same study that was published a few years ago that said that conservatives were more authoritarian. Turns out that the lab accidentally inverted their results. The journal published a correction.)
Something to keep your eye out for!
@Scildfreja
It’s a fair and interesting subject. We people on the left express authority as people. It’s a basic part of brain and mind logic and has associated actions. The means and goals of expression of authority on the left don’t tend to have as nasty a history and are pointed in better directions in my experience.
I wonder if the discourse really was more civilized in the past or if it’s just nostalgia. Nixon had his dirty tricks and Reagan his welfare queens. We remember the 30s and 40s as the New Deal era but there was a very sizable fascist movement back them that was similar to the alt-right these days. I think this is all just the normal tendency for older people to always say the young are doing it wrong.
@ Scildfreja
Saw that, thanx for posting it. I wanted to but I didn’t know how to present it other than CONTENT WARNING: DONT EVEN GO HERE!! How f***ed up can people GET??
@weirwoodtreehugger
The patterns shift around, but there are things that evoke socially strong reactions in people in language. Some simple and fast, some complicated and drawn out. That is a part of language that probably evolves very fast. The emotional impact of language probably evolves generationally. New slang, new terms and term use… maybe it’s memes all the way down XD.
@Scildfreja
Just what the fuck? The first one, why would you? Just why? The second one, why the fuck would he think chasing a women after she is clearly not interested would be seen as anything other than horrid?
There is no warping of what is there, it’s literally sexual harassment simulator 2016 and a vr game where apparently sexually harassing people is allowed in the game.
@Brony, I dunno, I wouldn’t minimize the implications by saying that Leftist leaders are “better”. It could also be that the authoritarian impulse expresses itself in a “just keep your head down and get along” mentality, which has been the cause of a lot of problems in history, and today. As our concern troll from above demonstrated, a lot of the Left’s internal issues come from groups trying to avoid making waves.
@WWTH,
100% agreed! It’s all golden-age, things-were-better-when-I-was-a-kid mentality. At the same time, kids these days have it easy! We respected our elders! Get off my lawn!
The only halo of “things were better back then” which might be true is that the oppressed were far less likely to speak up then. That’s what I think of when someone starts pining for the olden days, really. Not about how much better things were, but how big the blinders were for the people living then. Anyone wanting to go back there hasn’t thought it through, and wants to disappear the people who have the gall to ‘complain’ these days. So, they can fly to the moon or something. Screw’em.
@Eddie, I know, right? And Koei knows it’s being shitty – they aren’t launching the game in North America or Europe because they know it’ll get torn apart.
(It makes my heart absolutely break for the women and girls in Japan. Ugh.)
Kind of a mixture. A lot of the ‘discourse was more civilized’ at the time likely had to do more with more active gatekeepers on having access to large-scale audiences. The Internet and social media have done wonders for organizing small fandoms and allowing people who thought they were alone find communities of like-minded people; removing those gatekeepers has been a literal lifesaver for a lot of previously closeted people.
Unfortunately, some of those communities are pretty toxic and enjoy throwing more dirt around, with the result that we’re in danger of losing the baby somewhere in all the dirty bathwater.
@Ooglyboggles,
“It’s just a game.”
“Lighten up.”
“If you don’t like it, kitchen’s that way.”
twitch
Boys are trained to harass women, while at the same time told that it’s wrong to harass women. Anything deniable, anything that can be labeled as a joke or just in ‘fun’ (fun for fucking who) they glom onto like festering remoras. Any way they get to have their fun without being called on it.
The DoA series has always been blatantly sexist, but this is the first I’ve heard of it being this rapey. I like Japan a lot, and love huge swathes of its culture, but the way it treats sexual harassment and the sexualization of minors is stomach-curdling.
As for the other article, it’s just the new face of the abuse women face online. There have always been virtual hands groping and grabbing; they’ve just been in text. Now they’re in VR. As it ever was.
I think today is gonna be an ice cream day.
@Jenora Feuer
Agreed. Experiencing learned helplessness in my part of the bronie community was it’s own special kind of confusing.
@Buttercup
That’s what they wanted then as well. Their rhetoric is always eliminationist and almost always totally detached from reality.
@WWTH
@EJ – thanks! And I admire your tact, your gentility, and your well-calibrated trolldar (mine seems to have strayed from the factory settings). I’m definitely not presuming to speak on behalf of everyone in my age cohort – there certainly are cultural as well as generational differences in the way people reach out across the aisle. Gen X gets unfairly painted by the media as apathetic Reaganite latchkey kids, but most of us were brought up on hippie ideals and second-wave feminism. We were, as you said, taught that everyone’s perspective matters. That early training can be hard to overcome when you’re faced with true evil that wants you, personally, eradicated from the earth.
As for whether discourse was more civilized in the past, I’d say up until the rise of the internet, public discourse adhered to a more elevated standard, even if nasty stuff was happening behind the scenes. There were unwritten rules and lines that absolutely could not be crossed. Decades ago, people got tossed out of the political arena for ridiculous reasons. Gary Hart: had an affair. Nixon: didn’t wear makeup during a debate. Mike Dukakis: rode in a tank. Ed Muskie: cried, possibly. Thomas Eagleton: treated for depression. Ford: boneheaded gaffe on the Soviets. Any imperfection or weakness got seized on, pearls were clutched, and that was that.
All that seems so quaint now, in an age where a thrice-married candidate can mock disabled reporters, foment violence, approve an obscene campaign logo, retweet white supremacists, pose idiotically in front of walls of garbage, and discuss the size of his “hands” during a debate. Any one of those Donald Trump moments would have instantly ended his presidential campaign 30 years ago, and those aren’t even the most horrible things he’s done. You could go on for pages about all of his disqualifying moments. Over the years, it feels like the Republican party candidates have gotten progressively more crude and vile, like those evolution silhouettes in reverse.
This election is so awful, we can’t even let our kids watch it. I told my four year olds they’ll have to read about it in high school civics class when they grow up. If there still are civics classes.
Edit: ninja’d by everybody!
Dali,
Lee Atwater can never be brought up enough when Republicans act shocked at Trump’s non-genteel racism. It passes me off so much that the media largely let’s them get away with pretending that Trump and his racism and xenophobia and misogyny are a bug. They’re a fucking feature of the GOP platform.
Yeah, me too, although I found the save I have was actually 39 days and I stopped playing it after I got disinterested and have been scared of going back in because I don’t wanna die. That giant goose creature is around my camp the last time I popped in. I mean, I’d be able to unlock some characters if she dies, probably, but I don’t wanna.
Right now I started a new game with Woody, who is another favorite, not as much as I like Wigfrid but still.