Movie Review: Matt Walsh’s “Am I Racist?”

Matt Walsh, host of his self-titled Daily Wire show, is stirring up trouble again… and it’s glorious.

While I don’t consider myself a Matt Walsh “fan,” his ability to create meaningful content to influence western culture and thought has been evident and he’s been on my pop culture influencer radar for years. And just look at the reaction the mere mentioning of his name elicits. He frequently uses the great, nearly forgotten technique of “letting the horse speak” (ask a simple, direct question and have a person attempt to defend their evidently ludicrous moralizing [which often involves lots of squirming]).

Walsh utilized it with the precision of a samurai throughout this film, perhaps even more effectively than in his previous book / film “What is a Woman?,” the title of which seems so preposterous when writing it out that I have to pinch my arm to remind myself this is, indeed, the year 2024. (I listened to said book’s audiobook in one sitting while driving on a family trip. It was engaging, entertaining, and educational, which is quite a feat to pull off and a credit to Walsh and his production team who know how to do all three and do them well.)

Brief Backstory

A few months ago when I saw the trailer to this, his latest film, “Am I Racist?” I don’t recall laughing so naturally and sincerely, especially in these dark days of pandemics, medical mandates, elections, and strange weather. “Alright, guys. My appetite is whet!” So when it came time for the film to hit the big screen, I was anxious to go watch it. The Interwebs was rife with positive reviews. It even appears to have broken the Rotten Tomatoes web site!

My own Dad shared with me that he and a co-worker went to the center of a “blue” city (i.e. politically left/liberal-leaning, for our international readers) to watch it and they turned out to be the only two guys in the theater! We lovingly joked that they may be on a list somewhere. One of my adult children, living in a different blue city in the US, wanted to go see it, too, but was fearful of being seen seeing it.

What kind of world do we live in where people have to be fearful of watching a documentary?!

All these reactions and the mixture of excitement and shame was confusing me: Were people going to see it or weren’t they? Was it so good that even a movie review site would throttle the reviews? Was it just a well-funded PR campaign from the Daily Wire?

So I made every effort to see this film. This article is proof that I have. And it certainly lives up to the hype. In fact, the only thing better than watching it the first time was watching it a second. Producer and director Justin Folk and his team have crafted a masterful, potent film. Some compare it to Borat. But that’s unfair. For one, “am i Racist?” is actually funny. It’s also intelligent. Borat is neither. And Walsh is overly respectful though playful with his subjects, unlike Borat who is crass and intentionally insulting to his.

“Matt” begins his journey | photo © 2024 The Daily Wire

Now to the Actual Review

NOTE: “Matt” is a reference to Matt Walsh in his “Matt” character costume; Walsh is a reference to the original version of the guy

The film doesn’t start off with Matt Walsh, but with a very telling — shocking! — quote that I had never read:

“The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination.” – Ibram X. Kendi

Huh?! I need to fix discrimination by… discriminating?! Sounds racist to me…

(This sort of hypocrisy is not limited to Mr. Kendi, but appears to be endemic throughout the race hustler industry, as highlighted in the film.)

Then it cuts to a camera following behind a man (obviously Matt Walsh) walking onto the set of a Utah TV talk show whose beard is so distinct that even a horrible wig, black medical mask, and uncharacteristically thin-rim glasses couldn’t conceal. I audibly burst out laughing when the TV show’s cameraman zooms in on the set with the two female hosts introducing him as just “Matt” and a “DEI expert.” To their credit, the two hosts show a mastery of looking both pleasant and interested yet simultaneously terrified of saying something wrong. Matt startles them as he rips out a hastily folded piece of paper from his one-size-too-small blazer, wanting to read off a list of native peoples in a land acknowledgement before the interview gets going. (Yes, such people do exist.) While I’m unsure of how long Matt had been using this disguise at this point in the filming, there’s a slight nervousness usually absent in his distinct, monotone voice. One wonders if it was the result of actual nervousness or if he was just trying to suppress laughter.

By the end of the segment, the hosts — well, one of them — were standing and “stretching out of their whiteness.” It was a parody, but the hosts were all in, though it did seem by their facial contortions at this point that they were battling with their entire beings to hold back their actual thoughts.

Freeze frame with Matt stretching (skinny jeans nearly falling off) and Matt’s voice comes in and thus the film begins in earnest — and it just continues to go downhill from there… for the race hustlers (which the hosts were not).

