During a live interview with The Red Pill Director Cassie Jaye, a pair of Australian television hosts criticized her film for allegedly promoting misogyny, despite admitting they hadn’t actually watched it.
After discussing the free speech implications of numerous Australian cinemas shutting down screenings of The Red Pill, Sunrise co-hosts Andrew O’Keefe and Monique Wright repeatedly embarrassed themselves by critiquing the film despite admitting they never watched it.
“If you wanted to make a film about the issues facing the modern man, why did you have to focus on the views of these extreme misogynous sorts from the men’s rights movement, people like Paul Elam?” asked O’Keefe. “Why do you highlight men’s issues by promoting men who minimize women’s issues?”
“Well you have to see the film to see why I interviewed Paul Elam, because I had been a feminist of about ten years before making The Red Pill movie,” replied Jaye. “I came across Paul Elam’s writings on avoiceformen.com and I was shocked, and appalled, and offended as a feminist woman. So I decided to make a film about A Voice for Men and the men’s rights movement, and the large scope of that, because no one had ever made a film about the men’s rights movement before… I interviewed 44 different people for this film, feminists and men’s rights activists, and it’s a very complicated topic.”
“It is, you’re absolutely right, but it seems to me you don’t really question their views in the film,” responded O’Keefe.
“Did you see the film?” questioned Jaye, with a puzzled face, prompting O’Keefe to claim “Well we saw as much as we could because your publicist wouldn’t send us the full thing.”
“I sent you the screen early attached to the full film,” Jaye declared. “You could also buy the film on Google Play, Vimeo…”
Sunrise co-host Monique Wright then interrupted the discussion, claiming “We tried to do that but we couldn’t.”
O’Keefe and Wright continued to face humiliation after they questioned Jaye about the content of the film, without actually having seen it.
“Be that as it may, there’s not a lot of questioning of the views. That’s all,” proclaimed O’Keefe, prompting Jaye to look puzzled again.
“Yes there is, absolutely, if you’d seen the film you would see the questions that I’d asked and their answers, and this film is not propaganda,” she declared. “I’m not promoting any view that the viewer should take away, it’s simply a journey looking at what men’s rights activists have to say, what the feminists rebuttal is, and the audience is able to make up their own mind.”
Despite admitting that they hadn’t seen the film, O’Keefe and Wright repeatedly asked questions as if they had:
Wright: “Just on Paul Elam and about the questions that you asked him, did you ask him about his writings where he had encouraged people to go out and bash women?”
Jaye: “Yes, I did. I asked him about all of that.”
Wright: “But was that included in the film?”
Jaye: “Yes, it is.”
Following the interview, Jaye posted proof on Twitter that she had indeed sent O’Keefe and Wright a full copy of the film one month in advance.
After receiving criticism on their Facebook page about the way they handled the interview, Sunrise deleted the video of the segment. When Jaye attempted to reupload the interview on her own page, it was quickly removed by Facebook following a complaint from Sunrise’s producers.
“I’m deeply disappointed in how Sunrise treated me this morning. Sunrise’s segment (and The Project’s segment on The Red Pill) shows to me that Australian media’s fearmongering tactics is why so many of my film’s screenings have been cancelled here,” wrote Jaye in a statement following the interview. “The film is NOT anti-women or anti-feminist. If the Sunrise staff saw the film for themselves they would have known that. Instead they chose to continue perpetuating lies to the Australian public.”
Screenings of The Red Pill have repeatedly been cancelled, while Netflix declined the documentary for their platform, despite the fact that it has been the most popular film on YouTube’s rental platform for months.
The film has won awards at numerous film festivals, including the Women in Film award at Digifest.
Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.