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.
Excuse me. My avatar is an ice zombie thingy. And I unlive with MAMMOTHS beyond the wall thank you very much.
http://i.imgur.com/S8v2aVs.gif
Hi That_Susan, I’m familiar with your posts on AVfM and JudgyBitch. Welcome.
.
My question becomes, well, where’ve you been then? Why have you only come here now? And only with what appears closed beliefs gained from the MRM?
I don’t post here, nor there, very much, but I read every day and there are many, many posters of value here who give much more in depth and nuanced perspectives on the issues, rather than the black and white views I find predominant in the MRM, that you are currently asserting.
I must say, over there you are one of the few commenters I look for to appreciate the grey and both sides of the story, yet your posts here so far are reflecting a simplicity to issues that are much more complex, and I’m confused.
Reproductive rights. Let’s see if we can find more grey there than the MRM black and white talking point that women can terminate parental rights, but men can’t.
Hey, life’s not always fair. It’s not really fair that the responsibility for unplanned pregnancy falls almost entirely on women, and it is not fair that men don’t get an option to similarly terminate their parental responsibility. But there are good reasons for both. The burden of unplanned pregnancy falls on women because women are the biological host (sorry to be so coldly clinical), and men have no right to “terminate” because that would be too great a burden on children (very little, if anything, to do with women, unlike what many in the MRM would have us believe).
Sometimes, as I’m sure you know, we have to make tough decisions and choose the lesser of two evils because there is no perfect answer, furthermore, all rights are not equal. The right of dependent children to be financially supported is simply more important than the right for a man not to financially contribute to a child he created but wants no part of. Men still retain the right not to parent the child though, we are only talking about the right of children to be financially supported.
And yes, it sucks for those (exceedingly few) men who would choose not to, I get that, but what is the alternative? Like many things on the MRM’s rights wishlist, we have already seen the alternative, we don’t have to ponder or imagine what this particular men’s “right” will look like when enacted because society and law used to provide them that “right” and had to reconsider whose/which rights were more important. That “equal reproductive right” being advocated looks like baby farms, child labour, abuse, neglect, needless death and murder.
Personally, fwiw, I’m not against the idea of a movement for men’s interests, I suspect the real issue they have here is about the whack calculation of child support in many jurisdictions, but that’s a whole other conversation.
Just one more thing I cannot let slip by unnoticed;.
Indeed, and I agree. However if that is what you believe, please reconsider statements like this:
If you are wondering why your reception here is not all that warm, perhaps consider these two statements alone, on a blog that has chronicled for years just how wrong you are.
@ nobodi
Ok, if you say so… later, dood, I gotta go polish my tusks
@Twit who I’m not entirely convinced is NOT Trump: My avi is not a cat either–if it is, that is the weirdest looking cat EVER!
@Viscaria
For me, it’s Reba or nothing 🙂
@nobodi
Everywhere we go
People wanna know
Who we are
So, we tell them
We are the Mammoths
The mighty, mighty Mammoths
?
@Sigh
I thank you for your contribution
Goddamnit English. You’re supposed to be a language! Shape up!
‘Scuse you, my avatar is an anime of myself that I drew.
I would appreciate you not dismissing my ten minutes of work by comparing it to an adorable cat avatar, thankyouverymuch.
You’re more than welcome to prove us wrong, cupcake. Please do post away to prove that we’re all “spouting silly nonsense and stupid rationalizations and conspiracy theories”, I dare you.
I see a bunch of bark, but no bite though. Shame. No chew toy for moi tonight…
I dunno dude, mammoths in Skyrim are pretty hardcore.
And we’re guarded by giants and those are scary.And real-life mammoths were pretty badass. I mean, fuzzy elephants dude! Elephants are adorable, but imagine them with fur! And they were huge and had massive tusks!
Aw, it’s so cute you think that you’re insulting me with your
Trumpesquemiddle school epithets. I’ve said worse things about myself on a good day.C’mon champ, stop pretending to fucking hit me and hit me! Let me have it! C’mon, I don’t have all night!
Nothing to see here, just a cat* in a basket!
* – if you slightly expand on the Night Vale definition of “cat”, perhaps.
Hee! WE! ARE! THE! MAMMOTHS!
(crowd erupts into cheering and applause as the band takes the stage, pink and white pyrotechnics exploding everywhere)
Thanks, dude, that’s a great visual.