We’re then met with a collage of mainstream media clips talking about the ever-growing, frightening specter of “racism” while Matt Walsh as himself sits at a table in a diner alone. This staged scene of him being introspective is interrupted by a black waitress holding a coffee pot, asking how he’d like his coffee. Walsh is frozen, unsure of how to respond, worried that any answer may be wrongly interpreted as having racist overtones. After answering simply, “Black,” his self-doubt only increases. While it’s just a comedic bit, this scene shows the need for a film like this; the constant barrage of “you are a racist” can impact us at a deeper level than some may realize. (I have personally experienced concerns that my responses or reactions might be interpreted as covert / overt racism. This unpleasant haunting is a recent phenomenon.)

Next up: Matt Walsh’s interview with Kate Slater, the first in this theater of the absurd. Among her absurdities, she encourages Matt to begin talking to his 6-month-old about racism — he should’ve started even sooner, she implies. In his typical cool, unassuming style, Matt indulges Kate’s fantastical approach to child rearing by then talking about the deep topics of Disney princesses and Halloween costumes. The conversation continues to devolve into absolute ridiculousness, the likes of which are only found in the halls of western academia. Kate maintains that America is “racist to its bones,” a frightening prospect given that if a patient is sick in their bones, all that awaits them is a slow, agonizing death. (So what are you REALLY saying about America, Kate?!)

Matt then makes his way to a Colorado bookstore where a very helpful and happy clerk shows him an entire section of anti-racist books… further evidence that this field is a very lucrative industry. A testament to the stranglehold politeness has over the average mind is seen there at the shelf as Matt grabs a book whose title I can’t even write here. A polite back-and-forth ensues and he leaves with a bag full of anti-racist books, ready to begin his journey to become a new and improved, non-racist man.

Robin Diangelo’s 2018 book “White Fragility” then appears in the next frame on Matt’s desk. Yes, this another one of those annoying books, like Stephen Hawkings’s “A Brief History of Time,” that are used as merely decoration and a symbol, ironically, of social status, not something its owner ever actually reads. (“I’m cultured! Can’t you see this book on my shelf in my Zoom meeting background?”) The book’s title itself has already become a catchphrase used to end many uncomfortable conversations, especially when the one saying it is in the midst of being held to account for their words. To my horror, one mainstream host calls it “the Bible for white people” in a video montage where everyone and their brother is extolling the book’s virtues and those of its author.

Here, the film really begins.

Not surprisingly, it is also with Diangelo that the film ends. The dear woman is so concerned with the historic and imminent horrors of racism that she charged Walsh’s production $15,000.00 USD for the — dare I say — privilege of a very revealing interview shown near the end of the film. Be sure to watch how THAT goes!

Continuing on this Ripley’s Believe It or Not spectacle of race hustlers, Walsh shows up as himself (sans disguise) with the name “Steven” at a $30,000.00 (that’s US dollars) anti-racist workshop put on by Breeshia Wade, an anti-racist expert “who specializes in grief”… probably because she creates lots of it, if her self-introduction shown in the film is any indication. Walsh’s entrance is awkward and hilarious, as are his questions to the speaker and his responses to his fellow attendees. His impromptu confession / speech contains the record for the most times the word “better” can be said in a single sentence. But that speech, his responses, and persistent interruptions appear to be trying to goad Wade into having an outburst. She keeps her cool, though visibly seething, and threatens to toss “Steven” out. After he exits to the cry room (you read that right), fellow attendees start to realize and discuss who Walsh actually is. He comes back and is just as quickly escorted out.

Then the police show up, reasons unknown.

“Matt” gets educated | photo © 2024 The Daily Wire

Enter: Matt, the DEI Expert

Queue a reverse Superman montage — Walsh becoming “Matt, the DEI expert”!

It’s at this very moment that even new viewers will start to fully understand how trivial yet amusing it is that Walsh’s distinct facial hair, voice, and cadence could be covered up with a mere Clark Kent-level of effort used elsewhere in this documentary.

