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.
Wow, he looks like he’s in the middle of passing out.
Milo’s review looks like it starts out as a parody of a video game review (“the graphics are good and I find it visually stimulating therefore this is a good game i mean movie”) and then ends as a 4th grade book report (“the next opinion I have about this movie is that I liked the part where she interviewed a person I like”).
What does it say about our society that a female director as intelligent, attractive and insightful as Jaye feels the need to cater to shlubby, hateful, and self-absorbed men like Forney as a part of her work life/film promo circuit?
I have to wonder why Jaye made this into a career move. I don’t want to speculate about her frame of mind, but it seems her difficulties funding her films was what encouraged her to make this public switch from being feminist to Honey Badger adjacent.
Why, though? Were just too many interesting feminist documentaries already being made for Jaye’s work to make a dent? Maybe the amount of funding/attention afforded out to films with female directors (and especially films explicitly about feminism) is just pathetically small and extremely competitive? So she switched to making Red Pill videos to dip into that sweet Sarkeesian Effect type viewer, which will reward totally incompetent films with an inordinate amount of attention and funding before the movie’s even released?
Is it very immature of me to suggest that in that photo, Forney looks like an over sized baby that’s just done an extremely large poo in his nappy?
I can’t help wondering if Jaye is in actual fact going really deep undercover? And that five years from now she’ll spring forward with the most extraordinary inside scoop on their whole sorry world?
who?
Sort of on topic: I watched Ghostbusters over the weekend, twice, then texted my sister “I WANT TO BE A GHOSTBUSTER FOR HALLOWEEN!!” Yes, I enjoyed it that much. There were a couple small issues but overall it was the most fun film I’ve seen in years.
(Also, hi again, been busy, and also fuck this year. The forgotten Chinese Year of the Parasites, not just politically but also this year we’ve had lice and we just found out we have bedbugs. So fuck this year in the most uncomfortable place.)
Let me remind everyone that Forney does not look like a giant baby. He looks like an egg that’s been rolled through patches of caviar.
@hugseverycat
*applause* Perfect and hilarious description! :p
@ snork maiden
I’ve been wondering exactly the same thing. Of course a big problem with undercover work is the risk of going native.
This is how you do journalism…
Her Grace Phryne, having watched the SNL debate sketches, I think I’m a little in love with Kate McKinnon, so I’m looking forward to Ghostbusters being released on DVD.
See also Jeffrey Archer’s frequent references to “studying at Oxford”. There’s more than one institution of higher learning in that particular city – have a guess whether it was the one with the centuries-old global reputation for excellence?
So, did she ever care about (cis, white, non-threateningly monogamous, male) gay folks, or..?
This is the guy who fat shames women? Lol Isn’t it ironic? Don’t y’all think? No self awareness between his ears.
@ Margaret Pless
You should also consider: Maybe she never was who you think she was.
In my experience, people’s espoused beliefs, or assumed philosophy, can diverge wildly based on audience. What they say – their perceived message – is largely formed by who they’re talking to.
Happened to me all my life. When I, a gay man, am in the room, some people are all rainbows and proper don’t-forget-the-Q+ acronyms; when I’m not those same people revert to unfettered homophobia and lisping stereotypes. Same with mixed company of any type: gender, identity, religion, etc.
So, we can’t automatically assume she was so open-minded before; making a movie like “Right to Love” does not automatically absolve her of any personal prejudices. Her film-making could have very well been a mercenary and not personal project for her; her pro-same-sex marriage message could have been one of convenience, not conviction. She could, for all we really know, be a hateful person.
Of course, it could be the same method in a different setting here too: She’s saying what her audience, the alt-right, want to hear in order to further her career.
Or, this, nor her previous work, could be her true self.
@ Wetherby
On a related note, you can probably guess why I know you can hire a council tennis court in Wimbledon Park for 8 quid.
@ Viscaria
You have to wonder.
Was her previous movie made because she believed same-sex child rearing was right, or because she thought it made a good movie? A believer or an opportunist?
Just making that film doesn’t really give her enough capital to be this cozy with somebody like Matt F’n Forney.
@Phryne
http://i.imgur.com/QJbBsDJ.gif
Welcome back, buddy! And sorry about your infestations. Plural 🙁
Man, that photo looks like she’s doing some kind of Weekend at Bernie’s hijinks. Are we sure that’s actually Matt Forney and not some Mrs … sorry, Mister Tussaud’s waxwork?
@Moggie, she is PERFECT. Really, the whole cast is fabulous. They’re all likeable and real, and the storyline makes a lot more sense than the first one did.
So sad there’s not going to be a second one. 🙁
@Axecalibur: Wow! Thank you! 😀 I’m just exceedingly cranky right now because between this, not having money for the week, and my ear somehow getting infected, plus probably coming down with a cold, it’s just been a shitty day.
Forney thinks he’s doing this:
He’s actually doing this:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-urRxpaW8eM0/VBGa_wz-XLI/AAAAAAAAmqw/KemsJVJqQwQ/s1600/8nBEt8O.jpg
@feartheminotaur
So she’s kinda like Milo:
http://kernelmag.dailydot.com/yiannopoulos/3359/the-internet-is-turning-us-all-into-sociopaths/
Which leads me to ask: Can we trust anything people like them say? Does it have any sort of meaning? Or should we completely erase the authors from the equation?
@Phryne
Since when? I thought they were moving forward? Haven’t seen it, but I was hoping they’d keep going. Guess not…
Oof! When it rains, it pours. Be good to yourself, huh? 🙂
Have you guys seen the trailer?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK7n_XA40V8
It looks like she did an excellent job of portraying them exactly how they imagine themselves to be… oppressed, undermined, downtrodden men bravely standing up against the Evil Feminist Overlords.
Honestly, though, it seems like she’s trying to be “open-minded” and “non-judgemental”, except she’s unwittingly made a group of woman-hating assholes look like brave souls.
(Also hello! I’m new here.)
Do we really need to speculate about her motives for going red pill when she’s already said what they were? Are we really going to not take a woman at her word for why she believes something simply because we disagree with her? If a male director gave the same reasons would we question it?
Hey, people that are saying the guy looks like a baby, maybe don’t, at the very least on the grounds that babies don’t deserve the comparison if not at the very most it’s shitty to attack people because of their looks?
There’s, like, a billion other things to actually point out about him before you even get to his physical form so maybe deal with those instead.
Was more going for the “not nearly as cool/sophisticated as he thinks he looks” angle, but you’re right, Jack! Babies certainly don’t deserve the comparison, and there’s plenty of real things to critique him on. Mea culpa.
As for whether she’s being an opportunist or whether she actually believes what she’s saying, I treat that like most claims I run into – I take it at face value. If she says she believes it, she believes it. No further speculation needed. I’ve seen more than enough people go from moderate to terrible after an inkling of a suggestion, so I think it’s quite believable that she’s taken their red pill.
That really opens up an interesting discussion on what it takes to make that change – what’s actually in the snake oil they’re selling. I won’t get into it here though. Interesting to think about, at least!