For the Love of Jason (2020) s01e04 Episode Script

A NETFLIX ORIGINAL DOCUMENTARY SERIES
Thanks for coming.
No, thank you for inviting me
Uh, you're a lot less aggressive in person
than you are in your videos.
I feel like you are
less of a jerk to me here
than you have been online.
Well, you know, um
I mean, you called me a cunt.
Like, I watched that video.
Oh, there you go.
Do you still think I'm a cunt?
I kind of, yeah, but
[laughs]
[theme music plays]
MEN'S RIGHTS
[Scaachi] Back in February 2016,
I wrote a tweet that made everybody
on the Internet very upset with me.
SCAACHI KOUL
CULTURE WRITER, BUZZFEED NEWS
TORONTO, ON
My tweet basically said I was looking
for stories for BuzzFeed Canada
and I was hoping to find people who were
preferably not male and not white.
I didn't look at Twitter
for about an hour,
and when I came back,
I had 250 notifications just from Twitter.
A bunch of people got really upset with me
and they called me a perverse racist.
Then it very quickly
started getting much worse.
"If you don't like white men,
you can go back to India
and stop using white technology.
I heard shitting in the street
is super fun."
"How many nights have you stayed awake
praying and pleading for a penis?"
"I would really enjoy bashing
your stupid fat face in with a hammer."
This one just says,
"Shut the fuck up, cunt,"
which frankly, I appreciate the brevity.
At the time what looked like a lot
of really random abusive tweets
was actually part
of a much larger movement
that we now know
as the Men's Rights Activists,
MRAs for short.
They advocate for men's rights
largely because they feel
like women are taking them away.
We're absolutely not participating
in relationships with women
to stay away from all the problems
that exist.
If we legalize rape,
women will be more careful
with their bodies.
Feminism is delivered as angry women
and feminine men.
[Scaachi] These groups cite things
like Family Court laws that are biased,
high suicide rates for men,
and allegedly false rape allegations
to argue that feminism is basically
ruining the lives of men everywhere.
[phone line ringing]
[David] Hello?
Hi, David.
- It's Scaachi from BuzzFeed news.
- [David] Yeah, good to talk to you.
DAVID FUTRELLE
MRA EXPER
Can you tell me a little bit about what
would be the profile of a typical MRA?
[David] There are a certain percentage
of men's rights activists
who do care about specific issues.
- Uh-huh.
- I mean, there are older, divorced guys
who do care about custody,
and family court, and so on.
But the groups
that they have sort of inspired
are more radical now than they used to be,
and more openly misogynistic and hateful,
and more given to talk about
actual violence towards women.
You get these guys who are
really bitter and angry at the world
and who also sort of don't feel
that they don't have much to live for,
quite literally,
and that becomes
a very, very toxic combination.
BREAKING NEWS
Just after lunch time in Toronto today
a van plowed into pedestrians.
[man] Here's what we know right now.
At least ten people are dead.
[woman] The search is on for a motive.
[Scaachi] Recently in Toronto, a guy
drove a van through a crowd of people.
He killed ten and he injured another 16.
His alleged motivation
was largely his hatred for women.
He was a part of a movement
called Incel.
INCEL
He was really angry
that women weren't sleeping with him.
INVOLUNTARY CELIBATE
So it's easy to sort of laugh off
these MRAs.
But something happens to them,
and they develop into much bigger threats
and much greater monsters.
MEN'S RIGHTS ACTIVISTS
[Scaachi] The world of online misogynists
has ballooned in recent years,
splintering into diverse factions
who preach everything
from swearing off relationships
to advocating for date rape.
With hundreds of thousands of members
around the world,
this ever-growing network
has been dubbed the manosphere.
But what would a movement for men
that isn't mired in hate look like?
The first thing I have to do
to report this
is I've got to talk to one of them,
which I can't say
that I'm looking forward to.
Right about now some of you watching this
will write everything I'm saying
off to misogyny.
PAUL ELAM
PROMINENT MRA
Wrong.
Our producer reached out to Paul Elam
and asked him for an interview,
and he posted her email address
and her personal phone number
in his tweet.
It said, "I want to take this opportunity
to reply to their request in public
with a hearty and sincere
'eat shit and die.'
Please do both, and quickly. Thank you."
So we're gonna try to find somebody else
to talk to.
Everywhere you look, there are feminists
pushing their way
to the front of the line,
demanding women's "fair share"
of all of the goodies.
It it's just crazy.
[Scaachi] Karen Straughan is an MRA,
and she also happens to be a woman.
After I appeared in a segment
on Canadian television discussing MRAs
You can go online
and you can have a thousand men
send you a note as a woman
that they would like to kill you.
[Scaachi] She and another female MRA,
they call themselves "Honey Badgers,"
- took to YouTube.
- [Alison] Can we stop for a second?
[Karen] It's not okay
to feel marginalized as a man.
[Alison] It's against the identity
of being male.
[Karen] Because this cunt sitting here
with this smug look on her face,
this cunt will laugh at you.