We then see Matt spending every waking minute immersed in this brave, new world of anti-racism. He’s exercise biking while watching interviews with Diangelo; he’s in the park reading her book; he’s taking a DEI certification program* and a course with a black female teacher in pink whose tone of voice and pacing back-and-forth is of such briskness that you might legitimately worry she’s about to strangle Matt and would literally rather be anywhere else. The most important part of their interaction is that she echoes the “diagnosis” of Kate Slater earlier: racism is incurable. She, too, seems happy to take your money. (*Walsh mentioned in an interview following the movie’s release that it took him almost a full half-hour to earn it.)

After his cheaply laminated, poorly designed DEI certificate card shows up in the mail, Matt is now ready to roll. And roll he does… right down the sidewalk of a busy street in costume like a self-deluded, confused Magnum PI, proudly displaying to anyone he passes his newly acquired certification, affixed to the thinnest and cheapest-looking wallet I’ve ever seen in an adult male’s hand, which adds to the comedic effect (nice touch). He continues showing it off and explaining its awesomeness in random street interviews. Number of bystanders impressed: 0. The disconnect between the world of academia and the real one couldn’t have been more clearly displayed.

Milton slips “Matt” the secret cure to racism | photo © 2024 The Daily Wire

The documentary continues on showcasing Matt interviewing and interacting with numerous people from all walks of life and “colors”. The things people say (or sign!) will make your jaw drop. Rather than continue to detail all the amusing / concerning revelations of this good film, it must be experienced first-hand. Though be warned: half-way through you may think it has extinguished any ember of optimism you had for the human species. Personally speaking, if my right hand were made of iron, I would need deep, lengthy plastic surgery on my skull for the amount of times I slapped my head over the words and concepts coming out of the mouths of supposedly “educated” people. How can “education” make someone so unintelligent? Even my cringe was cringing at times.

Nevertheless, Walsh, though a below-average actor and an even worse waiter, is a great cultural biographer and mind who didn’t leave us without hope.

While the aim of many people featured in the film was to combat a real problem (though most of them trying to advance answers to a problem they say is actually unsolvable), their solutions were always at a price, a very, inexplicably high one (one even asked for $50,000.00). So even though it won’t solve racism, this film’s existence is a great service to the cause of eliminating… race hustling, and those whose entire careers are built on wheeling and dealing in forced guilt over any one group due to factors entirely beyond their control (i.e. skin color). Walsh’s brilliance in this is that he didn’t figuratively tackle racism and race hustlers head on. He merely stood in front of them and held up a mirror. It was not so much a case of “Look! The Emperor has no clothes!” as it was “Look! The Emperor is getting rich off your politeness and exploiting your good intentions!” The reflection is so startling that even many of the people featured as anti-racist experts in the film have run into hiding. (Is that “white fragility” too?)

Walsh’s deadpan humor and intelligent wit have earned him many detractors — maybe not earned them so much as revealed them. Some fear the beard, avoiding anything he says or does at all costs. And that is the biggest challenge Daily Wire will have with this film: How do you get those who might cringe at the names “Matt Walsh” or “Daily Wire” to sit and watch the film? I would politely suggest offering free viewings at select theaters. But even that might not work, since one journalist was even given a pre-screening, wrote an entire diatribe against it, only to be exposed as having never watched the film in the first place! (Expecting journalists to do journalism is racist, too, I’m told.)

The clever, professional editing of the film, with its excellently timed jump cuts and slow-motion reveals sprinkled through a clear, coherent narrative add a polish to an already dynamic display of academia’s largest and most lucrative grift. Anyone who invests time in watching this film will not only be entertained, but also be exposed the cure for racism. That source of that cure comes from a most unexpected source — the mouths of normal people. For me, the heart of the film is when Walsh visits these real people who had most likely experienced actual racism. And their lived experience stood in stark contrast to the caricature painted of them by scholars and serial book writers. Unlike those in the ivory collegiate towers, these fine folks didn’t find a solution to racism at the bottom of a stack of anti-racist books or in some expensive seminar. Many of them pointed to basic morality and the Bible directly — and there was the cure! When asked about a way to get past racism, an old black mechanic — a legal immigrant from British Guiana and a seemingly down-to-earth, no-nonsense guy and Bible-only reader who has lived in the USA for decades — replied so succinctly and with a simplicity that only the deluded mind of an anti-racist scholar could muddle:

“We gotta love each other. That’s how you get past racism.”

Disclaimer: This review was written without material or financial benefits from Daily Wire. It was initiated and undertaken by my own freewheel without any compensation. Go see this film and take someone with you!

***