Paul Elam: Subject of, and fundraiser for, Cassie Jaye’s The Red Pill, in a shot from a preview of the documentary
UPDATE 10/25/16: If you’ve come here after reading about a petition to cancel screenings of The Red Pill, I ask you to NOT sign any such petitions. It’s just free publicity for them. Read more of my thoughts on the matter here.
Dear Cassie Jaye,
Congratulations. You surpassed your Kickstarter fundraising goal yesterday, more than two weeks before the Kickstarter campaign was scheduled to come to a close. You’ve funded the postproduction work on your long-delayed documentary on Men’s Rights activists, and then some.
But I’m not sure that the person I should be congratulating is you. Last night Paul Elam of A Voice for Men – the central subject of your film – was doing his own victory lap online. And no wonder, because he seems to be the real victor here.
In a post on his site that managed to be giddy and vindictive at once, he offered his congratulations to you, then, well, to himself. “Even though the victory goes to Ms. Jaye,” he wrote, in an awkward attempt at modesty, “I have the need to offer up some thanks.”
And then he spelled out why he thinks your “victory” is really a victory for him.
For the past six years AVFM has had mud kicked in its face by a corrupt, left-wing media. Bottom feeders like Adam Serwer, Jeff Sharlet and Mariah Blake have performed endless unscrupulous acts, directly lying to their readers in order to attack AVFM, this movement and me personally.
Their work was not just to harm me, or to damage a website but to make sure if they could that the message we carry never found its way to the larger public. Their intent was and is to paint an indelible stain on all of us so hideous that we would never be taken seriously by enough people to matter.
They have failed, and I can now predict that they have failed miserably.
In other words, Paul Elam thinks he and his friends in what he ludicrously calls the “Men’s Human Rights Movement” have bought and paid for a feature-length advertisement for them.
And it’s not hard to see why Elam – and the other manospherians who’ve rallied around your film in recent days — think this. After all, they are the ones who have rescued your film from oblivion by pouring tens of thousands of dollars into your Kickstarter.
And all it took for you to unleash this torrent of money was an interview with one of the sleaziest figures in right-wing journalism, Milo Yiannopoulos of Breitbart.
In the interview, posted on Monday, you complained that “I won’t be getting support from feminists. They want a hit piece and I won’t do that.”
There was more than a little bit of irony in the fact that you were saying this to a man infamous for his many hit pieces on so-called “Social Justice Warriors.”
You also complained about an intern on your film who, you said, “had a lot of crying attacks and emotional experiences. She claimed everything I was showing her was triggering her.”
A young feminist “triggered” and crying. This is red meat to the Breitbart crowd, and I have to assume you knew this when you told Milo this story.
To an outside observer like me, this shameful pandering looks a lot like a Hail Mary play on your part. Having failed to convince most potential funders of the film that you would present anything close to an accurate picture of the Men’s Rights movement, you told Breitbart what its readers – and the broader manosphere – wanted to hear.
And it worked. Men’s Rights activists, self-professed “Red Pillers” and other assorted antifeminists rallied around your film, and the money started flowing.
On Reddit, the moderators of the Men’s Rights subreddit “stickied” an appeal to donate to your Kickstarter to the top of their front page, urging MRAs to open their wallets in order to show skeptics that “we can take part in some actual activism and not just post stuff in here.”
Even the regulars in the violently misogynistic Red Pill subreddit agreed to help bankroll your film.
And it wasn’t just Men’s Rights and “Red Pill” Redditors who organized support for your film. One right-wing Red Pill blogger, notorious for his harassment of ideological enemies, pledged to match donations up to $10,000, describing your documentary as “the Movie SJWs Do Not Want You to See.”
Meanwhile, on her blog, AVFM’s “social media director” Andrea Hardie (an internet bully better known under her pseudonyms Janet Bloomfield and “Judgy Bitch”) not only rallied her readers around your Kickstarter but also set up a gofundme of her own, raising money in hopes that it would buy Breitbart’s Yiannopoulos a producer credit in your film. (I hope that is out of the question, even if she raises more than the paltry amount she’s raised for this purpose so far.)
And then there was Elam himself, on Twitter, calling on his followers to, in his words, “Help fund #RedPillMovie because fuck feminists!”
Help fund #RedPillMovie because fuck feminists! https://t.co/JE4pRoCJaa #WomenAgainstFeminism @JudgyBitch1 @Nero
— Paul Elam (@AVoiceforMen) October 26, 2015
Accepting money from these people would seem to be a pretty clear violation of the principles you set forth in your own Kickstarter video, in which you declared that
in order to keep this film non-partisan, and respectfully show all sides to this debate, we won’t accept funding from organizations that inevitably have biased agendas.
