Why we should have the right to see feminist’s controversial pro-men film, ‘The Red Pill’

A FEMINIST documentary with a sympathetic take on the men’s rights movement? Why feminist Kathryn Powley is keen for controversial film “The Red Pill” to show in Melbourne.

Cassie Jaye at the film's world premiere earlier this month. Picture: Ian Stroud

A FEMINIST documentary with a sympathetic take on the men’s rights movement?

Now this I gotta see.

Award-winning filmmaker Cassie Jaye’s The Red Pill was to have had its Australian premiere on November 6 at a private screening at Kino Cinema in downtown Melbourne.

But parent company Palace Cinemas canned the booking after 2300 angry people signed an online petition.

Now Men’s Rights Melbourne is scrambling to find a new venue.

I for one wish them luck and hope the screening goes ahead.

‘FREE SPEECH: Men’s rights group vows to push ahead with doco screening

The petition told Palace Cinemas that The Red Pill was “misogynist propaganda”, yet it is highly unlikely any signatories had even seen it.

Several men have since launched counter petitions with almost 3000 calling on the Palace Cinemas to reverse their decision.

“Please do not associate your cinema with the kind of people who teach men how to violate women physically and emotionally. Please stand with the women everywhere, and do not promote misogynistic hate,” the original petition said.

And the pressure worked.

At risk of receiving copious quantities of hate mail, I confess I am a feminist.

But I really want to see this film.

Men’s activist Paul Elam has some controversial views.

Cassie Jaye has stirred up a hornet’s nest of argument.

Not because I expect it to confirm my views, but precisely because it will challenge them.

We should never be so set in our ways that we can’t listen to opposing viewpoints.

Surely debate is the foundation of democracy, and freedom of speech a cornerstone right.

Jaye told the Herald Sun that Melbourne is the first place in the world where the film has been cancelled.

“I am shocked that thousands of people would sign an online petition to ban my documentary from screening in Melbourne when they haven’t even seen the film for themselves,” she said.

Jaye says she set out to investigate “rape culture” but found herself becoming swayed by these designated “hate groups”.

A poster for Cassie Jaye’s documentary.

The men in the film said they felt misunderstood, and gagged.

Hairs stood up on the back of my neck as I watched the film’s eight-minute trailer showing Jaye listening to a bunch of blokes telling her how hard-done by they were.

Who can deny centuries of oppression and discrimination against women?

There are clips of men accusing female partners making false accusations of assault in order to get what they want.

Again, I felt extremely uncomfortable. Women are overwhelmingly the victims of family violence.

The trailer talks of high male suicide rates, alarming workplace fatality figures, and men going to war.

The point is made that female lives seem to be valued more than males’.

We see Paul Elam, outspoken activist and president of A Voice for Men, telling Jaye: “You’ll hear that we’re regressives, that we want women back in the kitchen making sandwiches, and barefoot and pregnant.”

All misrepresentations, apparently.

But this is the same Paul Elam the Palace Cinema petition quotes as a “pro-rape racist” who once said: “Should I be called to sit on a jury for a rape trial, I vow publicly to vote not guilty, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that the charges are true”.

Nothing is black and white. Nothing simple. Just because I want to see this movie, doesn’t mean I expect to agree with everything (or anything) in it.

It doesn’t mean I support men’s rights activists.

Cassie Jaye approached this project with an open mind, and we should approach her film in the same way.

I object to groups, no matter how well-meaning, denying me the opportunity to see a film and have my views challenged.

If you don’t like it, just don’t go and see it.