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.
To be honest, I don’t think it’s about “don’t make fun of Forney’s appearance because it might hurt his feelings” (who cares about his feelings?) It’s more about, “don’t make fun of Forney’s appearance because his appearance is irrelevant to the shitty things in his brain”. It’s not about being nice or kind to him, it’s about avoiding hurting others accidentally whilst gleefully ripping his appearance.
@Jack
Sorry to hear about your crappy day. I hope tomorrow is better!
@FruitLoopsie
Post a link that ends with .jpg, .png or any other image file name.
[https://i.ytimg.com/vi/mZK2iHqfYo8/hqdefault.jp]g without brackets.
TW: Violence
@Alan Robertshaw
A Cry in the Dark (Meryl Streep) about the Australian woman whose baby was killed by a wild animal is a chilling example of this. You may have studied this case in law school.
The movie was based on a true story. The mother wasn’t believed because she had quite the stiff upper lip. She was sent to prison for a number of years before new evidence emerged and she was freed.
(Yeah, that movie is the source of the Seinfeld joke “A dingo ate my baby!”)
TW: Violence
@Petal
Jeizess Xhroist! Shaking means I’m done. Dip!
@Fruitloopsie
I saw your cat in my emails. White paws, stripey tail
@BritterSweet
THIS.
@Makroth
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen that photo in the dictionary, illustrating the word cutie-pie.
Maybe not.
But it would be perfect.
@Axe
Oh, come on. Explaining to other people what they actually meant is always shaky territory. You shouldn’t expect me to just roll over for that kind of stuff. I have apologized and I haven’t done the bad thing since I apologized. It’s your choice to keep picking at it. If it stresses you out, you can, you know, just not do it.
Yes, exactly. Fucking call him a fucking shitbag asshole, which he is and worst, but you don’t need to bring up appearances, not that I can stop people but still.
I hope it is, too. Thanks, my dude. I appreciate it.
What.
@Jack
Also, I’m sorry that I contributed to the shittiness of it! Tomorrow I’ll only talk about nice things to make up for it.
I added .png now does it work?
@ Alan Robertshaw
I’ve got the series on BBC 4 downloaded. Enjoying it so far. Only thing I don’t like is the way Andrew Marr says ‘genre’.
It’s very timely too; I’ve just started my MA in Creative Writing. My tutor isn’t fond of fantasy and yet it is one of my favourite genres. This could be fun.
On the topic of the OP
Ick, just ick all of it. Deeply unpleasant people saying unpleasant things.
@Fruitloopsie
Nope. Where are you linking from? You uploaded the picture to where?
I understand what you were trying to do even though even if it wasn’t, you know, great. I can’t say I haven’t done similar, and I’m learning to do better, too. Just do your best.
But I will call you out on it if you do it again, just as I expect anyone to do for me. Learn to grow and grow to learn.
@ kat
Yup, that case is the ur-example of an all too common phenomenon of inferring guilt because people don’t react the ‘right’ way.
Detectives here now receive training to avoid such assumptions but there are still some prevalent presumptions.
So remember, to allay suspicion, if the police tell you about the death of a loved one always let your knees buckle a bit (and ask how they died).
On arrest guilty people get angry; innocent people get confused.
On acquittal innocent people break down and sob; guilty people punch the air and say ‘Yes!’
And those public appeals in missing child cases are solely for the purpose of assessing the family members’ body language to see if they’re involvedn
Which brings us back to our starting point.
IP
The picture is from Facebook
@Jack
^5
The fact that people here call you out on bullshit is probably the best aspect of this community. I’ve stepped in it a few times, as have many (most?) other commenters. Everybody’s got blind spots (except Futrelle who is our lord and saviour, Beyoncé who is our royal empress, and Katie who created the heavens and the earth peace be upon her). This is like a community based/wiki project of everyone filling in the blanks for each other. It’s a great thing.
@Fruitloopsie
Right click and show image. You should get a URL that ends in a file format.
IP
I’m using my iPad so I can’t right click
Well, I’m not going to bed until I see this kitten!!
Press and hold on the image and you should maybe get the show image option?
@Petal
I apologize. You’re right, I shouldn’t have assumed. It was thoughtless, and I have no excuse. I’ll do better to keep my mind in my own head going forward…
@Axe
^5
And I apologize too. Let’s be friends and love each other again.
Now that I’ve eaten dinner and settled in for the evening, I’ll just clarify a few points. I do think if you’re going to mention appearance, you have to tread carefully. It’s not something I do terribly often and I only do it in specific ways under specific circumstances. It’s something you must do delicately and different people will have different threshold for what’s acceptable. This is always true with comedy. For me “lol, he’s fat!” would be over the line but “an egg rolled in caviar” would be too absurd to be offensive. Others clearly disagree. That’s fine! What I was not cool with was that a few people took it upon themselves to decide it’s disallowed. It felt a bit bullying to me. As David has said in the past, if you feel someone is violating the comments policy, email him and he’ll deliver the ruling. Otherwise, where do we draw the line? I’ve felt uncomfortable when people are mocked for linking to news article or blog post reporting on a scientific study rather than the actual paper. However, the actual studies are typically behind a paywall and the vast majority of people do not have access to them and it’s a bit elitist to act like one can’t talk about science on the internet if they lack access.
But it’s a mocking site and it’s not a safe space. We won’t all be comfortable all the time.
I’m not at all saying people shouldn’t voice their opinion when they’re uncomfortable with a comment someone has made. But opinions may differ and that’s okay too. I don’t think one or a handful of commenters gets to say “can we not?” and have that be the final word and I’m not really done with calling people mean and hypocritical for having a difference of opinion and different mocking style. I think there needs to be balance where the commenting isn’t so heavily policed that the community dies off because no one wants to post here for fear of getting jumped on over the slightest thing. We’ve had this conversation here before and the best thing to do when there’s a disagreement is to contact David and let him have the final say.
Sorry that my last comment was written so slow that I posted it after the argument had died down. I just wanted to clarify my point and explain my reasoning further. I’m happy to drop it now though, it’s not like I’m looking to fight here.