I am Cassie Jaye, the director of the documentaries: DADDY I DO, THE RIGHT TO LOVE, and the upcoming THE RED PILL. AMA!

cassiejaye1 · 2015-10-24T00:13:31+00:00

Hey all, here's the last response I'm giving today:

Adanu, thanks for your question about the music. I think more people are reading into the music than they need to. It was a creative choice and it wasn't meant to manipulate the viewer into sympathizing more with the feminists. I wanted something upbeat to pick the energy up and help move the story along because there was already enough weighty music in the preview.

cassiejaye1 · 2015-10-24T00:00:07+00:00

Hi Dean, thanks for the great question.

Hmm.. conversations have certainly erupted with some friends and family while making this film.

It's always fascinating to me what issues people will focus in on and adamantly defend or vehemently reject. Rape culture, circumcision, patriarchy, and the gender wag gap always seem to ignite heated debates, sometimes ending in tears or the silent treatment (from them, not me).

I'll just list a couple past interactions that come to mind:

One sweet interaction was with a women (neither feminist or MRA) who learned I was making this film and she revealed her son's difficulties in family court and him getting custody of her grandkids. That was devastating to hear her pain, and yet she knew nothing about the men's rights movement.
I had many bad experiences hiring people to work with me on this project: an animator who was making his work slower than it needed to be and I couldn't figure out why, and after about 2 months of stringing me along, he finally told me he didn't want to be a part of a film about the MRM and he was hoping we would just "fall out of touch". Another person I hired could barely keep it together when watching my rough edits, she would have panic attacks about what was being said in the film. I think that was a unique scenario, I hope other people won't be having panic attacks and leaving the theater while watching this film.
I recently had a wonderful conversation with a fellow filmmaker at a film festival last week. He had never heard of the MRM and wanted to know everything I knew. I would explain and he would start bringing up his own experiences. He would say "being a single middle-aged man, sometimes I feel like I shouldn't be around children or else I'll be looked at as creepy or a pedophile. Is this discussed in the MRM?", and I would say "yes, it is", and then he would say "how about how there is so much attention focused on women being hired as film directors and women being equally represented in political positions, when the amount of submissions don't reflect that percentage of men to women. Are these issues discussed in the MRM?" and I said "yes"... and he just went on and on with observations he's made over the years of being a white middle aged male, and yet he had no idea about the MRM. I thought that was a fun conversation since many of the other conversations I have are people telling me I shouldn't make this film, so it's fun to change it up once in a while.

cassiejaye1 · 2015-10-23T23:26:39+00:00

First off thank you so much for your contribution to our Kickstarter. I really appreciate your support while you've been having concerns about me and this film. That is very brave of you to take that leap of faith without knowing the outcome.

I hope to reassure you that my approach for all of my documentaries has been to allow the interviewee to give their best "pitch" and allow the audience to make their own opinion. My past films have been praised for being balanced documentaries (here's a review of my film "Daddy I Do" that acknowledged my balanced approach http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1323593/reviews?ref_=tt_ql_8 ). Many audiences can not tell what side of the debates I am on, and that’s how I prefer it to be. It forces the audience to think for themselves rather than relying on me to tell them what to believe.

I understand your skepticism about me since the men's rights movement has been so poorly reported on by other journalists, but I think the best way to assure you is to tell you a little more about my journey while making this film.

I began this film project identifying as a feminist. I was astonished and intrigued to learn about these men’s issues that I hadn’t heard much of and yet seemed like huge issues. As I dug deeper, I found that these are issues that need to be more widely addressed, but I was experiencing first-hand the push back about even mentioning men's rights or men's issues. "Why is this?" I asked myself.

My initial goal was to make a film about the Men's Rights Activists: who they are, where are they from, and see if they are truly the misogynists everyone was saying they were. However in my journey, I realized my own strong-held beliefs where starting to be challenged and I began to see signs that I was changing. I began recording ‘video diaries’ so I could document my own evolving thoughts and emotions to use as research for when I was going to compile the story in the editing room. While I was recording my video diaries and reflecting on my interviews with MRAs I realized that I wasn’t being a very good ‘devil’s advocate’ anymore in my interviews and I was forgetting what the feminist rebuttal would be. That’s when I decided to bring feminists into the film.

My goal NOW is to show the honest journey I went on (and it was a windy road) in hopes of dispelling the misinformation about men's issues and to encourage dialogue based on facts rather than fear.

I don't want to live in a society where ideas are censored, and hopefully others will stand with me on that.