Instead, you have chosen to take money from people who see your film as a chance to say “fuck you” to feminists. You have chosen to take money from the actual subjects of your film.
You are making a film about Men’s Rights Activists, funded to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars by Men’s Rights Activists. You are making a film about A Voice for Men funded in part by A Voice for Men.
Does that not trouble you at all? It should. In your interview with Breitbart, you noted that “films that support one side and act as propaganda do better than those that try to have an honest look.”
You said this, presumably, to set yourself apart from such propagandists. Now you seem to have cast your lot in with them.
Which I suppose makes sense, since the clips of your film that you’ve posted online so far look a lot more like propaganda than they do like any sort of honest look at the Men’s Rights movement,
I felt uneasy about your project from the start, concerned that you had been pulled in by the soothing but misleading rhetoric that MRAs spout when they are trying to sound more respectable than they really are, rather than on what MRAs actually say and do when the cameras are off of them.
But I knew you had a good reputation as a filmmaker, and heard good things from several feminists who knew you better than I did. So I held my tongue and tried my best to give you the benefit of the doubt, even when you posted clips from your film that portrayed AVFMers as heroic underdogs rather than the misogynists and malicious harassers that they really are.
When I wrote you a little over a week ago with some of my concerns, you assured me in the phone call that followed that the clips you had posted were only part of the story, that you were well aware that the MRAs you had interviewed were on their best behavior when talking to you, and that the real story of the Men’s Rights movement is far less rosy-hued. Against my better judgement, I continued to hold on to some kind of hope that you would live up to your reputation in the end.
And now, frankly, I feel like I’ve been played.
Unfortunately, it looks like you have been played too, much more spectacularly than I have. I suspect you are doing far more damage to your reputation than you even know.
One thing I have learned in five years of watching, and writing about, and dealing with, the Men’s Rights movement, is that if Paul Elam is happy about something, that thing is almost certainly terrible.
I suspect, sadly, that you will ultimately learn this lesson yourself, the hard way.
PS: In our phone conversation, you suggested that if you were able to fund your film, you might be able to finally film the interview with me that we originally had planned to do, but which fell through due to financial and other practical obstacles during the original filming of The Red Pill. At this point, I am sorry to say, that is completely out of the question.
Not only has Andrew filled nine pages with his own male tears (although some of that was Yor, Caveman of the Future (thanks Dali!)) but in all that time he’s managed to avoid answering the questions that were asked of him.
I would totally agree with this, and thank you for formulating it so superbly. It’s a really good summary of some thoughts that I’ve been having for a while now, and helps me pull them together. I definitely benefit from patriarchy in enormous ways, and while I do my best to oppose it, that “best” is often misdirected or ineffectual. I don’t get a free pass just because I can quote De Beauvoir. I acknowledge my privilege.
Andrew, perhaps you should do likewise.
On a different note, I went and looked up that planet (HAT-P-7b) and had some fun reading papers about it. It looks like an exceptionally bad to go.
As one commentator once said, it’s almost as if space doesn’t want us to come and visit.
Holy butts, look at this thread.
Andrew, you’re bein’ ridiculous. you didn’t come here for a civil debate. Coming into a place and saying “you’re all being ridiculous and biased, open your eyes” isn’t civil. There’s no swearing, sure, but I’ll take a fuckin’ swear and a desire to actually communicate over this civil brain trauma any day.
Anecdote: I’m a scientist, and know a bunch of other scientists. Scientists are (generally) dirty, foul-mouthed giggle machines. We swear and we joke, and we make progress doing so. We only clean it up when it comes time to make actual public presentations. Swearing and calling names ain’t a problem at all if the people involved actually want to communicate. And you say you’re having a problem with the name calling and swearing? Shocker.
Since you wanted to tie this back to the beginning, I’m going to reply to your original post now, just to demonstrate how little you were interested in actually communicating or learning.
:O
Evidence in the first point!
I typed “gender equality” into the handy “search” function that David provides us to the right, and was gifted with a cornucopia of returns. They’re about MGTOWs mocking the concept of “gender equality”. And if you read them? They include David talking about men’s problems! And how they can be helped, and should be helped more!
It’s almost as if the reason you couldn’t find a “single post that recognizes the discussion of gender equality should be a two-way street” was because you didn’t fucking look, you doorknob.
We are in agreement here! As the aforementioned simple search that you claimed to do would have revealed!
