"The Red Pill" Film Review : An eye opener for Modern Western Feminism

Image from kickstarter
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cassiejaye/the-red-pill-a-documentary-film

The Red Pill is a documentary film directed by Cassie Jaye. The documentary delves deep into the Men's Right Movements and includes interviews from Men's Rights Activists (MRA), feminists and Cassie Jaye's own Video log. The documentary has gained much acclaim but at the same time it has been seen as controversial and has been shunned upon by several feminist groups. If anything, the documentary serves as an eye opener to men's issues and how the MRA's are wrongly judged as been a hate group.

Twitter : @Cassie_Jaye

The documentary starts with Cassie Jaye, a lifelong long feminist telling us about her miserable stint at Hollywood playing the 'blonde who always dies'. She narrates her contributions and participation in the feminist movement and her passion for film making. The Red Pill is a well constructed and well structured narrative which looks at various different perspectives of the Men's Rights Movement and the feminist movement. 

The Red Pill shows the Jaye's journey from a skeptical feminist looking into the Men' Rights Movement to a feminist questioning her own ideas after discovering that the MRA's movement is much different than what the popular belief is. Jaye interviews Paul Elam, whose last name ironically is 'male' when spelled backwards. Elam is a controversial figure of the MRA's and the figure head of the modern men's right movement. He describes the 'red pill' as an reference taken from the movie 'The Matrix', where the protagonist Neo is given a choice between a blue pill and a red pill. The blue pill would give an easy but an oblivious life, the red pill however would expose the truth of the world we live in which is hard to live in.

Dr.Farrell's interview on CNBC

Among the most calm and sensible fellow interviewed by Jaye was Dr.Warren Farrell, the author of 'The Myth of Male Power'. Farrell describes the feminist movement in the 1960's as the most exciting thing he had ever seen. Farrell himself was part of such feminist campaigns being a cardholder still for the National Organization for Women. Farrell states that the society teaches men to be expendable and disposable.  A very thought provoking statement by Farrell is presented in the movie which says 'I believe women cannot hear, what men do not say'. Ill leave the thought to you.


The movie exposes many of the problems faced by men and highlights how men are not seen as victims of these issues, but rather the ones who are the cause of such issues. The issues highlighted include male victims of domestic violence, suicide rate, males being raped, disparity in criminal sentencing, homelessness , discrimination in family court and child custody and many more. Jaye interviews feminist  Katherine Spillar, who states that women should have all the rights after child birth in matters of custody as she has been the bearer of the child for 9 months, while men can exercise their right to use a condom! An outrageous statement that overlooks that men are also sometimes cheated into pregnancy, the documentary itself highlights a show where a women is cheered on to stop using her birth control to have another child, which her husband doesnt want. The all female crowd cheers in the light of  'men cant control our bodies,girl!'


The most impactful statements in the documentary were from MRA Karen Straughan, well known for her youtube videos on men's issues. She describes the news from Boko Haram in Nigeria, where armed attackers kidnapped girls. Straughan highlights that the news shows that the incident was due to a fundamentalist Islamic group wanting to deny girls education, however in reality they are not against just girls being educated but against anybody getting a western education. The initial attacks where 100s of men were killed were simply described as 'people' or 'villagers' and initially at the schools they separated the boys and girls and let the girls go, telling them to go home get married renounce your sins and live a righteous life under allah. Then they burned the boys alive. However this was barely reported on, no opinion pieces, nothing. The Islamic group realised they were not getting any attention from western media from slaughtering boys, so what did they do? they targeted girls. This lead to an outpour from every news channel to Barack and Michelle Obama reporting the outrageous act and the slogan of 'BRING BACK OUR GIRLS' became viral. Well, if we did something when the boys were being killed, the girls would be safe in their dorms.

Cassie Jaye found herself in the eye of an Australian media storm because of her controversial film, , she had begun questioning some of her feminist beliefs. There were cancelled screenings, angry protests and boycotts in the months before Jaye arrived, and combative interviews on The Project and Weekend Sunrise after she set down on the Gold Coast for an international conference on men's issues. Jaye was also subject to a smear campaign. The 'Weekend Sunrise' anchors outright started bashing and questioning the documentary. The movie was remarked to be misogynistic and anti women by the anchors, who hadn't even seen it.

Here's a clip of the interview :

The narrative is not against feminism but simply a way to highlight how men are neglected too. It may seem against feminism at certain points, but when you think deeply it is simply a call for recognition of what men face. The MRA's only criticise the 'man-hating' feminists, and you know they exist too. It is simply a call for a balanced view. The documentary does show men as victims too and might seem centred mostly around the MRA's, but thats what the motive was about for Jaye. To show the real side of the MRA's, which had been never shown before. So if you are open minded and willing to explore a different perspective than the popular belief, then pop The Red Pill.

The tralier for "The Red Pill" :

The movie is available on
Amazon : https://www.amazon.com/Red-Pill-Blu-ray-Documentary-Cast/dp/B01LTI0BKA
iTunes : https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/the-red-pill/id1195401070
Google Play : https://play.google.com/store/movies/details/The_Red_Pill?id=_mB13NV7rY0&hl=en