The Red Pill
| The Red Pill | |
|---|---|
 Promotional release poster | |
| Directed by | Cassie Jaye |
| Produced by | Evan Davies Cassie Jaye Nena Jaye Anna Laclergue |
| Cinematography | Evan Davies |
| Music by | Douglas Edward |
Production company | Jaye Bird Productions |
| Distributed by | Gravitas Ventures (DVD) |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 117 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The Red Pill is a 2016 American documentary film directed by Cassie Jaye. The film explores the men's rights movement, as Jaye spends a year filming the leaders and followers within the movement. The Red Pill premiered on October 7, 2016, at Cinema Village in New York City, followed by several other one-time screenings internationally. It was released on DVD and Blu-ray on March 7, 2017, by Gravitas Ventures. Controversy over the documentary has led to some protests and cancellations of its screenings.
Content
The Red Pill chronicles Jaye's journey beginning as a skeptical feminist investigating what she believes to be a hate movement. She goes on to discover that the movement is different from what she expected and begins to question her own views on gender, power, and privilege. The film discusses numerous issues facing men and boys such as male suicide rates, workplace fatalities and high-risk jobs, false allegations of rape, military conscription, lack of services for male victims of domestic violence and rape, higher rates of violent victimization, issues concerning divorce and child custody, disparity in criminal sentencing, disproportionate funding and research on men's health issues, educational inequality, societal tolerance of misandry, and men's lack of reproductive rights.[1][2][3] It includes interviews with men's rights activists and those supportive of the movement, such as Paul Elam, founder of A Voice for Men; Harry Crouch, president of the National Coalition for Men; Warren Farrell, author of The Myth of Male Power; and Erin Pizzey, who started the first domestic violence shelter in the modern world. It also includes interviews with feminists critical of the movement, such as Ms. magazine executive editor Katherine Spillar,[4] and sociologist Michael Kimmel.[2] It also contains excerpts from Jaye's video diary.
Funding
Director Cassie Jaye initially struggled to find financiers who did not have "an agenda."[5] Jaye got the film off the ground with her own money as well as money from her mother, a co-producer, and her boyfriend.[2] After it became known that the film would not condemn the men's rights movement, Jaye was unable to find funding to cover the cost of the movie from traditional sources.[1][6] She instead started a campaign on the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, which she called a last resort.[5] The Kickstarter project promised to be a "fair and balanced" look at the men's rights movement.[5] The effort was strongly criticized by some feminists[who?] but received support from Breitbart News columnist Milo Yiannopoulos.[7][8] In the end, the campaign exceeded its goal of $97,000 as well as two stretch goals to raise a total of $211,260.[9]
Alan Scherstuhl's review for The Village Voice suggested that many of those providing funding for the film may have themselves been men's rights activists, thereby creating a conflict of interest.[10] Jaye has said that the suggestion the film was funded by MRAs (men's rights activists) is "a common lie that keeps spreading,"[2] despite the fact one of the largest pledges to the film was by anti-feminist and men's rights supporter Mike Cernovich, who pledged $10,000 to the Kickstarter project.[5] Still, Jaye maintained that "our five highest backers ... are neither MRA nor feminist. I would say three out of five of them didn't even know about the men's rights movement, but wanted to defend free speech,"[5] and that the film's backers and producers would have no influence or control of the film.[2][5]
Release
The Red Pill had its world premiere on October 7, 2016 at Cinema Village in New York City. It played there for a week before opening in Los Angeles on October 14, 2016. One-time screenings were also scheduled at various locations in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia.[citation needed]
In March 2017 the film was made available online through Amazon, Vudu, Hulu, Vimeo, Google play, YouTube Red, Microsoft Xbox, Fandango Now, and iTunes.
Reception
Critical response
The Red Pill received minimal coverage from noteworthy critics. Review aggregator websites Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic are unable to provide weighted averages for the film because there are not enough eligible reviews.[11][12] Of the critics who have reviewed the film, the response was mixed.
