Review of The Red Pill (2016) by Kevin M — 25 Dec 2018

This documentary has been the attack of a media smear campaign against it and protest by feminist groups that has prevented it from being shown in some cinemas. Netflix has also refused to play it although it is available on other free streaming sites on the Internet which demonstrates bias on the part of Netflix because Netflix has many other controversial documentaries on it and also many documentaries supporting feminist views too.

Two main false ideas being spread about this film by the media are a) that it was funded by Mens Rights Activist groups and they had influence over the message of the film and b) Paul Elam is a central character in the film.

In regards to the funding, it was funded primarily by the film's producer, Cassie Jaye, her mother and her boyfriend and a Kickstarter campaign so that she could retain full creative control over the movie.

Other groups that normallly fund films refused to fund the creation of the movie since they wanted creative control over it and would only fund it if it would condemn the Mens Right Activist movement.

Cassie wanted it to be a fair look into the Mens Right Activist movement so she went with Kickstarter since Kickstarter's policy is that donor cannot have artistic influence over the film being funded.

There were 5 large donors of $10,000 and three of these were free speech advocates. Cassie claims that the film was funded by some Mens Right Activists, some feminists but the majority did not identify with either being a Mens Right Activist or feminist.

In regards to Paul Elam allegedly being a central character, he is one of 45 people interviewed in the documentary from all across the spectrum and does not have a larger portion of the film dedicated to him compared to the others interviewed in the film.

The only real central character in the film is Cassie Jaye her self who interviews everyone in this movie. Now for the content of the film itself. It is the story of Cassie Jaye, who initially identifies herself as a feminist and generally believes the bad stories she hears about the Mens Right Activist movement (MRAs).

She decides to spend a year interviewing them towards producing a documentary about them with the goal of the documentary being a fair and objective assessment of the MRAs. It is also her goal to make the documentary balanced by also interviewing leaders in the feminist community and also some well-known figures who not a part of either group but have supported women by building the first woman's shelter, etc.

. The documentary presents information about much of the problems that men face in the world that people don't realize because it is not given the same kind of voice and attention as the problems which women face are given by feminism.

She also documents how bias and unfair the family court system is to men in custody battles. She also presents the feminist views too. At the end, she changes her view about the Mens Rights Movement and no longer sees it as this really bad group of people that certain feminist groups have made it out to be.

Spoiler alert: At the end she concludes she can no longer identify as a feminist knowing what she now knows about the Mens Right Activist groups. She does not identify as a Mens Right Activist but knows that she is now something inbetween.

A common criticism of this film is that she does not act people like Paul Elam tough questions. In interviews responding to criticism of her film and to the media smear campaign against her she says it is because she has 100 hours over interview footage since she spent at least 2 hours with each of the 45 people interviewed and had to choose what to include in a 2 hour documentary.

She says that for example, the topic of rape culture, would really require its own film and 10 minutes could not do it justice so she decided to leave questions on rape culture out, etc.. She has however since put all 100 hours of interview footage on YouTube for anyone who wants to see the entire interviews with each person.

My only criticism of this movie is that it does not handle the controversial character Paul Elam with enough discussion about his controversial behaviour which has resulted in a lot of people being very critical of the film.

Overall, I think it is a good introduction to the Men's Right Movement and also deserved credit for being brave enough to be openly critical of the feminist movement. This movie has also won film festival awards by a film festival supporting female producers.

Shortly after it was released it became the second most purchased video on Google Play Australia and the number one selling video US YouTube. Yet, protests have prevented this from being played in many movie theatres, Netflix refused to play it and the media has created a smear campaign using false information about it.

For this reason, it is important to spread the word about this film so that it gets a fair chance to be seen by the general population. Personally, I enjoyed it and though it was fairly well-done other than my criticism mentioned above.

It is definitely presents topics that need to be addressed today that are not being openly discussed by most people.