Review of The Red Pill (2016) by Darren C — 29 Jan 2017

I just finished watching The Red Pill for the fourth time. I hosted a screening of the film at a local theater the first time, showed it to my friends for my second viewing and watched it alone the last two times. I was nervous about watching it the first two times because I was in essence showing it to people, and it was very overwhelming seeing all of it on the big screen with so many of my friends, finally sharing with them what matters to me and what I'm passionate about. I thought and my friends have told me that it was really effective at introducing men's issues to people who might not have heard of it before, helping them understand both the depth and the scope of many issues as well as humanize many of the men's activists who have been so maligned by the media.

It wasn't until my third viewing that I was brought to tears, watching it alone, when Fred Hayward was playing guitar to his son after we found out that he wouldn't see his son again. I think that is an example of what a good film does, you see and feel different things upon different viewings. I started to notice how subtle many of the ways Cassie conveyed the ideas to the audience, for example contrasting the jumping and cheering of people at a feminist event to the shouting of curses and harassment at police officers and attendees of Warren Farrell's talk when she wanted to make the point that we happily let women's issues be heard from the rooftops but shame and silence those who bring light to men's issues.

I started looking at men's issues around the same time Cassie started making this documentary, I was at one of the events in the film and many of the people in the film have become not just my heroes, but my friends. So I am biased, because this is a very personal film to me, but I believe this is one of the most important documentaries ever made, and agree with someone who said that Cassie will go down as one of the most influential person in history in the centuries to come.