HONEY BADGER RADIO
NOVEMBER 10, 2015
[Scaachi] I'd love to know how,
as a woman,
she legitimizes this movement
in her own head.
I'm surprised that you accepted
the interview request.
It was unexpected
that you invited me to
KAREN STRAUGHAN
MRA
Yeah, I mean
do this.
I'm very curious
about what you have to say.
Okay.
Yeah.
So, what brought you into this fight?
It seems like an odd place for a woman.
Well, I stumbled across the men's movement
kind of by accident.
I was just divorced and met a man
and we were dating,
and he was telling me, you know,
his horror story with an expartner
and not
he hasn't seen his daughter
in eight years.
[Scaachi] Hmm.
[Karen] So I think that those are stories
that there's no real room for
in the mainstream.
So how do you view the position of men
in society today?
Oh, I think that they kind of have
a constant bombardment of negativity
aimed at them.
If they complain,
they get told to stop complaining,
and if they get angry,
they get told, "Stop being angry."
And women have a much easier time
uh, being expressing anger
and expressing complaint
and not turning people off automatically.
I want to talk to you a bit
about what's been going on in Toronto,
and I want to know how you felt
about the van attack,
if you consider it a misogynistic attack.
I think that that's probably pretty much
what's going on there.
So how do you feel about that?
Well, I just wish he'd found my videos
or Honey Badger Brigade videos.
Because what we would have told him is,
"You need to, like,
stop basing your self-worth
on the approval of women.
Go out, get a hobby,
make some male friends,
take up a sport."
Um, so you don't feel
that the videos at all are responsible
for enciting a larger movement of hatred
within MRAs?
I don't think so.
In one of the videos, you suggested that
when they say that they hope I get raped,
that's not a threat.
- It's not.
- Um, yeah, I disagree.
"I hope you get hit by a bus"
is not a threat
to steal a bus and run you down.
It's certainly not nice, but
How do you reconcile with that language
being used online within your movement?
[Karen] That's anger.
How do you reconcile with, you know,
the secondwave feminists who
or even, you know,
ones that are writing articles today?
You know, Julie Bindel said men should be
put in concentration camps, you know.
I disavow them and I disagree with them.
Yeah, okay, but it's anger.
But I'm giving you an opportunity
to do that and you're not doing it.
No, I'm not.
I think within feminism
they want it to be easier for men
to ask for help, to get a therapist,
to ask for affection,
or to ask for care in a way that they
maybe don't feel like they can right now.
Let's just say
for the purpose of argument that
ten percent of the victims
of serious domestic violence are male.
Women have a virtual 100% monopoly
on services,
and you have government funding,
millions and millions of dollars a year
of government funding,
going to domestic violence services
for women, right?
Which is required.
I mean, they need it.
Some men need it, too.
Okay, I'm not saying
that we need to choke them out
from having any of it. I'm just saying
But that's what the services
in shelters do.
[telephone line ringing]
[Karolina] How are you?
Earlier todayI talked to Karen Straughan.
[Karolina] Oh, God, how did that go?
I mean, it wasn't fun.
KAROLINA WACLAWIAK
SCAACHI'S BOSS, MRA SKEPTIC
She doesn't think
that she triggers hatred or violence
or that she's sort of a part
of the radicalization of young men.
She's really washing her hands
of almost any influence.
[Karolina] She's not the person
to talk to, to have like a nuance
[Scaachi] No, and I don't think she
Yeah, and I don't think she has
the capacity to actually develop
solutions.
[Karolina] So let's find someone
who could be more thoughtful about this.
Yeah.
[Scaachi] Who are the actual men
who would benefit
from the kind of help
Karen's talking about?
DALLAS, TX
[Paige] Glad to have you here.
[Scaachi] Thanks for having me.
Yeah, it's a special place.
I'm glad y'all get to see it.
Yeah, me too.
[Scaachi] Paige Flink runs
The Family Place,
a non-profit for domestic violence victims
that recently opened
one of only two shelters in the US
specifically for men.
How many people are staying here
right now?
So right now we have 11 people.
We have up to 22 beds,
seven bedrooms,
but it really depends
on the configuration of the family.
So they can bring their kids here as well?
PAIGE FLINK
CEO, THE FAMILY PLACE
Yes, a man can come with his child
because of family violence.
[Scaachi] Wow.
[Paige] This has been an unknown
and really underserved population,
the male victim of domestic violence.
[Scaachi] Mm-hmm.
How busy has it been since you opened?
Last year we served over 50 people,
and this year we are on track
to probably double that.
[Scaachi] Oh, wow, that's a lot.
I was gonna ask I mean, it seems like
there's a different set of expectations
for men and for women
about who can ask for help.
Oh, well, our culture thinks men
"Man up, be tough, don't cry,
stiff upper lip,"
all those kinds of things.
[man] First it started
with property damage.
She busted my apartment windows.
She busted my truck window.
And then, hit me in the face with a brick.
ANONYMOUS
DOMESTIC ABUSE SURVIVOR
This was the last incident
to make me come here.
She, um
hit me in my face, my arm, and my rib.