And thank you for commenting, Sigh! So you’ve seen Susan on AVFM and elsewhere, then? Colour me unsurprised. Or, colour me with pink and white pyrotechnics!
Oooohhh…I’m so scared–NOT! Go run along and play *pats nobodi’s head condescendingly*
@Dave: I’m the same Violet, I just added a couple new words to my name
Thanks Dave…I figured I’d change my name to show solidarity with Hillary and fellow supporters
@Viscaria
Oh good lard. We had a Dolly Parton impersonator in at work this Sunday, I had such a headache the whole time. I cannot stand Dolly Parton. Outlaw Country is another matter; I love some Willie Nelson or Johnny Cash, most definitely.
@Axe
Or Reba; A lotta Patsy Cline’s stuff too. Although I’m really more of a bluegrass kinda gal; Gillian Welch, Emmylou Harris, Doc Watson, Old Crow Medicine Show, the Wailin Jennies, that lot. I hear a lot of the Scots-Irish traditional forms coming through in those styles.
@ nobodi,
Oh look! Another not cat avatar!
I imagine, given my game playing, that I’ll get to Don’t Starve in about 3-4 years. Right now I’m playing a game that very well could describe one of our regulars here. A “Pre-sequel”, if you may.
http://67.media.tumblr.com/2d8397f5ef8ff3aab352381e90801c90/tumblr_mi2frhotHk1s5p5xno1_500.gif
http://i.imgur.com/DXERx.gif
@nobodi
Wow I’m so shocked, let me put up my shocked face.
http://i.imgur.com/w9SFexz.png
So uh, what are you gonna do about it huh?
My avi’s a cat plant
http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/jjba/images/1/17/Stray_Cat_AV.png/revision/latest?cb=20161021084514
Araki of JOJO fame like’s the cat plant, you mocking Araki?
Actually, that was only the first tell. Your posts have been riddled with tells that indicate that you belong to the MRM/RedPill/PUA/MGTOW manosphere. At this point you’ve let a few more tells show and pretty everyone has cottoned onto it.
Protip: Giving Christina Hoff Sommers her self-proclaimed “equity feminist” title is a slight giveaway for anyone even a tiny bit familiar with her work.
Pulling the “both sides” schtick didn’t help, and the “you’re meeeeeeeeeean” complaints on a site explicitly devoted to mockery and labelled as such on literally every page also pinged on the trolldar.
Cat avatar? Cat avatar? I’ll have you know that my avatar isn’t a cat, it’s a lion.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go and nap in the shade until it’s time for belly rubs.
@nobodi
I admit I have cats in my avatar. Cats that would happily rip your throat out, and purr while they did it.
@Ray of Rays
You really should give EUIV a whirl! It’s a really fun game with lots of depth. 🙂 Don’t worry about the complex mechanics too much, you can have a good time just playing the game and learn the mechanics as you go. There are a few recommended starting nations to play as a completely new player, so try playing them for a while. Personally I’d recommend playing as the Ottomans for your first try. Also, if you choose to get the DLCs, you should be prepared for increasing complexity, as well as increasing fun. ^_^
(I know we’ve moved on buuuut)
I own this pin, and the one time i got to wear it was amazing:
Misandry isn’t a real thing, because it requires widespread cultural support of women hating men for being men.
“But what about women saying #yesallmen and mansplaining and manspreading and all that???”
Since women are not the dominant cultural force in western society (see: how many women are leaders, CEOs, directors of films, etc) all of those behaviours women are complaining about can be traced back to things men in power decided.
Tl;dr: i just really love this pin. You can get one here!
@Alan
Based on prior experience and Oscar’s one-eyed glare, avoiding putting cats in costumes is very much about personal safety for all humans! It’s also not good to try to convince a cat against walking on a leash to walk on a leash…If one must then use the type of leash with a harness and then be prepared for unholy hell to be unleashed (heh) by the cat.
It’s a little sad that MRAs are depriving themselves of the joy of cats, simply because they have feminist cooties.
@ msexception
I’m pretty certain it was attempts to put cats on leashes that inspired these things.
http://ilarge.lisimg.com/image/7152112/740full-.jpg
Damn, I don’t even have a cat avatar. I must be online-feministing wrong, according to this incontrovertible authoritah … oh, wait.
I know my vision sucks and all, but I’m pretty sure that GLaDOS isn’t a cat.