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.
Christ on a crutch, you’re one needy, attention-seeking toddler, aren’t you, DeValle?
Ooh, is this thread “recalled to life”? (As was Dr. Manette in A Tale of Two Cities.)
Oh, it’s just a troll. With threats.
DeValle, you’re a jerk.
May no woman smile at you ever again.
May many, many women laugh at you.
Oh, goody – the asshat’s back.
DeValle, I think you may have missed the point about mammoths. But whatever.
I really like the part where he says WHTM is a hate group though. I’ve always wanted to be part of a hate group, but all the ones I had found before were kinda dumb, like nazis.
So how do you do, fellow haters ?
Imagine starting a Facebook group dedicated to attacking a blog and advertising it on the very blog you’re attacking, since literally nobody gave a fuck about your little tantrum. Congrats on your 1 follower, who I assume is yourself.
This thread, again?
What’s dead may never die.
I can only assume John has completed his glorious artwork of improbably shaped women kicking each other in the head (that Petal thing he was trying to peddle, remember?), and is filling in his spare time before the triumphant book launch tour with a new project.
Shame he ripped off Heather Burke’s artwork to do it instead of drawing his own mammoth.
https://youtu.be/fwhyGF8knoo
Also, wasn’t he banned?
@Devalle
She’s talking about you. You’re sad.
John wants to be an MRA thought-leader so bad you guyse! Oh my gosh, John, we just aren’t that into you, give it up.
Dude’s trying to make himself into a brand like Carl of Swindon or Thunderfoot, so the dipshit’s ginning up controversy to try to drive views, so he can get that sweet, sweet advertising paycheque. He so desperately wants us to hate him, to go over there and fight him, so that he can get a regular audience goin’.
Go get a real job, ya vulture. Preying off of vulnerable men looking for something to blame their problems on by turning them into misogynistic hate-torpedoes is deeply unethical. I mean, I know that you don’t care about anything but your paycheque at the end off the day, but try to pretend that you’ve got some sliver of morality in you.
Ugh, I don’t know what’s worse, the crowd or the carnival barker.
Or he’s tried multiple times to get us on Facebook so that he’ll be able to get our real names and doxx us or give our names to someone who will.
Not that I’m cynical or anything.
Not to mention, starting a hateblog with Mammothers quoted is not even new; it’s been done before. John is singularly unoriginal.
David endures.
… This might be my fault. I was idly wondering yesterday when this thread would pop up again…
I AM SO SORRY.
@wwth: I would probably agree with you, on the trying to doxx us thing. I don’t know a lot about facebook, can a page owner see who was looking at their page? *is glad I remembered to log out, when I was done with the FBs*
I don’t think there’s a way to find out who’s looking at the page. I just think he’s hoping we’ll want to argue with him so we’ll comment. Giving him access to our names and other personal details.
Tapdancing Jesus Christ spinning on a bicycle made of dicks, this thread again?
I’m with WWTH. At best, he’s trying to doxx us.
Maybe I should just post the link on my own wall along with a call to troll. My male, French, public-minded friends won’t have a problem with that.
Dox this, motherfucker.
Back again, as there’s something you should know of. I’ve started a thread about you on Digital Spy,
https://forums.digitalspy.com/discussion/2247486/feminists-who-give-feminism-a-bad-name#latest
In 24 hours there’s been quite a reaction. The purpose is similar to David’s, in that he says he wants to expose the hate filled extremists of men’s rights, and I’m exposing the hate filled section of feminism, that is, you lot. Should any of you decide to comment in that thread, be aware that DS doesn’t tolerate the foul mouthed abuse many of you use so much. Try and talk in a civilised manner, and as it’s likely few of you can do that, stay away from DS.
One more thing. I’m enjoying myself! Are you?
What a creepy little stalker.
Oooh, WWTH, he’s become fixated with you…that isn’t at all creeptastic, obsessive behavior. *Rolls eyes*
But, y’know, replacing “Song” with “Thread.”
Oh? Does he mention me? I might read the thread later for shits and giggles but I’m about to go visit with my grandmother right now.
