Andrew O’Keefe – Prawn of the Patriarchy

More feminist censorship: Cancellation of the Australian premiere of The Red Pill movie

“When feminist filmmaker Cassie Jaye sets out to document the mysterious and polarizing world of the Men’s Rights Movement, she begins to question her own beliefs. Jaye had only heard about the Men’s Rights Movement as being a misogynist hate-group aiming to turn back the clock on women’s rights, but when she spends a year filming the leaders and followers within the movement, she learns the various ways men are disadvantaged and discriminated against. The Red Pill challenges the audience to pull back the veil, question societal norms, and expose themselves to an alternate perspective on gender equality, power and privilege.” (Source)

The Australian premiere of The Red Pill was to have been in Melbourne in early November 2016. That didn’t happen. A feminist petition on change.org saw Palace Cinemas crumble and give in to their demands to cancel the event. This discussion thread looks at some of the misrepresentations made in the text accompanying that petition.

There were then several change.org petitions underway seeking to have Palace Cinemas reverse its decision, a link to one of which is provided below:

Stop Extremists Censoring What Australians Are Allowed To See. Save The Red Pill screening

More than 8,000 people signed this – almost four times the number of people who signed the petition that saw the screening axed! This petition provides a copy of the letter sent by Palace Cinemas advising that they were cancelling the event. The comments added by petitioners are also quite instructive.

In response to the number of people calling on Palace Cinemas to reverse their decision, feminists then rallied in opposition to make sure the film did not go ahead.

Feminists say publicly that they don’t want The Red Pill screened because of it’s alleged hateful and misogynistic message. That’s only partly true. In actual fact they are more frightened by the prospect of:

a) ordinary people being exposed to an alternative perspective on various gender-related issues, and in particular the public becoming aware of, and sympathetic towards, the men’s rights movement

b) the public questioning aspects of both the feminist narrative and the actions of feminists in the community. They are quite simply terrified of the prospect, knowing that exposure to those ideas will inevitably further erode the already dwindling level of support for their tainted ideology.

To my knowledge (at the time this blog post was originally uploaded) no-one in Australia had yet seen The Red Pill. Not the feminists who started and signed the petition, nor Palace Cinemas, no one. All we know about it comes via interviews with the film-maker, a movie trailer and reviews from screenings in the USA. There is no evidence to indicate that the film contains anything offensive or upsetting to the average adult.

This is what feminists do. Not the benign dictionary-definition feminists, I mean the ones in real life. You only need to see how often the ‘censorship’ tag appears in posts in this blog. Censorship and the erasure of dissenting voices, by whatever means, is absolutely a central theme in gender feminism.

What does that tell you about the inherent nature of this ideology? Why do not more people recognise this for the enormous red flag it is, and speak out accordingly?

This video is a good intro to the nature of this ground-breaking film.

Update April 2017: Dendy Cinemas in Canberra and Newtown cancelled scheduled screenings of The Red Pill. And again a petition was started calling on the cinema operators to reverse their decision.

Update June 2017: Cassie Jaye visited Australia to speak at the International Conference on Men’s Issues. During her stay she was a guest on Channel 10’s ‘The Project‘ and on Channel 7’s ‘Sunrise‘ program, both of which generated a lot of media attention.

Rachel Corbett (who was on the panel for The Project when Cassie was ‘interviewed’) wrote an article, and this is Paul Elam’s response.

This tweet and the comments appended is typical of the response to the ‘Sunrise‘ interview on social media … zero support for the program hosts

“Extreme misogynists”: Cassie Jaye vs the Aussie media (13 June 2017) Video

Director of “anti-feminist” documentary leaves The Project panel in stunned silence (8 June 2017) Despite this being a feminist forum, most of the reader’s comments are supportive of Cassie Jaye and/or her film.

A remarkably biased and unprofessional interview on ‘Sunrise’ TV show (11 June 2017) The following viewer asserts that many comments were subsequently removed from the Sunrise Facebook page. I can confirm that a video of the segment was not available via their Facebook page when I checked, and there was no relevant entry in their timeline.