Ah, Andrew. Spoken with all the blind confidence that the stereotype of your gender implies. Here are a few articles form that search. Go ahead and tell me how it’s the feminists who think it’s a zero-sum game, that one gender needs to suffer for the other gender to prosper.
http://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2013/07/27/mens-rights-redditors-outraged-by-poster-suggesting-that-men-teach-boys-about-gender-equality-and-healthy-equal-relationships/
http://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2012/06/03/redditor-do-your-bit-for-gender-equality-by-telling-women-theyre-terrible/
http://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2015/05/22/mens-rights-redditors-agree-trans-intersex-and-genderqueer-folks-are-silly-and-annoying-and-hinder-true-equality/
As for the “only women can experience sexism” part – that’s because you aren’t using the same definition of the word “sexism”. you’re using it as “discrimination due to sex”, which ignores the balance of social power at play. It’s the same reason why racism isn’t a thing against white people, even though situations can exist where white people are discriminated against.
Men can and do experience discrimination. You’ve experienced it. No one here denies it. That’s not the same thing as sexism. Sexism involves the denial of agency and the assumption of subservience.
Been down that road with my sister and a close friend. In Canada, even! You remind me a lot of my friend, if my friend decided to get bitter and angry instead of recognizing that he had made a mistake with his ex and just let go. He eventually got full custody recently, which is great! But wow, what a fight he had to put up. Very much worth it, though, his son is attending school regularly again and has a dad who thinks the world of him.
Do you really think that this space would be full of people who’ve never experienced the child courts? That perhaps there might be women here who had been screwed over by the same courts? For fuck’s sake, Andrew, is your head in a bag? This blog is littered with the accounts of people being dragged through an uncaring court system. Some of us are those children jugged around by angry parents. Some are one of those parents, desperately trying to save their child from an abusive other. Some of us are those abused children, betrayed by those courts. Why the fuck would you think we wouldn’t know what a terrible shit-show the court system is? We’re fucking liberals over here.
This one’s the sign that you can’t be reasoned with here. The assumption that, because we don’t agree with you, we’re just “blind”. Couldn’t be that we’re all working with an imperfect view of the world, no. Your position’s right, and we’re just blind to the truth you have in your hands.
You couldn’t be more wrong if you tried.
Did I miss anything, guys? I mean, WWTH said all this at the beginning of this train wreck, but I wanted to re-iterate I guess.
Just wanted to close one last hole, this one:
No, it shouldn’t be a “two way street”. Nor should it be a “one way street”. No traffic-related metaphors need apply. Society is more complicated than that..
“One way street” implies that one side is doing all the giving and the other side is doing all of the taking. No thanks.
“Two way street” implies that both sides are both giving and taking. Better! But horribly non-descriptive, because – who are the sides, what are they giving and taking, and how do we decide what transactions are fair?
No, we don’t want either of those things. We want a recognition of the societal forces which oppress us all. It’s that Patriarchy thing we’ve talked about. You know, that unifying theory with explanative power that makes clear why and how injustices are done, and provides a framework for mitigating those injustices? That one.
And yes, I know you don’t like the idea of it. That’s fine! Feel free to make an opposing framework! If it stands up to scrutiny, awesome! But until then, our interest isn’t in taking your things or playing tradesies. We want to oppose injustice. It’s a shame you’re not on-side with that.
Any prescriptive ideology that defines some people as absolute victims and others as absolute oppressors based simply on their skin colour or gender is too infantile and stupid even to be contemplated. The human condition is suffered by absolutely every single human being
The “Scientist” lady is literally the dumbest thinker on this page. It’s as if she’s lived her entire life, and the past 50 years crept by her, while all the while “women good, men bad” is her entire mentality. She saw NOTHING that happened during that entire period.
Cripes, how often is this thread going to get necro’d?
You’re seriously trying to call Scildfreja a “dumb thinker?”
Please, do elaborate. I eagerly await your undoubtedly brilliant and logical response.
@Jerry Donohue
By vague platitudes
Racism does not exist.
Checkmate feminists.
@John
John Ron sawn blond none
ban braun caen chon dawn fawn gawne
huan hsian
Let me call freja
the worst insult i can bring
“you are an old hag!”
@weirwoodtreehugger: chief manatee
You think that they at least would troll the more recent threads. Is this thread just too comfy to leave? Are the newer posts just too much for them?
I’m sure that this gets linked at various manosphere sites and they find there way from there.
@Jerry:
No such thing is done. NEXT!
@John:
Thou hast not so much brains as “the ‘scientist’ lady” hath in her elbows. NEXT!
@weirwoodtreehugger: chief manatee
Must be, it would make sense that they’d impulsively post on the first page they get linked to. Otherwise they’d join miggy in his sporadic posts of late.
