"Am I Racist?" Movie Review
A very funny movie which marks an encouraging milestone for conservatism, but leaves something left to be desired.
[Edited by
]Introduction
I watched the Daily Wire’s new movie “Am I Racist?”. It’s great.
In 2022 the Daily Wire released Matt Walsh’s first documentary “What is a Woman?”. The film did not screen in theaters and was only accessible through Daily Wire Plus, a subscription service. When Matt Walsh pitched the idea for “What is a Woman?” to CEO Jeremy Boering, Boering was skeptical. He doubted that a documentary could be commercially viable, but Walsh persuaded him that “What is a Woman?” would be a new kind of documentary - it would straddle the line between documentary and commercial entertainment.
“What is a Woman?” was a huge success. The film made waves across the world in the conversation on transgenderism and earned the Daily Wire a return of more than $30 million dollars in online subscriptions from a less than $1 million budget.
Emboldened by their success, Daily Wire decided to be even more ambitious. “Am I Racist?” will be released in theaters. Due to the controversial nature of the film, screenings are limited. It showed in only 1500 theaters nationwide. As of Tuesday September 17th, it had grossed more than $5 million at the box office. The movie hit the number 4 rank for the weekend and was surpassed only by major blockbusters like Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.
Another Smash Hit
“Am I Racist?” succeeds as a comedy. I laughed out loud at Walsh’s Borat-style interviews with unsuspecting “anti-racist” activists. Walsh also has wholesome man-on-the-street interviews about race and the importance of treating everyone well. The film successfully combines wholesome content with genuinely funny comedy. It never allows the message to overpower the humor.
There were some slow moments in the beginning. The first scene in which Walsh confronts anti-racists is cringey, but it gets much better from there.
Walsh’s interviews are a devastating expose of the “anti-racist grift.” The activists he sits down with charge tens of thousands of dollars for a couple hours of their time, and apparently there are enough guilt-ridden white people to pay these fees on a regular basis. In the first interview Walsh and activist Kate Slater talk about their 4 year old daughters and their Disney princess preferences. Gravitating towards white princesses is obviously bad, but liking a non-white princess is also potentially problematic. A white four year old girl dressing up as Moana would be cultural appropriation. Kate Slater (who is white) says she talks to her 4-year old about race and Disney princess preferences “all the time.” Slater has deactivated her twitter account since the release of “Am I Racist?”
Walsh then interviews a few viciously hate-filled nonwhite activists. It should be eye-opening for people who haven’t had much direct experience with non-white leftists.
As the coup de grâce, Walsh scores an interview with Robin DiAngelo, the internationally famous author of “White Fragility.” Walsh progressively asks more and more absurd questions, and he gets DiAngelo to play along with all of them. At the end of the interview he gets DiAngelo to do something so shocking I’m not going to tell you what it is. Go see the film.
In the final scene, Walsh conducts his own anti-racist workshop. He gets the participants to do a bunch of crazy exercises and then takes out a box of whips for them to flagellate themselves. A couple people walk out but most people seem willing to do it. Walsh ends the workshop before they can actually whip themselves, but I wish he had gone through with the bit.
A Missed Opportunity
The moral which the film presents is “treat everyone well.” This is a fine sentiment but it missed an opportunity to make a more profound statement on the American conversation about race. “Am I Racist?” does not contain even a hint of white identitarianism or legitimate white grievance. It does not deal with topics like affirmative action, for example. The film does not address racial disparities or the causes of those disparities. It’s probably too much to ask to expect a normie conservative outfit like the daily wire to cite IQ statistics, but I was surprised that it did not even take the Thomas Sowell angle. There really was no discussion of racial disparities at all, just the message to “treat everyone well.” The problem with this approach is that it gives no response to the core leftist argument.
When leftists say that cops are murdering black people for no reason, it’s not good enough to say “I wish you wouldn’t talk about race” because if it were actually the case that cops were murdering black people, then that would be a very important issue to talk about. In fact, saying “I wish you’d be nicer about these topics and not such an extremist” actually serves to reinforce the mainstream position. Moderation is the rear guard that shores up previous extremist victories, and consolidates new social norms. Extremists like DiAngelo set new norms and piss people off, but Walsh isn’t really pushing back against DiAngelo, he’s just saying he wants them to slow down.
Any serious right wing rebuttal to DiAngelo and her ilk has to give an alternative explanation for racial disparities. The wokesters point to racial disparities and offer an explanation: white racism is keeping black and brown people down. Conservatives need to explain why the wokesters are incorrect, not just say that the wokesters are too mean. The most important explanation is cultural. Black American culture seriously fell apart in the mid 20th century. Single motherhood rates are more than triple where they were 100 years ago. Criminals go unpunished. Drug use is rampant. This unrestrained degeneracy creates an environment in which very few people do well. Since people tend to pick up the norms of their parents and peers, a huge percentage of black people have adopted dysfunctional habits, and they need to change those habits. This is not exclusively a black problem. Parts of the white lower class have also decayed culturally and have adopted dysfunctional practices. These trends must be stopped and reversed. Biological factors matter as well. There are genetically-caused intractable differences in IQ between blacks and whites, and we should not deny that fact. However, the cultural explanation points the way to reform: If blacks and low class whites change their dysfunctional cultural practices, they will start to achieve much better outcomes than what they have now.
In Conclusion
All in all though, “Am I Racist?” is a good addition to the culture, and it’s a welcome relief from far-left dominance in the movie theater. The production budget is rumored to have been only $3 million, which would mean that they have already recouped their budget with the $5 million box office gross.
This is a watershed moment in American politics. For years conservatives have lamented the fact that the left controls Hollywood and uses it as a devastating vehicle for propaganda. Am I Racist is the first conservative film produced by an explicitly conservative studio — directly challenging Hollywood’s dominance —and it came out in the the box office Top 5 despite only being available in 1500 theaters. It’s a crushing blow to the Left’s monopoly.
If we are going to take some part of our country back and restore our culture, we need organizations like Daily Wire. We need to make our own media, especially our own entertainment. Times are grim but the tide is changing.
From the editor:
Thank you
, one of our new full-time contributors for writing this article and bringing up some well founded praise, as well as some interesting points about how Walsh and the Daily Wire merely want to slow down the progressive ilk instead of rooting them out. There are clearly some interesting things to think about for the future.However, enough about what we think. Would you go see this movie based on Simon’s review? Show us by participating in the poll below:
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Excellent movie!
Matt Walsh is very rational, and good on him for thinking his opponents actually mean what they say and want to have clear and consistent beliefs. But they don't. And he isn't funny. He's the blandest man alive.