Not content with that, in the face of a tsunami of condemnation on social media, Sunrise then demanded that Facebook remove copies of the interview from The Red Pill’s FB page and presumably elsewhere. So rather than do the right thing and apologise, Channel 7 tries to hide the evidence instead. This mishandling of the incident has only served to create further publicity for the film (and again here). Such clowns, and what a great example of why people have lost all faith in the MSM.

Our feral media attacks Cassie Jaye, by Bettina Arndt (12 June 2017)

A message for Andrew O’Keefe (12 June 2017) Video

Go ahead and see this prize-winning film for yourself:

There are now many avenues via which you can rent or buy The Red Pill.

The Red Pill Movie Facebook page / comments added to the Palace Cinemas Facebook page

IMD movie review page for The Red Pill

Further related articles:

The Cassie Jaye interview: reflections on The Red Pill movie, five years on (2 December 2021)

Cassie Jaye’s film on the men’s rights movement shocked Australia. Why? (29 July 2017)

A feminist review ‘The Red Pill’ (26 June 2017)

Sargon of Akkad comments on the University of Sydney protest at the Red Pill screenings (16 May 2017) Video, and here is a video on the incident by Karen Straughan

Professor writes dishonest review of The Red Pill Movie, gets REKT by Cassie Jaye’s mother (12 May 2017) Cassie’s mum goes feral at some jerkov named belov, who wrote this article (note the reader’s comments section).

Protesters clash, one arrested, outside The Red Pill screening and The Red Pill: What happened at the Sydney University screening protest (11 May 2017), which were followed by
The Red Pill screening divides campus ‘libertarians’ from pro-women groups (13 May 2017)

Articles in response to Dendy Cinemas shutting down scheduled screenings (April 2017): here, here, here, and here. Some letters to the editor of The Australian can be found here.

University of Sydney Union Board disallows screening of men’s rights film THE RED PILL (11 April 2017) Australia. Further discussion of this matter here

Jaye’s Red Pill documents social failure to promote gender equality (10 April 2017)

Well met, Professor Sullivan (13 March 2017) Video with Karen Straughan

The Red Pill takes top award at Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema (18 January 2017) USA

Feminists you’re wrong. The Red Pill is not a hateful film (17 January 2017)

The Red Pill in Brisbane: a hero’s journey (15 January 2017)

The Red Pill – An uncomfortable but important conversation (9 January 2017)

Feminists, don’t ban The Red Pill, watch it instead (7 January 2017) Even when feminists try really hard to appear mature and empathetic, they fail to convince … e.g. “a movement based on the notion that men and boys, not women, are the real victims of structural inequalities in modern society“. Said by no MRA, ever, Lauren. MRA assert that men and boys are ALSO “victims of structural inequalities in modern society“.

Are the Cards Stacked Against Men?: Censored Filmmaker Speaks Out (4 January 2017) Video

Now playing at a theatre near you: Attack of the feminist killjoys (3 January 2017)

Wedding Reception Under Feminist Attack Over Movie Screening (23 December 2016) with related Reddit discussion thread here.

Video interview between Steven Crowder and Cassie Jaye (16 December 2016)

Video regarding the difficulty experienced by organisers in screening The Red Pill in Canada (3 December 2016)

Men are now the downtrodden sex: Feminist (and mother of a son) reluctantly admits women’s fight for equality has gone too far – as two men reveal how they were pushed to the brink of suicide (1 December 2016)

Permission to screen ‘The Red Pill’ at Western Sydney University denied (29 November 2016) The author of this letter to WSU points out the double standard in relation to the University’s screening of ‘The Hunting Ground’

A Young Feminist’s Compassionate View of Men (28 November 2016

Some thoughts on the Berlin screening of ‘The Red Pill’ (17 November 2016)

The Red Pill, by Bettina Arndt (5 November 2016)

Is this the world’s most dangerous feminist? by Bill O’Chee (3 November 2016)

How a feminist petition to stop a film became an own goal (2 November 2016)

Dear Feminists, please stop telling us what to do, by Corrine Barraclough (31 October 2016)

Another feminist petition (31 October 2016) I live in hope that this one will turn out to be a hoax. Failing that these people need the assistance of mental health professionals.

