The Reel Deal: Women, Policy, and Autonomy

Posted byRock Rose Blog, LLCPosted inUncategorized

Part III of V

**Content warning for bullying and harassment**

   “…professional climber Joe Kinder was booted by his sponsors, Black Diamond and La Sportiva after he admitted to cyber harassing Sasha DiGiulian – very much a mainstream name thanks to a World Championship in sport climbing and success transferring that skill set to the natural realm outdoors with numerous first ascents…Kinder used a fake account to post memes making fun of climbers and other public figures. According to DiGiulian, Kinder’s posting has been “malicious and ongoing” for some eight years. She finally posted publicly about it after reaching out to Kinder privately on multiple occasions.

Most of the memes disappeared from social media when Kinder deleted the fake account. It sounds as if the final straw was a meme he posted where DiGiulian’s likeness was portrayed in negative terms with regards to her weight and a trip she took (you can see it in the second slide of Sasha’s post, above). Kinder had already reportedly used the fake account to chastise online self-help guru, Sarah Sapora, as well, whom DiGiulian also stood up for.”46 This was in 2018.

   The fact that there are people and most notably climbers suffering from eating disorders and women from harassment is wild that he chose to go this route for laughs. There is so much wrapped up in fatness and race also but we do not have enough time to go into that during this article/podcast. That topic is in the works for my podcast at a later date.

   But for Joe to choose weight specifically, this could be a case where it could be argued the bullying akin to sexual harassment in a very “your body my choice”47 attitude. Now, it is true he did memes of men as well, however, it is not the same and it cannot be considered the same. With that being said: I don’t think it is ever appropriate to comment, make into memes, or make fun of anyone’s body. White men (who was probably the subject of Joe’s memes) historically in the US have not been property, denied voting rights, or have died legal deaths when they are passed from one male to another either through family or a partner. This makes it very inappropriate and insensitive to what women have faced in the past. And based off of Joe’s age of about 45 years old,48 he had parents who most likely experienced the same things as Josh Lowell, Peter Mortimer, and Nick Rosen.

   Would a straight, white, cis gender male be aware of the policy history to oppress women? Probably not. As with anything many of us are simply fish swimming along oblivious to the water in which we are saturated. And the same could be argued about his rehabilitation: has he truly put in the work to be rehabilitated or was his apology a response to his loss of sponsorships?

   As far as I can tell, the film Death of Villains does talk about this story with Sasha. It is a film about Joe Kinder assisting Kai Lightner in projecting a hard climb. And here is where the real hard conversation starts.

   According to Kai’s post and comments, this film was a conception of his mother, Connie Lightner. Admittedly, there are few Black women who have been involved with creating a climbing film, much less one for Reel Rock. However, there are a few things I would like to comment on regarding his post defending the decision to involve Joe in the film.

