Review of The Red Pill (2016) by Robin E — 10 Mar 2017

The concept behind The Red Pill was incredibly interesting. The first change I would want to see made to the movie would be adding more reflection by Cassie Jaye about her transition from feminism and the more of her insights into the differences and goals of both feminism and the men's rights movement. The moments that she did include were powerful, but I was definitely left hoping that we would see more her thought process as the film progressed.

There were a lot of instances in the movie where unproductive arguments were made by both feminists in the film and men's rights activists, while it left out some of the biggest arguments for and against each one. A lot of he-said-she-said statements were made in the movie, and a dialogue between some of the major players would have been nice to see. While Jaye acted as an intermediary between the two sides, I got the feeling that she wasn't telling either side what the other was saying, and it left both sides with a lack of communication that seems to be one of the big issues they're having in the first place.

While the movie did provide an eye-opening account of what feminists and men's rights activists are all about, it seemed to miss some of the big picture analyses that could have bridged the gap, and provided at least a proposition for a direction that both groups could go in to communicate with each other and possibly achieve some sort of agreement on issues that they both claim to be working towards.

Finally, my biggest problem with the film was the name. The Red Pill is largely attached to a very specific brand of MRAs who are the absolute worst part of the movement, and they aren't represented in the film at all. Just like the feminists who claim to want to "kill all men", the men's rights movement has an equally-vacuous subsection that resents the way women have treated them in their lives, and fight tooth and nail against the perceived injustices done against them. By tying the film to that subsection, even if it was unintentional on Jaye's part, it loses some of the credibility it so desperately deserves.