@ Laugher at BIgots, Mincing Betaboy
They just keep going and going and going and…
@Necro John (we already have a John, and he’s cool)
Outside of insulting @Scild (btw, she really ain’t the lady to mess wit), all of that was just words. If whatever you’re on about is so obvious, she woulda had to have seen NOTHING in the last 50 years not to notice it after all, why don’t you let us in on what we missed? Go on, rub our faces in it
Re the red pill controversy. I think Cassie Jaye is being unfairly treated as a traitor to the sisterhood for not doing a hit piece on the MRA’s. She openly states that as a young feminist that was her intention going in but she was swayed by what she found ie men focused on nuts and bolts problems like suicides child custody and homelessness, and as she states they had the figures and experience to back this up…..I think the most positive development in recent times is the de-genderising of the feminist- anti feminist debate. Almost all the leading lights in the anti-feminist movement now are female (seems mostly Canadian professors) and many arguing pro feminist are male…This has removed the old suspicion of bias, that people are only advocating for their own gender right or wrong, and now we can focus on a more pure debate of ideological paradigms.
Why oh why won’t this thread die?!
It’s the thread that never ends, it goes on and on my friends…
Dave, is there any way you can close comments?
Jerry,
You may be ruled by delusion without realizing it. Do not let it confront the nature of your mission. Yes, it is possible to shatter the things that can sabotage us, but not without inspiration on our side. Where there is turbulence, life cannot thrive.
It is in evolving that we are awakened. Imagine an awakening of what could be. This circuit never ends.
We are being called to explore the planet itself as an interface between faith and inspiration. It is time to take hope to the next level. The Goddess will be a gateway to karmic fulfillment.
To engage with the path is to become one with it.
We dream, we grow, we are reborn. Non-locality is the truth of gratitude, and of us. The stratosphere is electrified with bio-electricity.
Nothing is impossible. Choice is a constant. Truth requires exploration.
Now, please, let this goddamned thread die. Literally nobody gives a fuck.
Pagan, I thought of the same song! I almost went with that, but I decided on a…different approach, lol.
They keep coming back to the zombie thread because they’re looking for
I see a lot of complaints about the source of funding for this film, which is a valid criticism, and should lead to a healthy dose of skepticism in any form of journalism, but I did see a lot of points made in the film with what appeared to be legitimate sourcing, and I don’t see much in the way of objective rebuttals here.
If the response from feminists and the left to legitimate concerns about how society does actually view and treat men is simply vitriol and attacks on the MRM and MRA’s without addressing the points their making, it just lends credence to Cassie’s point.
I’m interested in what rational feminism has to say about the points raised in the film without hearing rage about what terrible people the MRA’s are. It’s clear that there are horrible people on both sides.
Rebut the message and stop screaming about the messengers.
This is a humour site. The tagline used to read “The New Misogyny, tracked and mocked’. Also, did you actually read this monstrous thread? Because I believe that people have made these points, and don’t really want to go through it again.
What is Patriarchy (And how does it hurt us all) – Everyday Feminism
Here’s an example on Feminism 101
6 Ways The Patriarchy Is Harmful To Men, Because Feminism Isn’t Just For Women
(though there is always these points to keep in mind:
“The patriarchy hurts men too” is a set of silencing or derailing tactics whose basic motif is to draw attention from the original topic to men’s issues in feminist discussion. – Source)
You might also be interested in the concept of toxic masculinity:
Geek feminism wiki
Toxic masculinity is killing men: The roots of male trauma
So, basically, your point about how women aren’t saying “What about the men” is not true. These issues are discussed. Patriarchy hurts everyone. The topics that Cassie Jaye (not just ‘Cassie’, unless you actually know her, give her the respect of using her entire name, please.) brings up are current in feminist thought. They aren’t the focus, because while Patriarchy hurts men it also benefits them, so maybe it’s time for men to figure their own shit out.
The MRM is not that. Do I need to link to all of the shit that Elam has said? Bash a violent bitch month? Oh yeah, super progressive.
Since this documentary focuses on Elam as a representative of the MRM according to what I’ve seen, you get to own all the shit he’s said.
Balance fallacy.
The message HAS been rebutted. Multiple times. In this thread. Why are you asking someone to take time out of their day to do some really basic googling for you?
@Kopo
Jesus Christ, you are laughably stupid. The Men’s Shelter you just linked to was founded by members of CAFE, several of whom were even featured in The Red Pill documentary. The reason men now have a shelter in Toronto was because several members on of the Board of Directors of CAFE, fucking, founded one.
I’m sorry, these MRA’s haven’t lived up to your expectation of being a bunch of do nothing internet whiners.
“The clips of your film that you’ve posted online so far look a lot more like propaganda than they do like any sort of honest look at the Men’s Rights movement.”
The funny thing about propaganda that makes a group look good is that it looks remarkably similar to honest material of a group that actually IS good.