Video interview with the organiser of the Melbourne screening (30 October 2016)

Studio 10 TV show debates the banning of The Red Pill (30 October 2016) It’s concerning to see Jessica Rowe (and others) adopting a view, and imposing it upon others, with so little effort made in terms of research or impartiality.

The Red Pill makes the Cut in Crowded Race for Oscars (29 October 2016) Reddit discussion thread and linked article.

Cassie Jaye’s Red Pill too truthful for feminists to tolerate, by Bettina Arndt (29 October 2016) Related Reddit discussion thread here.

Even Clementine Ford thinks the Red Pill should be shown (28 October 2016) Reddit mensrights discussion thread

Security guards hired for Melbourne screening of The Red Pill (27 October 2016)

Will you take the Red Pill? (27 October 2016)

Media coverage of The Red Pill (27 October 2016) Reddit discussion thread

Why Australian Men’s Rights Activists Had Their Bullshit Documentary Banned (26 October 2016) The article belongs in the bottom of the cat litter tray, but some of the readers comments are good.

The Red Pill film review ~ Inciting compassion for men’s issues (26 October 2016)

Men’s rights group vows to push ahead with documentary screening (25 October 2016)

Cassie Jaye on Feminism and Men’s Rights Activists (24 October 2016) Youtube video

More Reddit/r/mensrights discussion threads on The Red Pill movie

Van Badham’s eye roll: Just hysterical

My post today begins with a panel discussion entitled ‘Have men become second-class citizens’ that featured on the ‘Sunrise’ TV program in Australia.

“Miranda Devine, Mark Latham, Van Badham and Rory Gibson join Sunrise to discuss if women are receiving preferential treatment in today’s society, and if feminism is responsible for men feeling displaced.”

Mark Latham spoke out strongly in the affirmative sparking the usual immediate backlash. Guardian Australia columnist and feminist activist Vanessa ‘Van’ Badham also upset a few people with her anti-male comments, and subsequently received a slew of feedback via social media. You can review her Twitter account to get a sense of the nature of that feedback. I didn’t notice anything of a particularly hurtful or threatening nature. Indeed, the comments she received were considerably tamer than the noisome effluence that is Van’s contribution to social media.

Nevertheless, Van Badham issued the following tweet:

Just as with Clementine Ford, it seems to a case of those who launch the most mud and the sharpest barbs, squealing the loudest when someone dares return fire.

Anyway, shortly thereafter I issued a few tweets in relation to the Sunrise program, one of which is shown below. These were not in response to tweets posted by Van Badham (with whom I have never previously communicated), nor were they specifically directed at her. No matter, because I had revealed myself as being one of ‘them’ rather than one of ‘us’.

Van Badham chose to respond by alerting an Australian law firm who apparently use a marketing slogan “We fight for fair“. She did so in the vain hope of involving me in some sort of legal wrangle. And in so doing she earnt a ‘like’ from her feminist colleague, journalist Wendy Tuohy, who features elsewhere in this blog.

So this is how strong independent women behave? No, but it’s how feminists behave.

This illustrates, yet again, that the default position of most feminists is to do whatever it takes to divert attention away from key issues and discourage public discussion thereof. And this means shutting-down and/or isolating dissenters as quickly possible, one example of this are ongoing coordinated campaigns to shut down anti-feminist Facebook pages.

Why? Because they know that their best hope of retaining credibility/power is to keep as many people as possible from recognising the expansive chasm between the ‘dictionary definition’ of feminism, and what is actually being said and done by real-world feminists. Discussion can lead to enlightenment, whilst shunning and censorship is more likely to preserve the status quo.

But of course feminists won’t come out and admit that. They attempt to rationalise their unwillingness to respond to opposing viewpoints in other ways. In this article concerning the same TV program, Clementine Ford states:

“We need to stop wading into these debates and understand that we lose nothing by refusing to participate. We are under no obligation to defend our feminist ideals from anybody, and we certainly have no responsibility to try to ‘prove’ the necessity of them to those who feel threatened by them.”

