Take The Red Pill. Do it now.

As its International Men’s Day I thought I’d review a documentary that I saw a few days ago.

How did I learn of The Red Pill? Thats a journey in itself…Someone tried to bully me in my place of work for being openly gay (note the word ‘tried’. I fought back and have never seen myself as a victim. I’m a fighter). However, in the midst of what was happening to me I began to suffer from clinical depression. The panic attacks that I had kept at bay since the age of 13 were now out of control and I began to experience suicidal thoughts on a daily basis.

It was whilst suffering from all of this that I began to research the issue of suicide and learnt that 75-78% of suicides are male. This fact shocked me massively.

And so from looking into male suicide I learnt about The Red Pill. The title is actually a reference to the movie The Matrix ”in which the protagonist is offered the choice of a red pill, representing truth and self-knowledge, or a blue pill representing a return to blissful ignorance”.

I knew that the film was seen as controversial to some people with some feminists wanting it to be banned.

So is this film about the Men’s Rights Movement a rancid cesspool of anti-feminism rhetoric, a film that only conveys views from rape enablers that are fundamentally anti-women? Of course not. The film is amazingly balanced with Men’s Rights activists finally given a platform as well as feminists on the same topics. I had never heard these Men’s Rights advocates speak before which is also very telling. The audience is granted a modicum of intelligence with which they can make up their own mind.

Topics raised and discussed include male suicide, the lack of funding for male health conditions such as testicular and prostate cancer, the custody battles that fathers go through, the male victims of domestic abuse…the list goes on. These are all issues in which there is no equality between the sexes with men coming out disadvantaged.

The documentary itself is amazingly made by filmmaker Cassie Jaye. She presents a well rounded and perceptive documentary that is balanced, fact-based and free from hysterical amateur dramatics. The documentary flows effortlessly and you feel like you want to see more when it finishes. Thankfully there are uncut and unedited interviews from the film on YouTube. And whilst you’re on YouTube look up Cassie Jaye’s videos. Especially of note are the interviews given to the Australian media who had never even seen the film (they claim that Ms Jaye hadn’t supplied the film for them to see when in fact she had and several times. Ignorance is bliss, Andrew O’Keefe) but called it misogynistic and hateful. This is clear proof that they had never seen the film as The Red Pill is neither.

But it seems that others are also taking The Red Pill. Taste of Cinema had a list of their favourite documentaries on their website recently. The Red Pill featured in that list. And it fully deserved to be there.

I’ll finish this review by reiterating the fact I quoted earlier. 75-78% of suicides are male. 75-78%! These conversations regarding men’s issues need to be had before there are many more casualties. And I speak from very bitter experience. The Red Pill starts this process of discussion and discourse in a brilliantly balanced and intelligent way. Thank you, Cassie Jaye.