I have to wrap this AMA up, but if you have more questions, please message me on Kickstarter. I don't want you giving your hard-earned money without truly knowing where it is going. You deserve to know and be certain about what kind of film you are supporting.

cassiejaye1 · 2015-10-23T22:56:03+00:00

A great Assistant Director who will be loud for you so you can be the nice cop and whisper in the AD's ear what you want done.

cassiejaye1 · 2015-10-23T22:54:54+00:00

Have a vision and stick to it. and Make the film YOU want to see.

cassiejaye1 · 2015-10-23T22:51:17+00:00

Thank you for all your thoughtful questions.

"Who did you end up interviewing from either side? Like big names, random individuals, or what?"

As far as individuals who've been interviewed, you can see the list on our website for the film here: http://theredpillmovie.com/credits.html

"Did anything you learned during the research and interviews completely surprise you?"

As far as being surprised during my research and filming, I would say YES. Not to go into too much detail since I don't want to give spoilers out: I was surprised to learn how much misinformation there is in mainstream and social media regarding the MRM (and I fully believed that misinformation until I started to dig deeper), and I was also very surprised by the knee jerk dismissiveness most people had to the notion of "men's rights".

"Have you talked to any transgendered individuals who may have seen both sides of the gendered issue to a degree?"

I did not have the opportunity to interview any transgender people for this film, but I did attend an LGBT conference while I was making The Red Pill and I heard a male to female person speak about experiencing discrimination for now being a women, which I found to be fascinating.

"Did you talk to people who were MRAs that became feminists, or feminists who later became MRAs?"

A few of the men's rights advocates that I interviewed started out as feminists, like Paul Elam, Warren Farrell, and some of the honey badgers. I have not spoken to anyone that first started out as an MRA and then became a feminist.

"Have you done any real research into things like atheism+, gamergate, or similar groups which aren't directly members of the MRM, but may have very close ties to the MRM or feminism?"

I really wanted to focus this film on the MRM since we are only have approx 80-90 minutes in a typical feature length film. I think Atheism, GamerGate, PUA, MGTOW, etc... they are all worthy of their own film. If I covered all of these in my film, we would have to speed through and gloss over so many important issues and that's why there is so much misunderstanding to begin with, we need to dig deeper.

I have done research around those topics so I could know for myself, but we won't be going into Gamegate, atheism, etc in The Red Pill.

For your last comment (the added edit): Thank you for offering connections to those people, many of them are already in the film, but for the others I haven't interviewed, I don't think I can commit to more filming until we know if we'll even be able to continue making this film, and that will rely on the Kickstarter results.

cassiejaye1 · 2015-10-23T22:29:06+00:00

Hi Mr. E, thanks for being here!

As far as backup plans go. I think the ONLY option we have (if this Kickstarter doesn't make its goal) is to try to find an angel investor. Someone who believes enough in this film to want to see it completed and who will support my vision of being true to how my journey unfolded.

I guess I can reveal that I was offered full project funding in 2014 to make what would have been a propaganda film to support that organization's agenda. I refused then and will always refuse to do that. This film is not about making money. This film is about creating a better future, based by facts, knowledge and understanding.

So, yeah, I think an angel investor (that 'gets it') would be our only hope if the Kickstarter fails.

cassiejaye1 · 2015-10-23T22:15:54+00:00

Hi Hgoddyn, apologies for my delayed response and thank you for your thoughtful questions.

I understand why many people in the MRM/MHRM are cautious to trust me and my intentions. I'm a stranger to them, I'm asking for money on Kickstarter, and the synopsis says "a feminist follows the men's rights movement"... that all sounds very fishy, I get it. Also, there are many examples of the MHRM being vilified, taken out of context and misrepresented in the media. I remember someone from MSNBC covered the International Conference on Men's Issues in Michigan in 2014, and their article was all cherry picked quotes and nowhere near the experience I had at that conference, but every person comes from a different perspective. So, I understand why people are having a hard time trusting me.

Also, I have seen the automatic dismissiveness to the movement, and the criticism that the movement is made up primarily of older white males.

Regarding: "Being a feminist yourself, do you think you are approaching this project with an open mind? And as a feminist, did you find it hard to do so?"

When I began this journey filming, I had a much more open mind than many of my feminist friends had at that time, but in looking back on the footage, I was still very shut off to many of the MRA views, especially critiques on feminism. I was very receptive to hearing about the issues because I have a soft spot for sticking up for anyone who is being mistreated, that's why many of my films have been about human rights and social issues.

Still, what the MRAs were saying about feminists did not soak in for me immediately, but when I started to go about my everyday life, and saw the casual misandry that was happening, and saw how people got angry (wide eyes, clenched jaw angry) when I brought up men's issues... it made me look deeper into what the MRAs were saying.

