The Red Pill

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.

As a Kickstarter backer, I received a pre-release digital copy. Overall, the documentary is nothing short of amazing. I follow the issues presented in the film with some regularity and I am the type of person who will seek out opinions of those I disagree with to learn where they're coming from. I feel that this is exactly what Cassie Jaye did in her film. She allowed both sides to make their arguments without putting in her own spin or bias...a rarity with documentary film makers and a very welcome surprise. Although I was already familiar with many of the issues presented, I still felt the heartbreak of some of the personal stories shared. For the uninitiated, some revelations will come as a shock. Imagine centuries ago when people thought the Earth was flat and the outrage that ensued when told it is actually round...in that time you were called a "heretic" or "blasphemer" for speaking truth to power while today it's overused terms like "misogynist" and "hate speech".

One small criticism I would have is that you could tell there is so much more to the stories presented but with the constraints of fitting everything into a 2 hour film, it is understandable that cuts and edits were done where they were. What I would advise anyone watching this documentary to do is to check out some of the interviews with Cassie Jaye (Youtube channels like The Rubin Report, Stefan Molyneux, etc.) and Q&A sessions done during the screenings of this film (can easily be found on Youtube by searching "The Red Pill Q&A") where you'll get to go a little deeper and more in-depth explanations on what both sides, the feminists and men's rights activists, believe and fight for. I can only hope that the special features included on DVD/Blu-Ray will fill in some of the minor gaps with more interview footage.

One of the most interesting things about this documentary is seeing filmmaker Cassie Jaye's personal struggle with having her feminist beliefs challenged through her video diaries which pop up here and there throughout the documentary. You can tell that she was genuinely having a hard time coping with having all of these statistics thrown at her that disprove what she believed in. At the end of it all, this is what makes this documentary more compelling, even more so than the heartbreaking stories and reality-shattering statistics from the men's rights activists.

If you're a feminist or simply believe women in the West don't get a fair shake compared to men, you owe it to yourself to have your views challenged and see if they stand up to scrutiny. What have you to lose? Your convictions will either be strengthened or you will come to terms with the fact that your beliefs were wrong and can take comfort in knowing that you now have the truth. Whether or not your beliefs remain the same, one thing is certain...you will be changed in some way.

Like Morpheus says to Neo in "The Matrix": I didn't say it would be easy, Neo. I just said it would be the truth...

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.

This documentary is incredibly rich in texture – and it covers a huge amount of territory. The subject, the "Men's Rights Movement," has never been dealt with before in film, so "The Red Pill" becomes the go-to introduction to the people, organizations and even ideas associated with this movement that are not only ignored in documentaries but are given zero attention in the education system as well. The greatest surprise is the story of Erin Pizzey, a pioneer for women's welfare who, because she sought to help end domestic violence in all its manifestations became a pariah to thought-leaders and workers who control the domestic violence social work industry. The clips of the bizarre protests by political agitators against academic lecturers who promote human rights (for all people) are disturbing, yet are informative and valuable in shedding light on the fanaticism of extremists. The director, Cassie Jaye, is unusually modest and fair, yet at the same time is stubbornly honest and steadfast in her search for overlooked facts, no matter how unfashionable they may be. Highly recommended. Genuinely educational.

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.