Katie Walsh of Los Angeles Times said the documentary "lacks a coherent argument" because it "is built on a fundamental misunderstanding" of key terms. Walsh said the terms could have been better defined "to comprehend the ways in which patriarchal systems control resources to exploit both women and men". She recognized that "there are many dire and urgent troubles men face that should be addressed" but concluded of the documentary, "[It] only exacerbates that divide with its uncritical, lopsided presentation and inability to craft a compelling argument regarding a topic this controversial."[13]
John DeFore of The Hollywood Reporter said, "Cassie Jaye's The Red Pill is clumsy and frustrating in many ways. But it demonstrates enough sincerity and openness to challenging ideas — letting representatives of this problematic movement make their case clearly and convincingly — that one wishes it were able to look at multiple sides of this debate at the same time." DeFore summarized the film as "an admirable attempt at evenhandedness whose journalistic and aesthetic failings dilute its arguments".[4]
Alan Scherstuhl of The Village Voice, critical of the men's rights movement, considered the film's production quality weak due to being Kickstarter-funded and highlighted that it was campaigned for by A Voice for Men and Reddit's men's rights forums. Scherstuhl considered the documentary to be "amateurish" with weak visuals. He said, "What the film and the movement fail to demonstrate is any kind of systemic cause. Instead, the author of men’s troubles here is always that vague bugaboo feminism, which we’re told is designed to silence its opponents."[10]
Cathy Young of Heat Street gave the film a positive review, saying it raised important issues that often go undiscussed and made "well-deserved" criticisms of feminism. However, she criticized the film for failing to devote attention to "the dark side of the men's movement", and stated that the film would have benefited from onscreen discussion of the subjects in which MRAs are on "far shakier ground".[14]
Corrine Barraclough, of the Australian tabloid newspaper The Daily Telegraph, said "the message of The Red Pill is compassion" and the film made her "wonder why feminists tried so hard to silence this crucial conversation."[15]
Awards
The Red Pill won three awards at the 2017 Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema: "Best of Festival", "Excellence in Directing Documentary", and "Excellence in Producing a Documentary".[16][17]
References
- ^ a b Arndt, Bettina (October 29, 2016). "Cassie Jaye's Red Pill too truthful for feminists to tolerate". The Australian.
- ^ a b c d e Liberatore, Paul (November 8, 2016). "Bay Area filmmaker's new film, 'The Red Pill,' is a bitter one for feminists to swallow". Mercury News.
- ^ "Mayfair Theatre cancels showing of men's rights documentary The Red Pill". CBS News. December 2, 2016.
- ^ a b DeFore, John (November 2, 2016). "'The Red Pill' Review". The Hollywood Reporter.
- ^ a b c d e f Scott, Catherine (November 10, 2015). "Meet the feminist who is making a film about the men's rights movement". The Daily Dot.
- ^ Hunt, Elle (October 26, 2016). "The Red Pill: Melbourne cinema drops men's rights film after feminist backlash". The Guardian.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|1=(help) - ^ Daubney, Martin (November 12, 2015). "The Red Pill: the movie about men that feminists didn't want you to see". The Telegraph.
- ^ Lee, Benjamin (November 11, 2015). "Feminist film-maker criticised for making 'balanced' men's rights documentary". The Guardian.
- ^ Jaye, Cassie. "THE RED PILL - a documentary film". Kickstarter.
- ^ a b Scherstuhl, Alan (October 4, 2016). "Warning: You Can't Unsee 'The Red Pill,' the Documentary About a Filmmaker Who Learns to Love MRAs". The Village Voice. Retrieved May 26, 2017.
- ^ "The Red Pill 2016". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved May 30, 2017.
- ^ "The Red Pill". Metacritic. Retrieved May 30, 2017.
- ^ Walsh, Katie (October 13, 2016). "'The Red Pill' only makes worse the divide between men's and women's rights activists". The Los Angeles Times.
- ^ Young, Cathy (October 20, 2016). "New Film 'The Red Pill' Asks Whether Men's Rights Activists Have a Point". Heat Street.
- ^ Barraclough, Corrine (January 17, 2017). "Feminists, you're wrong. The Red Pill is not a hateful film". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved April 19, 2017.
- ^ "Awards – IIFC 2017". Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema. Retrieved May 7, 2017.
- ^ Smith, Marshall (January 18, 2017). "IIFC awards ceremony takes place before packed house". Idyllwild Town Crier. Retrieved May 7, 2017.