A friend recently challenged me to watch The Red Pill, a documentary alleging to examine the issues men are faced with in our ‘feminist’ culture.

I was only to aware of the controversy this work had elicited amongst many parts of the community alike. Some critics railed against it. After watching this film I read Luke Buckmaster of the Daily Review critique, where he poignantly suggested that he watched it so I wouldn’t have to.

Others lauded the filmmaker, Cassey Jaye, for going where angels fear to tread. Since I am always open to looking at both sides of the issue, my wife and I sat down to take a look. To say that watching it was a struggle is an understatement. Why?

It is extraordinary simplistic.

I, we, were hoping to see a complex issue portrayed as something more than the usual ideologically tainted diatribe. It never happened. In fact, as the documentary progressed it got worse.

What we got was a number of interviews with MRA’s (Men’s Rights Activists) who essentially committed the cardinal sin. They blamed someone else for how they are. As a psychologist, coach and mentor, the first and foremost thing I expect of my client is that they own personal responsibility.

To maintain some semblance of objectivity, Ms Jaye did interview a number of well versed authorities, such as Dr. Michael Kimmel, and the editor of Ms. magazine, Katherine Spiller, but these interviews appeared as emotionless as the other side’s histrionics.

For some reason Ms. Jaye never challenged anybody. She certainly did not address the core problem in our culture; patriarchy and its negative effects on all of us women and men alike.

It is intellectually dishonest.

The documentary starts with a very astute question. Where does the rape culture come from and what is it about?

Unfortunately Jaye never addresses this at all. We are suddenly abducted into the world of the MRA’s but we persisted, waiting for Ms Jaye to pose those hard questions despite the fact that this film had started to look like a propaganda for the MRA’s. It was only after watching the documentary that I found out that a significant amount of funding came from the MRA community.

The documentary is intellectually dishonest because it permits emotional reasoning be portrayed as logical, rigorous critical analysis.   She allowed herself to be seduced by her own emotional response to the MRA’s complaints about women, and did not step back and look at the issues from a broader historic and sociological perspective.

It is emotionally dishonest

It is emotionally dishonest because Jaye never acknowledges how she has manipulated, or at least tried to manipulate the audience, that is to have some sympathy for the MRA’s. It is interesting to note here that she seems to be suffering from the Stockholm syndrome, that is she comes to identify with the aggressor to the point where she states clearly that she no longer calls herself a feminist. Reminds me of those radicalised men in fundamentalism.

On reflection, I felt that the metaphor of the Matrix was as misleading as the rest of the documentary. She should have paid more attention to the message in the story of ‘Little Red Riding Hood.’ She would have been at least for-warned.

It offers nothing constructive.

The documentary perpetuates the unfortunate binary debate that simply leads to more conflict.

I was hoping that the documentary would conclude with a chapter that looked at what needed to happen to address the issue of why men are in crisis.

How can men argue that they are victims, individually and collectively, when we have persisted with an ideology that has socially engineered the very issues that have led us into crisis?

 

If you’re interested in being part of a deeper point of view, why not join in and become part of a movement that needs men to challenge the status quo.

 

Currently there are still places available to join my next mentoring group in September.

 

For more information please call Rebecca on 02 9999 0429 or email rebecca@goodmengreat.com.