For whatever reason, there are films that we in the entertainment media fail to notice. In the case of the documentary Am I Racist?, that whatever reason is that we’re liberals. Not one mainstream media company reviewed the film — the first theatrical release from Ben Shapiro’s conservative media company The Daily Wire — which has been in the top 10 for two weeks. So The Hollywood Reporter enlisted someone who doesn’t care if he loses all his friends. That person was me.
Even more surprising than the fact that Am I Racist? has grossed more than $9 million, making it one of the 40 highest grossing docs ever, is the fact that the 14th highest grossing theater for the film was the AMC 16 in Burbank. So on Thursday, I went to see who in Burbank, a town where 70 percent of the voters chose Joe Biden in 2020, would show up to see the film. I chose the latest showing possible, which was 2:20 p.m.
I oversmiled at the Latinx ticket seller while nervously asking for one ticket to Am I a Racist? He seemed unfazed, which made me a little less worried when I handed that ticket to the Asian woman who directed me to theater six, which was completely empty, other than a can of beer left behind by an audience member at the noon screening.
Right before the film started, five people scattered throughout the theater: an old white man, a younger white woman and three-generations of a Latinx family none of whom, I would guess, would want to be called Latinx.
The film is a Borat-style comedy in which podcaster Matt Walsh puts on a disguise and tells subjects he’s documenting his anti-racist journey in a movie (though never revealed in the doc, he reportedly told his marks his film would be called Shades of Justice). His disguise consists of a man-bun wig and skinny jeans. I could not believe that this was what he thinks a liberal wears in 2024. I was surprised he didn’t carry around a latte and a plate of sushi.
Though he got a couple of chuckles from my four fellow audience members, Walsh lacks some of the skills of a comedian, such as being funny. He’s a mellow confident presence, which keeps everything too even keeled. He does occasionally land some solid jokes: When an anti-racist seminar focusing on grief begins by asking attendees to introduce themselves with the weirdest compliment they’ve ever received, Walsh offers, “I’ve been complimented on the number of Black friends I have. It’s 17.” But most of the time, his comedy is a mimeograph of comedy. The way that a bad mafia movie is based on other mafia movies instead of real criminals, Am I Racist? feels like a comedy made by an alien who’s seen comedies. There’s an ironic slow clap. Plates are dropped. He fake cries.
In Walsh’s defense, what Sacha Baron Cohen does is really hard — and he’s a professional actor. Most of the time, Cohen himself doesn’t succeed (Bruno, The Dictator). Even when his films work, he leaves a lot of scenes on the cutting room floor. Walsh seems more conservative with the cutting. Re-enacting actor Jussie Smollet’s faked hate crime didn’t go anywhere. Getting 20 people to sign a petition to rename the Washington Monument the George Floyd Monument felt soft, because getting 20 people to sign any petition is easy. His interview with the woman who sued Sesame Place for racial discrimination when a character didn’t high five her Black kids was so ineffective it would have gotten him fired from The Daily Show.
However, Walsh does gain access to the prominent DEI experts he hopes will embarrass themselves, and they largely comply. He gets Robin D’Angelo, author of White Fragility, to give his Black cohort $30 out of her wallet as reparations. He is a waiter at a Race2Dinner event, hosted by Regina Jackson and Saira Rao, where white women pay to be yelled at — and definitely get their money worth. When he isn’t doing irrelevant bits (dropping plates, overfilling water glasses) and gets out of his way, his subjects do indeed skewer themselves.
He also often succeeds at making DEI instructors seem like grifters. D’Angelo got a $15,000 fee for being in the documentary; the Sesame Place mom took $50,000; the Race2Dinner hosts got $5,000. Walsh even gets people to pay to attend a DEI seminar he puts on (the Do The Work! Workshop), which concludes with him handing out whips so attendees can self-flagellate.
After the film, I talked to fellow audience member Lacretia Lyon, a standup comic and podcaster who had heard about the movie when Walsh was interviewed on Adam Carolla’s podcast. In addition to being interested in the topic, she came because she’s a member of AMC’s Stubs A-List, which allows members to see three movies a week. “I was surprised how funny it was,” said Lyon. A Borat fan, she thought Walsh nailed the undercover bits. “The narcissism was amazing to watch,” she said about the many DEI instructors who bragged about their superior sensitivity to racial issues. All of whom were women. Which mirrored the reason Lyon didn’t ask any of her friends to come. “A lot of girls aren’t going to be interested in this,” she said.
The Latinx family preferred not to go on the record. There was a concern that perhaps cameras in the lobby could record what they said. But, as they left me, the youngest, wearing sunglasses, long hair and a beaded necklace whispered, “Vote red.” The poorly disguised woke impersonators, I feared, might be everywhere.
