The Red Pill

So I finally got round to watching The Red Pill last night and have been wondering what to say about it. I have my own personal reservations about parts of how it is made - the interviews are all far too brief and so often little more than soundbites, barely scratching the surface of complex issues and showing practically none of the mountain of evidence and reason the MRAs routinely use to back up their arguments. In my opinion the film could have used 20 or 30 percent more of that and 20 or 30 percent less shots of Cassie Jaye driving around the streets of America and looking thoughtfully into the distance. I also would have liked less two-sentence interviews with people we never get to see again, and more time spent with Erin Pizzey, Karen Straughan, Paul Elam and Warren Farrell, all of whom could easily fill a documentary of their own. She seemed a little indiscriminate in her choice of interviewees, and more than a little random in what she decided to have them say.

But on the other hand, no-one has ever done this before, taken the Men's Human Rights Movement and turned it into an entertaining and compelling movie fit to be shown in theatres, and that counts for a lot in itself. The bottom line is once I started watching I couldn't stop, really enjoyed the experience, and, all content aside, thought it looked amazing.

If you're wanting a one-stop guide to the many and varied arguments, beliefs and philosophical positions of the red-pilled world, well then this film may well leave you wanting. But if you go in with the understanding it is an outsider's view documentary about one individual woman's journey through the current state of gender politics in the 21st century, I can't see you having any good reason to complain.

Feminist documentary filmmaker Cassie Jaye sets out to explore the much-maligned men's rights movement, assuming as many do that it must be a hate movement composed of men who resent the gains that women have made and wish to turn back that progress. In delving into what motivates men's rights activists, she discovers that the movement is very different from what she had originally thought it was and goes on to challenge her own prior views about gender, power, and privilege. She discusses at length the numerous legitimate grievances that many men have on issues ranging from military conscription to false rape allegations, from unfair treatment in divorce to higher rates of violent victimization--and the apathy and in many cases outright hostility shown in response by feminist activists and society at large.

This film is historic in that it marks the first time that the issues facing men and boys and the activists working to address them have ever been portrayed on the big screen. It is a breath of fresh air standing in stark contrast to most mainstream media coverage of the men's rights movement, which tends to quote the most extreme things said by the most extreme people in the movement out of context and make them out to be representative of what the entire movement stands for. It no doubt took a great deal of both courage and empathy to make the film. Every man--and every woman who sees the men in her life as something other than patriarchal oppressors--needs to see this film.

Cassie Jaye is currently the bravest woman in Hollywood. Her new film, 'The Red Pill' has more testosterone in it than any Kathryn Bigelow movie. To call it a must-see is an understatement as she explores an area that will instantly outrage any card-carrying feminist and at a Q & A after the West Coast Premiere, Friday night, October 14, she reveals that making it cost her friendships and support from a community made up mostly of women who say they want to see more women filmmakers, but really only mean that if they're promoting material they approve of. Jaye cuts through the hypocrisy to bring us her personal experiences (a splash of narrative combined with a documentary format)when she stumbles upon a rabbit hole that swallows her up and forces her to question everything she believed in as a former feminist when searching the term 'rape culture' leads her to discover the world of the MRA. If 'The Red Pill' can't move you, your blinders are on way too tight.

I attended the Canadian premier viewing of The Red Pill in Edmonton, AB on October 27, 2016.

The film itself was.. at times.. very hard to watch... at times funny.. at times I could hear everyone bite their tongues.. at other times spitting out in disgust.

Cassie Jay pieced together something marvelous... serious as hell... heartbreaking at times... she captured the struggle of both hers, and likely everyone in that theatre, faced in their Red Pill Journey.

Cassie also did something brilliant... she let the hypocrites tie themselves in knots. She gave them a platform.. and put a camera on them.. asked them a straightforward question.. and let them expose their biases of their own free will.

The hard parts were not so much the interviews of the people who are hostile to men and boys.. it was the realisation of just how deep, how buried, the Red Pill perspective really is in the world. There is a desperation, and a hope.. but the struggle was the underlying connection from start to finish of this film.

Oh... and what a relief this film must be to people like Paul Elam and Tom Golden and Warren Farrell. Decades of struggling to say what this film is saying coming to life in a sceptical yet honest format.. and delivered unapologetic-ally to the world at large.

What struck me the most, as I sat there at the end of the film, was that the film existed at all. This film is not good news to feminists.. as it gets out it will shake the very foundations of the narratives they claim to be supporting. The Red Pill Movie is a direct threat to the people who profit from the feminist false threat narrative.

So expect this film to see resistance like no other. Expect this film to be ignored as long as possible... then Cassie will be slandered, portrayed as a sell-out, a liar... the typical feminist reactions.

I was both overjoyed yet deeply sad. This emotional roller-coaster of being happy for the existence of this little piece of truth in film compared to the massive task of having to coax the world to break from the hypnosis of the mainstream entertainment/programming to face something a lot of them don't want to face.

That said, it needs to get done. At the end of the film the audiences questions surrounded how to get this film out there, and others like it.

Every human on earth should see this. This is one of those films that is so timely, so vital, so critical to the progress of our civilization that it needs to get as much exposure as possible.

If you can manage to find a showing that is within travel range.. make the investment, you won't regret the experience.

The Red Pill is a must see movie. Cassie Jaye was thorough, unflinching and relentlessly detailed in her research into the Men's Movement and in creating this lovely film. She patiently talked with and listened to many leading figures in the Men's Movement as well as several prominent feminists and held space for everyone's opinions.

It is difficult for most people to see beneath our culture's attitudes about male privilege and power to the myriad layers of problems and issues that run beneath that false front and to feel empathy for men based solely on their gender. I think Cassie Jaye's movie was the first attempt by a recognized documentary film maker to take on this task, and for that I am extremely grateful.

I found the movie,entertaining, fascinating and deeply emotionally moving, and I hope it will open the eyes of many to the plight of men and boys in our country and around the world.