Death of Villains Addressing the Controversy
There has been a lot of talk surrounding the narrative of “Death of Villains”, an upcoming Reel Rock film chronicling the struggles and triumphs I’ve made in my career leading up to last year. many people have questioned Joe Kinder’s involvement in my story, leading to narratives that have made me very uncomfortable. I am making this post to clear the air about the true intentions behind this film, why Joe Kinder is involved, and what I hope we can all take away from this movie and experience as a whole.
The process of filming this movie required me to open up and relive the most vulnerable moments of my life on film. I discuss my struggles with disordered eating, body image, self worth, and ultimately regaining my confidence to accomplish goals I’ve dreamed about since I was a child. This journey took every ounce of inner strength I had, and I could not have done it alone. I never would have expected the person who helped me the most, who poured so much time, energy, and resources into supporting me, would be Joe Kinder.
My only impressions of Joe before we met were based off his controversies and the infamous incident of bullying Sasha Digiulian, someone I grew up idolizing and having tremendous respect for. In fact, had I known in advance that the cave I randomly traveled to was his domain, I might have avoided the crag. Thankfully, I didn’t know. I traveled to this new climbing area and ended up spending a year having breakthrough experiences that have reshaped my life and my climbing.
During the year I spent at the Hurricave and other crags, I went from initially confronting Joe in a not-so-nice way about the Sasha incident, to watching him rebuild trails and develop climbing areas. I saw him mentor athletes young and old, seasoned and new, male and female, just to put a smile on their faces and make them feel welcomed. Every person I encountered who mentioned Joe’s name had nothing but praise to give regarding his character and contributions to the climbing community. After a while, Joe personally took me under his wing, mentored me through sending Life of Villains, routinely drove 2.5 hrs just to encourage me, belay me and much more…for no tangible benefit. Just to give me hope and convince me to believe in myself
I talked to my mom regularly about my daily experiences, and she came up with the idea to film the process of me sending Death of Villains (DoV). she saw story lines developing that she thought could be inspirational to others. My mother is a professor and business woman in a male dominated field-she 100% aligned with Sasha’s viewpoint of Joe from the start of this project idea. For this reason, from the moment that she proposed including Joe in the DoV film she was adamant that the storyline not minimize the impact of Joe’s past actions, and the general guys-being-guys toxic mentality, upon women and the climbing community.
Initially, Joe was very reluctant to be included in the film. He expressed his fears that simply mentioning him could cause unnecessary drama and derail the positive message we wanted to share with the world. He feared that despite having apologized to Sasha and the community on multiple occasions in the last 6.5 years, that his past mistakes would be too big of a distraction for people to see past.
While I understood his hesitation, I felt it would have been a knock at my integrity to leave him out of my success story. I told him I felt uncomfortable accepting his help, thriving off his mentorship, and benefiting from his contributions while not giving him credit for something I could not have done without him. It took 6 separate conversations between Joe, my mom, and me, to convince Joe to participate in this film. We also agreed to show the complex feelings that my mom and I had about Joe before this journey began in the film.
I understand that Joe’s positive contributions to the climbing community do not erase any harm he has caused. At the same time,I deeply fear a world where we are permanently held to the standard of the worst mistakes we’ve ever made. A world where negativity bias gives no one the incentive to strive to be a better person, to do better in the future, because we are already irrevocably marked with a scarlet letter. We have all made mistakes we’ve deeply regretted, and have likely received space to learn and grow from them without permanent life consequences.
To be clear, this post is not a plea for forgiveness on behalf of Joe. Judging someone’s character is a personal process that should be left to the viewer. This film is about being at a place in life where you feel stalled and have lost confidence in yourself…and finding the fight to move forward. I have no idea why the universe threw us together; but Joe and I were in similar spaces for very different reasons, and somehow we helped each other. I hope that by telling my whole story, someone will relate to be inspired to overcome their own personal struggles.

   First off, it is massively interesting to me that Kai ended up being mentored by a person, Joe, who routinely harassed professional climbers by photoshopping their heads on to fat bodies considering Kai has experienced disordered eating. It is also even more interesting to me that Kai not once condemned bullying or harassment at all. Instead, he chose to talk about Joe’s character in a way that does feel like he is vouching for him. And I think this is where we have to talk about being a fish again.

   Kai has been a professional climber for a long time now. This means he has definitely been indoctrinated to a large extent by the mainstream climbing community, and most notably Reel Rock. It is obvious Reel Rock puts stock into 3 things: 1. Whiteness 2. Men 3. Climbing hard. Again, not inherently terrible, however, when you are only 2 of those things: how do you go about legitimizing yourself?

  In the past, the only video highlighting Kai was through Obe Carrion who was a long standing member of the Reel Rock machine. But moving forward with Reel Rock, how was Kai to get a film selected? The answer could be in Joe.

   First and foremost: Joe is not necessary to the accomplishments of Kai. Kai can stand on his own: he is strong, intelligent, and caring. But just like any other person of color or Black person in a white dominated space, a lot of times people will subconsciously search for ways to feel legitimate which can end in aligning themselves with a person who fits the mold of the desired community. And in my opinion, Joe could be Kai’s way to feel legitimate; a formula to be power adjacent. And it worked: Reel Rock accepted the film.

   If we take a step back and think about it; people of color and women49 really have a tendency to publicly thank everyone who assisted them in their journey to success. When you start with privilege, of course you are going to be less grateful because you don’t know what it took to get there in the first place. But also, men experiencing gratitude less “…is perhaps because of the strong cultural expectations in the U.S. that men be autonomous and fully self-sufficient that there may be a reluctance among American men to express gratitude. To them, gratitude may signify a failure to act in a self-sufficient manner and its expression might be taken to reflect dependency and weakness in relation to others.”50 And US policy history supports this toxic masculine notion: men must be strong and self-sufficient, particularly for women because we were not able to own anything or have authority over our own agency. And for people of color and Black people: we started with so little that when we do have assistance it can touch us deeply. I have noticed over the years white cis gender men do not routinely highlight people who assisted them; and if they do it is simply a fleeting note. As one of my Instagram followers noted:

My own perspective is many white men such as myself have this upbringing and culture which strongly suggests we were the person solely responsible, and thanking of others is often an overt gesture of humility. at least from the idea of why you don’t hear others as heavily intertwined in the story of our successes is those folks have to make significant efforts to get even a mention. my though, knowing how I was raised to perceive my achievements…

  I am not saying Kai or Connie was cunningly planning how to infiltrate Reel Rock (ok, maybe I am a bit but as a Black person myself sometimes that is just how it goes), however, I am saying that we do have to examine the ways in which race and gender play into this story. And the gender reality is: Kai will never know what it is like to be harassed or bullied as a woman in climbing. And one dude telling me another dude is indeed safe is not my idea of a credible source.