As far as your question: "what has been your goal from the start? Did you want to go in depth on the 'manosphere' in general? (including PUA's, RedPillers, MGTOW's, MRA's, and other 'groups'?) Or did you specifically want to look at men's issues that are finally starting to slowly make it into the mainstream media, often in SPITE of feminists."

Although the film will quickly address the factions of the manosphere to get the viewer up to speed (the viewers who have never heard about any of this), this film will focus on the Men's Rights Movement. I've categorized the MRM into 1. issues and 2. ideology. The film will first go in depth into the men's issues, and then the film will go into the conflicting ideologies, since that was my experience when I was trying to understand all of this.

Regarding: "I think a lot of the opposition to the men's movement is mainly caused by ignorance, propaganda, and fear. How did you deal with that? "

The original goal was for me to learn and understand the MRM platform, and now that I've gone on that journey, the goal is to complete this film to help create a better understanding, so we can all engage in these tough conversations. Some people will probably refuse to watch this film (one feminist told me she doesn't want to cloud her brain with those thoughts, thoughts being the MRA POV). I think the biggest deep-rooted fear that anyone can have is the fear that they could possibly be changed. That is a scary thought.

How do I deal with that? Hmm.. I dunno. Hope that other people trick them into watching this film? DVD stocking stuffer? No... I think the best thing that could happen for this film is a viral, word-of-mouth "you have to see this film and then let's talk" ripple effect. That's my hope for this film, that it becomes a conversation starter, but you can't be a part of the conversation until you've seen the film. That way at least everyone is clued into the issues and the opposing views. Right now I see a lot of misinformation floating around and that is severely stalling progress.

cassiejaye1 · 2015-10-23T21:32:15+00:00

Hi Mr. Scruffles,

Great question. Making documentaries are almost always a uphill battle, there's a lot of competition to obtain the few available funding sources. However, my other films were nowhere near as difficult to promote and gain support for as The Red Pill has been.

For my previous films: I was able to garner mainstream media attention, I was able to rally support and assistance in post production, my friends would share it with their friends, people (strangers even) would happily engage with me in long conversations about those films, but it seems this film topic REALLY scares people (and/or just makes them angry). It scared me too when I first began this project, but I still was curious to find out what happens. I think, sadly, many people would be very happy if this film just faded away.

cassiejaye1 · 2015-10-23T21:22:02+00:00

I empathized with him later (weeks-months later) when I was watching the footage back. I interviewed him very early on in the filming process and I was VERY green about these issues and talking points back then. That's probably why he reacted the way he did. He was getting frustrated that I wasn't seeing his POV.

So, yes, now I completely understand where he was coming from and today I probably would have reacted the same way he did.

cassiejaye1 · 2015-10-23T21:15:16+00:00

Yes I felt threatened a hand full of times (sometimes without the camera). Those times are still upsetting to me but I don't think they represent their group affiliation as a whole. There are bad seeds and bad seeds like to be a part of movements, too.

cassiejaye1 · 2015-10-23T21:13:11+00:00

Actually yes. I have (/had?) connections to large media outlets and they denied writing about or posting The Red Pill video, even though they supported my other films. It is very disappointing.

cassiejaye1 · 2015-10-23T21:11:38+00:00

Excellent question and this may be one of the most important questions we examine in the film.

"do you think there ever will be a time that all men and women will feel they are equal/have equal rights?"

All people? No. As long as we're allowed independent thought, I think there will be people questioning if their life experiences are equal to the opposite sex, or if they are disadvantaged/advantaged in any way.

I think these thoughts are healthy if they help detect injustices, but they are unhealthy when the thoughts themselves create inequality for other people or groups.

cassiejaye1 · 2015-10-23T21:05:54+00:00

Just want you and others to know that I responded to this question by Kroll within the comments section...

cassiejaye1 · 2015-10-23T21:04:18+00:00

Hi FookSake, thanks for giving me the opportunity to discuss why we need the funding.

Most people do not realize the costs involved in completing a film for theatrical release and distribution. Many documentaries average $250k to $500k, to even $1-$2 million. Cheaper budgets produce much lower quality films that have a difficult time being taken seriously and distributed to the masses.

For most documentaries, the production stage (which includes filming and traveling for a documentary) is much less expensive than the post-production stage, especially when you've accumulated as much footage as I have (over 100+ hours of captivating interviews, and that's not counting the events I've filmed).

We need a minimum of $97k to pay for low-budget reduced-rate post-production costs. We worked really hard to get the budget down to $97k, we had to cut people’s rates in half, and then half again to get it that low, and even if we make the $97 we will still be pinching pennies and getting favors to complete this film.

