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.
Ok I think it works. Can everyone see?
@Fruitloopsie
Yassss. She looks so scared! :p Super cute.
That link leads to the post in which the image appears – not directly to the image. Assuming that’s your own facebook account, I’ll just give a heads up that you’re giving out your real name and stuff.
Here’s the kitten! FL, you can take your link out if you’re still in the edit window.
IP & POM
thanks, bummer I can’t change my link now.
Cute kitty!!!
@Fruitloopsie oh my God, she is so ADORABLE!!!!
@Fruitloopsie
If you email this link:
https://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2016/10/24/red-pill-director-cassie-jaye-hits-a-new-low-with-her-appearance-on-a-white-supremacist-podcast/comment-page-3/#comment-1014827
to David and ask to have the comment taken down, I’m sure he’d do it.
I will compliment your kitten’s close to perfect ear symmetry. Fingie approves.
That kitten is going to be a plushy floofer someday soon, if not already. So cute!
Adorable kitty! Sometimes I wish I had a kitten. Both my cats were adults when I adopted them. It’s not possible right now, so I guess I’ll have to live vicariously through other’s kittens.
Does Misty need a big sister? Demi is available and has experience raising Fingie.
http://i374.photobucket.com/albums/oo188/dhag85/Mobile%20Uploads/20161024_133053_zpsqxkazmwx.jpg
Thanks so much everyone! ☺️ I really do love Misty. I gave her my dog Chiquita’s collar with a little bell on it. I sure do miss my dogs Chiqueta and Maxx but I know they are in a better place and I’ll see them again one day.
Misty is so sweet and mellow even when she’s scared and scratches and bites you she doesn’t do it very hard and if she does she rubs her head against you and ‘boops’ your wounds as if she was apoligizing. She loves attention but she’s shy and scared but she really is a good kitty and tries to get to know you.
WWTH
I hope you get one someday 🙂 good luck
IP
I’m sure Demi would be an awesome big sister to Misty 😀 and thanks again I just sent that link to David to delete it.
I haven’t caught up on this thread yet but I did notice the thing with the facebook link and so I’ve deleted that comment.
Thanks David
Jaye made it quite clear to those considering funding her project that she would retain complete creative control of her work. It just so happened that many of the people most willing to support her research and filming with an open hand, not knowing exactly where her inquiries would lead her, were not feminists.
As a 52-year-old liberal, I myself have noticed a strange authoritarian mindset creeping into the left wing. Many college students are now protesting and even trying to prevent talks by certain speakers from taking place on their campuses. To me, it would make more sense to attend the discussions and present my point of view in the Q and A session. As long as we uphold the rules for respectful discussion and debate, people can be encouraged to logically examine the ideas being presented and come to their own conclusions.
If we set out today to impede the free speech of only those whose opinions we find most objectionable, who’s to say that tomorrow, the cultural tide will have shifted and liberals will be the ones everyone is trying to dismiss as not worth listening to?
@Fruitloopsie
My first cat was named Misty – she was an awesome cat, friendly, a little on the larger side in her later years but that just meant she had more for me to love. : May your Misty bring you much joy and kitty cuddles.
KITTEN!
Such a sweet face.
A touch late, but….
@IP
keeeeeeeeeeeeeess young ones
msexceptiontotherule & VP
Thanks. Have I mentioned she loves hugs? She loves getting hugs and she would even hold her arms out, grab you and rubs her face against you. She makes sure everyone gets her attention and love.?
Sure, if Forney bashes others’ appearance, there’s nothing unfair about doing the same to him. In contrast, when body positivity activist Lindy West ridiculed the appearance of equity feminist Christina Hoff Sommers, it came across more like intellectual laziness. Hoff Sommers must have made points that challenged West’s views in some way — points that West didn’t have an intelligent rebuttal for.
I’m not sure about posting links here, though I saw nothing about it in the comments policy, but I saw that a comment with a Facebook link is getting deleted, so rather than posting a link about this I’ll just say that anyone interested can find the incident I’m referring to by googling “Lindy West Christina Hoff Sommers.”
As for myself, I really like challenging and fine-tuning my own ideas through discussions with all different kinds of people, and veering off into personal attacks (even if I know the person I’m debating is a jerk who does lazy stuff like that) just muddies the water when I feel like there are more interesting things to talk about.
Let me veer off into muddy water and tell Susan to fuck off.
@That_Susan: i understand why sometimes people don’t want some speakers to speak at their colleges. That isn’t free, so part of your tuition money is going to whoever is coming. With tuition being as high as it is, i don’t want any money going to the alt right.
There is also the problem of legitimising the views. It’s true, you could have a killer question prepared. But you would need to be able to ask it.
You are also going to have the problem of students who are less informed now comparing you, a student asking a question challenging the speaker, and the person the university thought enough of to pay for them to deliver a talk.
I am also reminded of that bit on climate change with bill nye, where they made it statistically accurate with 99 people for and one against. That presents a much different image than one on one.
Having a speaker in a place of learning gives them, and their ideas, status. It means they are worthy of listening to.
However, there are some ideas that are not. Roosh (to choose an obvious and extreme example) should not be paid to speak. If he were coming, i would make my displeasure clear. He, and his ideas, are not worth consideration. They are not worth debating. He is not welcome.
Your point of “if we don’t let them talk, then what is to stop us from losing our free speech?” Is a stretch. The government guarantees free speech. Uninviting or stopping someone from a paid engagement does not infringe on their rights, as i understand them. They can go and speak on a street corner.
Wow that got long! I see where you are coming from, and i wanted to explore my own feelings on the matter. Let me know if i’m out of line!
I don’t think it “just so happened” that her film wound up being so circumspect around the worst qualities of her backers.
It’s weird that you think that college students (only college students?) should not be protesting things they don’t like, as if those rassafrassin kids these days are just so unruly and out of control like that. If you’re American one might think that you’d remember the massive anti-war protests that went on in the 60s mostly around (yes) college campuses, but certainly not restricted to those places. Or the protests that were one of the the centerpieces of the civil rights movement. If you’re not American and don’t have a reason to remember those things, I hope I’ve mentioned something useful for you. Protests are the major way for the less powerful to elevate their voices to the same volume as the voices of the powerful. You’re really going to denigrate that?
There is both a qualitative and a quantitative difference in the structure of power around someone who has a literal platform, typically up on a stage in front of an audience, versus that around someone who is a member of the audience. This seems so self-evident that I’m surprised I have to mention it. One participant is being granted the presumption of authority, and the other one is not. One has been given the microphone, and the other can be silenced just by not bothering to call on that person.
There is another flaw in your formulation: you presume that the other side grants the same courtesy. It does not. Racists and misogynists do not accept non-white people and women without a fight, so it’s actively self-destructive to accept them without a fight.
It’s so weird that I have to actually type out these words.
I don’t know. Why don’t you try to explain first why you want to impede the free speech of those rassafrassin kids these days? Or do you think protests don’t amount to free speech? Or what? Help me out here, because protests look like more free speech to me, not less.
that_susan
You’re going to tell me that she is psychologically immune to feelings of gratitude toward people who assisted her and completed her work without the slightest of variance from an unbiased stand-point. I’m going to call bullshit.
That was a nice nap, what’d I miss… Oh…
@Troubelle
Shut up, you ray of sunshine, you ?
@Susan
*reads bullshit. looks to Petal*
yeah alright, bygones
Not caring to fund a documentary is not the same as protesting it. Nobody actually tried to stop Jaye from making her film and nobody protested any screening of it. Why should feminists have donated money to The Red Pill over the many other things we could donate to instead?