   As far as Joe: has he learned and grown from this? Apologizing and moving on is one thing (more accurately apologizing because you got caught and lost sponsorships) but restorative work is quite another. I do not see Joe being an advocate for anti bullying or anything like that so I personally am under the impression that it is the apology and quickly move on (as I’m sure  many people on the outside like me also assume). As much as I adore Kai and trust him, I do feel that his being steeped in the Reel Rock culture has made him prone to being a token mouth piece for them and in turn, Joe. Kai’s connection to the Reel Rock community has actually put him in a position of privilege for Joe to be nice to him. Therefore, I do not think Kai is a reputable source to gauge whether or not Joe is changed. Nor is he able to fully grasp the way bullying and harassment affects women due to his non female gender. Just like if a man was harassing women and other men say the first man is safe: that is not credible as they are not the target demographic for his harassment.

   I am proud that Kai and Connie have indeed not shied away from controversy. However, they are continuing to keep the conversation squarely on Joe when the conversation should be on the scrutiny and subsequent eradication of bullying and harassment in climbing and society at large. The comments that Kai’s post have collected also include ones saying that he is taking a stand against cancel culture. If your post is collecting numerous comments like that; for me that means it has entirely missed the mark and is simply more men focusing on other men and ignoring the real problems. And having the film be created by a woman does nothing to shift this conversation nor protect it from scrutiny. I do still hold Kai and Connie in high regard, however, I think this entire situation was a miss. One comment from his post in particular sums it up for me:

Brickbroecker: Shining a spotlight on Joe again is in poor taste. he deserves his peace almost a decade later, but he still betrayed the trust of the greater climbing community and has lost his privilege of a larger voice. @reelrock setting a poor example of the people we want to exemplify and showcase in the sport. There has a been a continued lack of trying to tell stories that reflect the entire community. I won’t be watching anymore of your films, sorry. Quin.brow at brickbroecker you don’t think people can change or deserve a second chance? Brickbroeker to Quin.brow I think he should be afforded the opportunity to not be defined by his mistakes and continue his life without judgement, but that’s a far cry from featuring him in a high-visibility film that returns him to a position of social influence in the sport.
Quin.brow to Brickbroecker: Maybe the story will change your mind. A lot of it covers this nuanced topic and about what he has done for the community. All in all, he has done so much development in the past years he deserves some recognition.
Brickbroecker to quin.brow: maybe it would, but I really doubt it. I don’t believe the work to mitigate damage from your mistakes deserves commendation. That’s the burden of the mistakes you make. You can recognize his personal development and his contributions without lauding them in a sympathetic and high profile way and remembering that his mistakes held consequences

   I do want to fully recognize the difficulty of being the first mainstream Black climber and that for sure has been difficult. However, the choices Kai and Connie have made are not above scrutiny either. I do hope to see better in the future from people I look up to in many ways.

As for the second film Cobra and the Heart, to me it is more straightforward. And it all starts with a man named Charles Barrett.

**Content warning for rape and sexual assault in the next section**

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Works Cited

46. Carberry, Joe. “Pro Climber Joe Kinder Dropped by Sponsors for Cyber Bullying Sasha DiGiulian.”https://www.theinertia.com/news/pro-climber-joe-kinder-dropped-by-sponsors-for-cyber-bullying-sasha-digiulian/ 04/04/2025

47. Ayad, Moustafa and Frances-Wright, Isabelle. “Your body, my choice:” Hate and harassment towards women spreads online.” https://www.isdglobal.org/digital_dispatches/your-body-my-choice-hate-and-harassment-towards-women-spreads-online/ 04/06/2025

48. Training Beta. “A Talk with Joe Kinder.” https://www.trainingbeta.com/media/joe-kinder/ 04/04/2025

49. Allen, Summer. “Do Men Have a Gratitude Problem?” https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/do_men_have_a_gratitude_problem 04/08/2025

50. Allen, Summer. “Do Men Have a Gratitude Problem?” https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/do_men_have_a_gratitude_problem 04/08/2025

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