Did you call the police at any point
during these violent outbursts?
[man] I called the police
on the second incident, but
it's like I was the suspect, you know?
I'm a man and of military background.
It's like the cards are already stacked
against you, you know what I mean?
And they're certanly not giving you
the benefit of the doubt.
No.
[man] Not at all.
[Scaachi] Did you feel any anxiety
about asking for help?
[man] There's one thing that was my fear
is like they're gonna
just look at me as weak.
But everybody I have dealt with
that's heard my situation,
most cases, they
they kind of commend me
for just coming forward and actually,
you know, doing something about it
without reacting
and doing something to her.
That's more the weaker aspect,
you know what I mean?
[Scaachi] Yeah.
Have you heard any support
from these groups
called Men's Rights Activists?
No support from them at all.
Nothing?
Nothing at all.
[Scaachi] Like not even like a kind
Not even like no.
The MRAs speak frequently
about the idea that feminism
gives so much focus on women
as the victims of domestic violence
that it takes attention away from men.
Well, we're here at The Family Place
to prove them wrong.
We have to serve men or women,
but in the month of April, I turned away
almost 500 women and children
and four men.
- [Scaachi] Mm- hmm.
- So there's a big difference.
That's a big scale.
Big scale.
Yeah. Yeah.
So I have a LexisNexis search open.
Some of the men that I spoke to today
gave me the names of their alleged abuser.
So we're looking them up
and seeing if we can find legal documents
supporting what they said
or just sort of any criminal record
and see if it matches up.
[Scaachi] The man I spoke to on the record
filed a police report against his abuser,
but didn't reveal her name,
so I couldn't reach out to her
for comment,
but he's one of dozens of men
that The Family Place shelters every year.
It's clear that the demand for women
when it comes to a domestic violence
shelter is much greater,
but it is certainly noteworthy
that there are this many men
who need something like that.
The changes that would be required
so that men like the ones
who are at The Family Place
would get some help are structural.
It's about changing fundamentally
how society looks at men.
NEW YORK, NY
[man 1] Can someone grab that staff
back there?
Anybody else have intensity
they're bringing with them today?
[man 2] Yeah.
[man 1] So come on to the middle,
put your hand on the staff, and
let's put all the intensity
into the staff.
The ManKind Project
is a 35-year-old brotherhood
BOYSEN HODGSON
MANKIND PROJECT USA
of nonprofit organizations
around the world
whose aim is to support men.
What holds you back
from the man that you envision?
Fear of what others are gonna think?
Fear of ridicule, rejection?
Fear of being able to hold it together.
Um, you know, I'm a single dad.
I've got lots of things on the line,
a lot of plates spinning.
[Boysen] We are about emotion.
We are about connection.
We are about, you know,
intimacy and exploring pain.
Take the hand of another man.
And this doesn't have to stay
nice and neat, it can be a puppy pile.
Just let that grief start to have ascent.
[all exhaling loudly]
- The pain you've carried.
- [grunts loudly]
The thing stuck in your soul.
[all yelling]
Men are hurting in a huge way.
EKA DARVILLE
MEMBER, MANKIND PROJEC
And the ones who are inflicting
a lot of the pain,
and suffering, and oppression
that is happening
across all strata of society.
And what we're doing
is we're empowering men
to be the best versions of themselves
for society,
for the women in their lives,
for the children in their lives,
and most importantly, for themselves.
[Boysen] When you're ready to take flight,
push through this and jump right in. Okay?
[man] Oh!
[laughter]
[laughter]
[Boysen] Most guys aren't used to going in
and sitting down with a group of guys
and really getting honest.
[man] Can I ask where it is in your body?
[crying]
It's in my heart.
[man] Yeah, so give what's in your heart,
give it to all these men.
You have permission to have it held.
[crying]
[man] To give it a voice.
[continues crying]
What's the message you need to hear
from men and from the world,
and from yourself?
I am lovable and I'm worthy.
You are lovable,
and you are worthy.
Let's heal masculinity
so that we don't have so many hurt men
out there
laying waste to communities.
[Scaachi] This is a version of a solution
that would benefit everybody, I think.
They're trying to do some work
that hopefully will change things
generationally.
How do we talk to boys
when they're really little
and how do we condition them?
And what do we let them get away with,
and then what do we?
[man yelling indistinctly]
[man speaks indistinctly]
I don't know how to fix that.
TORONTO, ON
VIGIL FOR VAN ATTACK VICTIMS
[Scaachi] A lot of the things that MRAs
talk about are legitimate problems.
When they talk about the male suicide rate
or domestic violence,
those things are real.
TORONTO STRONG
But there's a huge difference
between supporting other men
by advocating for those issues
and blaming it all on women.
It's selfish, it's simplistic,
and it can have serious consequences
in the real world.
MRAs say we won't let them be vulnerable.
But then they hide that vulnerability
behind the walls of these aggressive
and sometimes violent groups.
LOVE FOR ALL
HATRED FOR NONE
Men are hurting,
and they deserve our help.
But not at the expense of everyone else.