Cassie Jaye | |
|---|---|
 Jaye in 2018 | |
| Born | Cassandra Nelson[1] (1986-05-01)May 1, 1986 (age 39) |
| Occupations | Film director, producer |
| Years active | 2004–present |
| Notable work | The Red Pill |
| Spouse | |
| Website | jayebirdproductions |
Cassie Jaye (born May 1, 1986)[2] is an American film director, best known for directing the 2016 documentary filmThe Red Pill about themen's rights movement.[3][4]
Jaye was born inFort Sill,Oklahoma, to Nena Jaye.[5] When she was aged 6, her parents divorced.[6] When she was 14, Jaye moved toLas Vegas, where she attendedPalo Verde High School.[7]
At age 18, she moved toLos Angeles, where she was anactress for five years before moving toMarin County, California in 2008.[2] Jaye disliked thestereotypical roles she was cast in, which she described as "cute girl-next-door who always died inhorror films." Along with several incidents ofsexual harassment, this led her to embracefeminism.[8]
After leaving the acting field, Jaye stayed in films, but as adocumentary producer, director, and editor. She formed Jaye Bird Productions, a film production company, in 2008.[8][9] Her mother is her production partner.[10]
Jaye directed and produced the 2010 American documentary filmDaddy I Do which examinessex education andsexual abstinence programs in the United States.[11]Daddy I Do includes interviews with the founder of theSilver Ring Thing Denny Pattyn, feminist writerAmanda Marcotte, andDouglas Kirby. The film discusses personal stories from women facingteenage pregnancy, single motherhood,abortion andsexual assault.[11][12]Bust magazine praised "Jaye for exposing the truth about abstinence-only programs, the stories of teenagers who buy into it, and its consequences".[13]
In December 2018, Jaye publishedDaddy I Do on her channel on YouTube.[14]
Jaye directed and produced her second feature documentary filmThe Right to Love: An American Family in 2012. The film chronicles a family known as "Gay Family Values" onYouTube in the aftermath of2008 California Proposition 8.[15]
The film premiered in February 2012 at theCastro Theatre inSan Francisco with guest speakerZach Wahls.[16][17] The film was screened at theFrameline Film Festival.[18]
In December 2018, Jaye publishedThe Right to Love on her channel on YouTube.[19]
Jaye directed and produced the 2016 American documentary filmThe Red Pill about themen's rights movement. Jaye spent a year interviewing men's rights figures, such as Paul Elam, founder ofA Voice for Men; Harry Crouch, president of theNational Coalition for Men;Warren Farrell, author ofThe Myth of Male Power;[20] andErin Pizzey, who started the first domestic violence shelter for men in the modern world.[21] She interviewed critics of the movement, such asMs. magazine executive editorKatherine Spillar,[20][22] and sociologistMichael Kimmel.[23]
Jaye initially relied on her own money to fund the film, as well as that from her mother and her boyfriend,[23] as she found difficulty finding backers from traditional sources after it became known that the film would take a "balanced approach"[24] view of the men's rights movement.[25][21] In what she called a "last resort", she started a campaign on thecrowdfunding platformKickstarter.[25] The Kickstarter project promised to be a "fair and balanced" look at the men's rights movement.[25] She received support fromBreitbart News columnistMilo Yiannopoulos.[26][27][28]
At the end of the film, Jaye states that she no longer identifies as afeminist,[29] saying that she now believes that "feminism is not the road to gender equality". Although she no longer calls herself a feminist, she has stated that she is "still an advocate of women's rights and always will be" but is now "adding men to the discussion."[30]
Jaye gave aTEDx speech about her experience makingThe Red Pill. It focused particularly on how the process initially affirmed her feminist sense ofotherism and outrage against the men's rights movement, but then later broke it down. It was an "uncomfortable and humbling experience", and one that turned her "from feminism to gender equality activism".[9]
In 2019, Jaye said that the video diaries she recorded during filming allowed her to remember what her views on feminism were before she started working on the film, and why she thought that way. Looking back on the diaries, she could see that her previous views weren't necessarily malicious, but just uninformed.[31]
Jaye's effort for the Kickstarter project was strongly criticized by some feminists[32] including David Futrelle, who runs a website calledWe Hunted the Mammoth and who said it looked like propaganda.[33] The film hadscreenings canceled in Australia following petitions, protests, and threats against those holding the screening.[34][35][36][37][38][39]
David Futrelle accused Jaye of soliciting funding from members of the men's rights movement, which she portrays sympathetically.[27][40] She has said that the suggestion the film was funded by MRAs (men's rights activists) is "a common lie that keeps spreading,"[23] and that the film's backers and producers would have no influence or control of the film.[23][25] It has also been criticized by Alan Scherstuhl ofThe Village Voice, among others, for failing to challenge controversial comments and behavior from men's rights figures such as Elam.[27][33] Jaye has defended the film as being "extremelybalanced" and that people were "heard in context without manipulation".[30]
In a 2017 interview with Australian TV showThe Project, whenCarrie Bickmore asked her about a recent high-profile murder of Luke Batty by his father, Jaye emphasized that it was a specific example of amale victim ofdomestic abuse, whereWaleed Aly tersely rebuts, "that's the lesson you took from that?" (from the murder). Jaye responded that "we have to distinguish between victims and perpetrators, or criminals, because a boy who is being abused by a parental figure, that is a boy that deserves care and compassion and resources if he needs to find help."[41] Jaye described the interview as "hostile and aggressive", and initially pulled out of some interviews following the incident.[42][41] Later she resumed interviews but made her own recording of the discussions, as she stated she had been "misquoted so much".[29]
In an interview on the Australian TV showWeekend Sunrise, Jaye asked the show's hostsAndrew O'Keefe andMonique Wright directly "Did you see the film?". The co-hosts said they had not.[29][43] After receiving a wave of comments critical of the hosts and supporting Jaye,Sunrise removed the video of the interview from theirFacebook page. Jaye uploaded the interview to her own page, where it was removed shortly after as a copyright violation. When asked about the removal from Facebook a spokeswoman for the Seven network which producesSunrise declined to comment. Jaye also posted screenshots of emails to prove thatSunrise's producer had received a copy of the film a month before the interview and plenty of time for the hosts to have watched it. This was to disprove the hosts' claim that they did not receive a copy of the film.[44]
Cassie Jaye and Evan Davies married in June 2018.[10] Davies worked as director of photography onThe Red Pill.[52]
In September 2018, Jaye discovered that she was pregnant, but then miscarried about a month later. She recorded the events of her pregnancy and miscarriage in footage code-namedRobin, the name she gave to the miscarried baby. She has given consideration to produce a documentary project based on that footage, which would be named,Waiting to Miscarry.[10]
In 2010, Jaye's film, "Daddy I Do," premiered at the IIFC and was awarded Best Documentary.
Jaye, who won a Women in Film award for The Red Pill at the Hollywood DigiFest festival
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