@John Devalle
I don’t think anybody there is even talking about WHTM.
Do you not realize just how sad and creepy you are?
WWTH, he quotes you in his OP of the thread *he* started.
The thread just goes on to bitch about feminists in general; boilerplate nonsense we’ve all heard 1000 times before. I lost interest.
It’d be kinda cute if it weren’t such a desperate bid for attention, as he couldn’t wait to come here and crow about it.
Have fun with your Grandma!
Why should we know about this?
Because he wants us to know what a good time he’s having. This is in no way pathetic.
“i’m gonna show them all the fun I’m having and they’ll be so jealous and it’s gonna be great”
I KNOW! I lmao.
Did you see the kid who used Zombie Solanas’ SCUM Manifesto as a source of radical feminism gone too far? Lolol
Aww. That’s sweet.
I notice John didn’t actually link this thread. Just the site URL. He only lifted my comments out of context and didn’t bother to tell his buddies about how he got the angry responses after trolling us for what? Weeks?
It’s almost like he knew if people read the whole thread, he wouldn’t come off so well.
If you’re reading this, John, I fucking dare you to link to the thread so people at that forum can actually come to an informed opinion. Say what you will about this site, but at least David links back to the sources of his quotes so that everything is transparent and the full context is on display. Until you do the same, you’re not a mirror image of this site, you’re just another sad, ugly troll.
Also, I like how he thinks the words used to convey a message are more important tyhan the message itself when it comes to determining if a post is obscene.
Okay, so I read the first page of the forum comments and here’s what I noticed. The complaints about feminists are all about how many feminists are rude and use mean terms like “male privilege.” That’s about the extent of the anti-male oppression.
Meanwhile, this site chronicles misogynists saying that women shouldn’t have the right to vote, adult men should be allowed to have sex with underage girls, drunk women are asking to be raped, women deserve to be murdered because we make men sad by not having sex with them and so on an so forth.
John, sweetie, if your main complaint in life is that a couple of feminists thought you were a disingenuous asshole when you necro trolled one of their blogs, then I don’t think hatred for men is such a big issue in our society.
Call me when you get rape threats for posing for a picture with hairy legs
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/oct/06/swedish-model-gets-threats-after-ad-shows-her-unshaved-legs
He’s back? What a pathetic little shit.
This is like…what? The third time he’s begged us to go to a site that he’a a part of?
Nah, dude, pass. Staaaaaaahp already.
I’m happy for John that he has apparently given up on trying to drive traffic to his two pathetic Facebook pages. I’m happy for the discussion site that they have not fallen for his attempt to use them to brigade this site.
And I’m happy to have seen this:
Thank you stoatie – who has more stars as a valued contributor to the site than poor John…
Are you okay, John?
All of the posts of the last month have featured serial sexual assaulters, men who think women are biologically incapable of love, and how awesome it will be when women can be replaced by sex slave robots.
Why does that bother you? So much that you have to write blog posts about it? Do you count yourself in those groups, or is this just a hate reflex?
I’ll be generous and suggest that it’s the latter – that your anger is purely reflexive. Back away from the hate, John. It’s toxic and will literally kill you. Disengage from the communities that feed it to you. They’re poisoning you.
Or, maybe you’re still cynically trying to build a brand of misogyny to earn money off of – heaven knows other doods have been successful at it. In that case?
Did you know that excessive cortisol/autonomic stimulation erodes the capacities of the frontal lobe and general reasoning capacity over long term studies? And that it interferes with logical thinking, making it difficult to see the reasonable or expected outcomes? And that over the long term it will reduce serotonin production and sensitivity from autonomic exhaustion, rendering you vulnerable to chronic depression, inability to problem solve and depressed creative faculties? And that it is part of a set of reactions that will raise your blood pressure, thin the walls of your arteries, make you vulnerable to heart attacks, is associated with vertigo, light-headedness, nausea, low immune response, anxiety and panic attacks, and general stress disorder?
In that case? Enjoy your cortisol.
Get out of there, John. It’ll kill you. Serious.