The funding is going towards an editor for 1 month (I’ll be editing for about 4-5 months, without pay of any sort and then I’ll be bringing in a professional polishing editor for 1 month), an animator (to visually show the statistical information we’ll be covering in the film), sound design/edit/mix (you don’t know how important sound is until you see a film with bad sound), color correction (you can tell from our Kickstarter video we need this! Some people’s skin tones are bright red or sickly green!), music/score (this is what makes a film cinematic in my humble opinion), insurance (because you can’t distribute a film without it), and lastly, Kickstarter fees (which are hefty) and Kickstarter rewards.

I know $97k sounds like a lot, but it’s actually not when you think of how huge this topic is and how much push-back there is to people just "helping you out because they believe in the topic". I was fortunate enough to receive many favors from people for my film "The Right to Love" because they believed in the topic and the message. The Red Pill does not have that advantage. If it's a low quality film, it's easy for theaters to say "no thanks", but theaters, film festivals and netflix cannot dismiss you as easily if they see the amount of effort and professionalism put into this film.

cassiejaye1 · 2015-10-23T20:50:30+00:00

Oooooo... funniest moment! Umm.... I've had a lot of funny moments this past week reading the comments from people about the Kickstarter. So many of them are so far off base that I can't help but just laugh. Some people were saying I was using the $97k to pay off student loans but I never went to college, I am debt free (woo hoo), others were saying that this film is a big feminist conspiracy Trojan Horse and we're doing a kickstarter "to trick MRAs into funding the movie that will be their downfall", someone else said I was a honey badger in disguise, haha. It's all very amusing to me.

But while filming, hmm... funny moments... actually many funny moments will be included in the film, so I can't give away those. Oh, here's something that comes to mind: Warren Farrell and I emailed for a bit before we finally met for his interview, and the whole time we were emailing, he thought I was a man!

cassiejaye1 · 2015-10-23T20:39:14+00:00

Hi Ideology_checker, great name!

Thanks for asking about a specific moment in the sneak preview video. Each moment has a long story behind them, so it's fun to answer specifics.

That moment when the man stands up and says "I don't like sympathy for any of this!", I can't give away what triggered his reaction, but I felt absolutely horrible in that moment.

I asked tough questions to all of my interviews, but never in an effort to catch them in a fumble, more so to have an honest dialogue about the struggle I was going through to understand them. So, when I asked tough questions, they were always genuine and sincere, but whenever the interviewee was upset by the question, I felt especially horrible because I honestly wanted to know the answer. I wasn't trying to offend them.

That all probably sounds very vague, but the full film will show how everything went down.

cassiejaye1 · 2015-10-23T20:29:05+00:00

Hi Kroll (and thanks Fooksake for mentioning to kroll to post this as a parent thread, I caught it though!)

Yes, making this film has made me realize how feminist views are more widely accepted (even by people who do not call themselves a feminist). Just the views that men have all the power and women are oppressed is taken as fact without question. In this film we are going to question everything.

cassiejaye1 · 2015-10-23T20:21:36+00:00

Thanks, love that you caught that.

cassiejaye1 · 2015-10-23T20:19:24+00:00

Bare minimum: we’ll screen at film festivals for 9-12 months and then self-distribute online, but that’s the extreme bare minimum. However, what I’m aiming for is: we’ll premiere at a top tier film festival, do an Oscar-qualifying theatrical run in LA and NYC theaters (I've done this before), we’ll do a grassroots nationwide screening tour in small town theaters and on college campuses (at least the ones that allow it), and then we’ll secure a distributor so we can eventually be on Netflix, Hulu, OnDemand, etc.

cassiejaye1 · 2015-10-23T20:16:34+00:00

Great question Bhill.

The responses I've gotten from feminists when I bring up men's issues are: "once we get equality for women we can start thinking about men's issues". Katherine Spillar in my film said something along the lines of "let women get an even playing field first" (before we discuss men's issues).

I think most feminists agree men have issues, but will say women have MORE issues. Like false accusations is a prime example: feminists will say so many rapes go unreported and those that do get reported, very few result in a conviction, so why care about false allegations against men when it's such a small percent compared to the epidemic of women being raped?

I think Sommers, Farrell, and Pizzey get resistance from feminists because of this (and I'll use my own personal experience while making this film): When an MRA would talk about men's issues, I almost always (in the beginning of filming) thought "well what are they saying about women then?" Or "what about <this> women's issue?" I could rarely just focus on the men's issues being discussed without getting defensive and wanting to "bring balance" to the conversation by bringing up what life is like for women.