Those who have taken the time to read other posts in this blog would have noted that the theme of feminist-imposed censorship emerges again and again in the context of many gender-related issues. This is, in itself, a blazing ‘red flag’ with respect to the true nature of contemporary feminism.

Van Badham then joined that rather pathetic group of feminists/SJW who have blocked me from their social media accounts simply for questioning aspects of the misguided ideology to which they still desperately cling …

Shun this person who doesn’t support feminism! Unclean! Unclean!

And predictably Van then demands the opportunity to share, what will no doubt be, a long drawn-out procession of ‘last words’ on the issue:

I have sympathy for Mark Latham. He’s barking at a cloud that’s passed him by (4 May 2016)

Van Badham and Steve Price went head-to-head on Q&A (12 July 2016) See also this article in The Age. Response from Steve Price here.

Van Badham reveals ugly response to Steve Price’s comments about her (14 July 2016) And of course, her own words and behaviour played no role whatsoever with regards to the subsequent public reaction. Yup, sure. Let’s make it all about Steve … and misogyny. And to suggest that Steve’s solitary off-the-cuff comment constitutes “demonisation” is absurd posturing on Van’s part.

Look what I found in a Reddit discussion thread about Van Badham’s stouch with Steve Price … apparently Van wanted to put Tony Abbott underwater. Wait, where have a heard a comment like that before? Oh yes, Eddie McGuire.

From The Spectator, ‘Van Badham and the ugly facts of an ugly matter‘ (15 July 2016)

Readers might care to seek out a tweet by @RitaPanahi on 12 July 2016 for further examples of what Ms Badham considers appropriate to dish out (but not receive). Gems such as:

And on a parting note, an item by Andrew Bolt entitled ‘How Van Badham attacks even children‘ (2 March 2017).

‘Sunrise’ provides equal time for feminism and men’s rights

The ‘Weekend Sunrise’ show surprised and pleased by providing separate interviews with MRA Paul Elam and feminist Laci Green.

On Saturday morning there was an interview with Paul Elam

Paul discussed the fact that mens work/life choices are more limited than women, but most of the all-too-brief interview was taken up with a discussion of rape hysteria and the need to address the problem of rape in a more rigorous and fair-minded manner.

Reddit discussion thread here and here is an article about Paul’s interview

On Sunday morning it was the turn of Laci Green

The intro provided by Andrew O’Keefe – and his comments throughout the interview left absolutely no doubt where his allegiance lies … “The history of feminism is long, strong and proud …. in fact (if not for feminism) married women, you would still be the property of your husband“. Oh please.

Feminism is wonderful – just badly misrepresented, feminism is not about hating men, feminism is just about equality and stopping sexual objectification, blah blah blah. Keep moving folks, nothing new to be seen/heard here.

“The boobs are used to sell everything …” Yes indeed Andrew, and that’s nowhere clearer than watching Laci’s efforts on Youtube.

Reddit discussion thread here which features the comment:

“[Laci] is what we call one of the “Aren’t Like That” feminists that all the other feminists use to cover their bigotry. You want to know what kind of person Laci Green is? Let me tell you.

First, I have to explain a few things. In the hood, we like to have parties. We like to get rowdy, smoke some herb, get crunk. We like to play music loud and act a fool. The problem with this is, the cops show up. Now, I’m not sure you all know what its like having the cops show up, but some people at this party have illicit drugs, or arrest warrants, or just no fucking sense. So someone has to talk to the cops. You always want to have a well spoken, easygoing, friendly person at your parties so that THEY can talk to the cops and make sure none of the other people at the party get into any shit.

Thats who feminists like Laci Green are. They’re the person Feminism has answering the door when society comes knocking and wants to know what’s going on.”

More about Laci Green here and here

(Postscript 4 December 2018: Bettina Arndt, Sam Armitage and Nat Barr stirred up the feminists with this discussion of the #MeToo phenomenon. And then – of course – a follow-up article about the outrage, entitled ‘Sunrise cops criticism over one-sided #MenToo discussion’)

Good news: Males acknowledged on morning TV (not in a bad way)

I’ve just watched a couple of segments on ‘Sunrise‘ that I feel are worth mentioning.

The first segment concerned Angelina Jolie and the ‘End Sexual Violence in Conflict global summit‘. The Australian representative at that event was Natasha Stott Despoja, who is Australia’s Ambassador for Women and Girls. Natasha spoke on Sunrise this morning, and I was pleased to note that she mentioned that men and boys – as well as women and girls – are also victims of sexual violence in wars.

The background to Natasha’s appointment to the role is provided here. Regrettably, but unsurprisingly, there is no corresponding Ambassador for Men and Boys.

The second segment was a panel session comprising the two Sunrise hosts Andrew O’Keefe and Edwina Bartholomew, as well as John Mangos and Gretel Killeen. The topic of discussion was comments made by Hillary Clinton concerned the alleged “outrageous sexism” suffered by former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

What was good to see about this discussion was that initially John Mangos, and then each of the other participants (excluding Andrew*), readily conceded that:

there tended to be a lot of talk about sexism towards women and very little about sexism towards men (although such sexism did occur)
there was too much talk about sexism towards women bearing in mind the progress that has already having been made in that area
most of the talk about sexism towards women focussed on women in elite roles (e.g. politicians and CEO’s/executives) and not enough about ordinary women
that some women, such as Julia Gillard, were probably too quick to play the “sexism card” in order to gain sympathy or support

It was just a shame that the segment was so short as it was clear that everyone had more that they wanted to say on the topic. Hopefully we will see more balanced discussion on the issue of sexism on Sunrise and other TV shows in the near future.

* No surprise there, given that Andrew is well-known to be a regular ‘white knight’ when it comes to gender issues, as mentioned in this earlier post.

‘Sunrise’ TV show offers sop to feminists

Yet another case of two steps forward and one step back. In two earlier posts in this blog I described how members of the ‘Sunrise’ TV show purposefully stood their ground against strident feminist criticism. I had hoped that they would keep the positive momentum going with some segments about the excesses and mistruths of the contemporary feminist movement. Unfortunately that was not to be the case. Well, at least not yet. (Postscript: Pleased to see ‘Sunrise’ step up with this interview with MRA Paul Elam on 5 July 2014 … kudos to ‘Sunrise’)

I just watched a segment on ‘Sunrise‘ – an interview involving Michael Kaufman of the ‘White Ribbon Campaign‘ and Sunrise’s resident ‘White Knight‘, Andrew O’Keefe . The segment came across as something of an attempt by ‘Sunrise’ to win back some street-cred with pro-feminist viewers. It’s sad that they feel the need to curry favour with a movement represented by this, this and this.

The ‘White Ribbon Campaign‘ is a pro-feminist organisation whose goal is to stop violence by men towards women. They ignore violence by women, and for the most part they ignore violence by men towards other men. They do acknowledge problems that disproportionately affect men like suicide and homelessness, but claim that these are a reflection of the pressures of gender stereotypes imposed on boys and men (i.e. be a man!). The solution, they say, is for men to be comfortable showing what are seen as feminine attributes – and then they would not have to hurt women. The ‘White Ribbon’ crowd thus conveniently choose to ignore more potent forces such as the increasingly toxic environment in schools and universities for male students, the pervasive anti-male bias in the media, etc etc.

By all means please do address the problem of violence – violence by people of all genders. And by all means address the imposition of negative gender stereotypes – again, by people of all genders. But by focussing entirely on violence by men towards women, the White Ribbon Campaign reinforces the prevailing stereotype of men as brutes and women as victims. That being the case, they are as much part of the problem as they are part of the solution.

One of the outcomes of this telescopic view of ‘domestic violence = mens violence towards women’ is the trivialising of the other dimensions of intimate partner violence (i.e. womens violence towards men, male on male violence, and female on female violence). This bias is a pervasive influence across society, and is discussed and demonstrated in another blog post which includes links to videos showing public reaction to male and female actors playing out different scenarios of partner violence.

The concerns of others regarding the White Ribbon Campaign can be ascertained by googling on the words ‘White Ribbon Campaign criticism’ (some examples here, here, here, here, here and here).