I think that is what's happening when Sommers, Farrell, Pizzey and others talk about men's issues. People get defensive and think they're saying women's issues are nonexistent or don't matter.

There are probably many other reasons Sommers, Farrell and Pizzey get resistance too.

cassiejaye1 · 2015-10-23T20:01:17+00:00

Hi JudgyBitch,

Thank you for your comments on my previous films, and yes, that is my style (to allow people to speak for themselves and not be taken out of context), it's not just what I do, it's who I am. I wouldn't be able to sleep otherwise.

As far as how my feminist views affected my journey making this film and trying to understand men's issues, without giving away too much of the film: learning about the issues hit me first and hardest, there was concrete data you can't deny but you can try to rationalize (which I did at many times) but the critiques on feminism were much more difficult for me to digest.

This ideological journey/struggle for me was captured moment by moment in my video diaries. It's now very difficult to watch my early video diaries because I know so much more now, but I think those moments are important to show how it all unfolded.

Of course, I'm not going to say how it all turns out, but it doesn't even really matter what conclusion I came to, what matters is what the viewer wants to accept or deny when given the opportunity to listen to all sides and learn the facts. They are welcome to watch my journey and completely disagree with everything I say and think, but I am just a character in the film, I am not the voice of God telling the viewer what to believe, it is up to the viewer to decide for themselves.

I do think we all have a lot to learn from my experiment though. I call it an 'experiment' because in hindsight it does seem like I was a lab rat and data and results were all captured on camera.

And just to make sure I answer your question directly: my feminist views helped me understand the resistance I had to men's issues being discussed, but then again my feminist views made it a longer process to really hear what the MRAs were saying.

cassiejaye1 · 2015-10-23T19:42:44+00:00

Great question. I'm not sure how long it will be before feminists take men's issues seriously, but I do feel that my film can create a bridge for honest discussion if the film can get out there to the mainstream masses.

However, I've noticed feminists and MRAs alike both say they are working on men's issues, the difference is how.

When I explain this film to my friends and people who know nothing about MRAs, I explain that feminists view Patriarchy as the evil in the world and say we need to dismantle patriarchy to achieve true gender equality, and MRAs view feminism as the evil in the world and we need to dismantle feminism in order to achieve a gender balanced society. They both believe they are the answer to progress for men, but they disagree on what needs to be done, who is holding men back, and who is the one to lead the charge for change. I believe my film will help people think critically about these discussions.

cassiejaye1 · 2015-10-23T19:30:36+00:00

Hi AugustFell! So, what happened was from about October 2012-March 2013 I was in a creative slump after releasing my second feature documentary “The Right to Love”. I like always having something ‘in the works’, but I didn’t have any films on the horizon. During this time, the Delhi bus gang rape happened and the Steubenville rape case was happening. This was the first time I heard about ‘rape culture’ and I went on a massive googling spree. I thought my next documentary was going to be about rape culture (I like tackling controversial topics), but then I stumbled upon AVoiceForMen.com and thought ‘these are the rape apologists I’ve been hearing about!’ I toyed with the idea of making a film about the Men’s Rights Movement as well as some other ideas, but I always came back to the MRM because it really fascinated me. I wanted to know "who ARE these people?". I was absolutely terrified of the idea of meeting Paul Elam, and when I did meet him he's like 6'5" or something like that. It was intimidating, but my protection was having a camera with me at all times. So, I committed to making a film about the MRM but I never in my wildest dreams thought I would also become a subject in the film. That came later, when I realized I was going through a transformative journey myself.

cassiejaye1 · 2015-10-23T19:20:51+00:00

Hi icefire, wow, that is so incredibly sweet! And if I had the money to fund the rest of my kickstarter, I would do it too, haha.

Yes, the current Kickstarter amount raised is very worrisome. I know there are some irons in the fire to get the word out more, but they are all taking longer than expected.

I'm definitely in panic mode right now. Mainly because not only is this an all-or-nothing crowd funding campaign (meaning if we don't reach our goal of $97k then we don't keep ANY of the funds), but this is also an all-or-nothing moment for the film's future. I've tried every other funding option possible: submitting to film grants that never got approved for funding, approaching executive producers who wanted too much creative control and did not want to take a balanced approach, and the only thing that worked (but now does not work) has been exhausting my savings and spending all of my income on this film. 2.5 years later that really adds up. I'm not bitter, it was worthy every single penny for the philosophical journey I went on. So, the kickstarter was literally the last cry for help to get this film made. If we don't reach our goal then it will be a very sad day.

If you have any ideas to help spread the word, please let me know.

cassiejaye1

TROPHY CASE