(IMAGE: The Daily Wire)
The Daily Wire. 2022. Documentary. 99 minutes.
RATING: 3 out of 4
When the societal polarization infecting nearly every other American institution finds its way down to film criticism — an occupation literally predicated on provoking and exploiting polarization — it’s hard not to find the whole thing weirdly comical. It’s no secret that film criticism generally leans left — like the entertainment business it covers — but that hasn’t typically kept critics from reviewing movies with which they may disagree. Wide-release films of all political, religious and social stripes have historically been subjected to the full critical gauntlet — a treatment which, it should be noted, many films would gladly forego if they could. Goring the culture’s sacred cows, after all, is one of the occupation’s most time-honored sacraments. Case in point: during one eventful summer in 2008, when I was still working as Senior Film Critic for Boxoffice Magazine, I brutalized three of the season’s most hotly anticipated tentpoles — Wanted, The Incredible Hulk and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Fans then brutalized me in return — filling the review comments sections with the kinds of vicious personal attacks that might have earned a visit from the FBI if I had cared to report them. As I saw it — I did my job and the fans did theirs. That brings us to the current bugaboo of the zeitgeist, conservative pundit Matt Walsh’s What is a Woman?
As of this writing, the film has one review on Rotten Tomatoes (barring a miracle, this will be the second) with it widely reported that critics are flat-out refusing to see the film at all. Whether triggered by the subject matter or Walsh himself, the widespread critical hissy-fit is clearly missing the forest for the trees, failing to acknowledge that a) nothing generates publicity and awareness like making something taboo (just ask a teenager), b) ignoring a movie never generates as much ignominy as hounding it en masse into the Rotten Tomatoes basement, and c) watching and reviewing movies you may hate is literally the job. Furthermore, it’s not as if more incendiary material hasn’t previously garnered their attention — even Dinesh D’Souza’s 2020 film Trump Card sits at three Rotten Tomatoes reviews.
Some may argue that it’s the topic — the current culture war debate over gender, so-called “gender identity” and transgenderism — which is simply too hot to handle, especially given the decision to time the release in conjunction with Pride Month, which admittedly feels like a deliberate provocation (like releasing The Last Temptation of Christ on Christmas Day). Then again, Dave Chappelle’s The Closer and Ricky Gervais’ recent Supernature Netflix standup specials — both of which tackle the same topic far more irreverently — currently sit at ten and twelve reviews, respectively. A more realistic possible explanation for the critical desertion is that to view What is a Woman? requires a subscription to The Daily Wire — the conservative news site that produced it and which also produces Walsh’s eponymous talk show — making it impossible to separate promoting the movie from promoting the site famously co-founded by conservative icon Ben Shapiro. Nevertheless, What is a Woman? has entered the cultural conversation with a bang, stirring strong emotions not just along partisan lines but among left-wing feminists at pains over suddenly finding common cause with a longstanding nemesis with whom they disagree about nearly everything else.
Thankfully, adjudicating such conflicts is not not the purview of film criticism, nor are the merits of the picture’s politics. What is compelling about What is a Woman? — and what ought to be of interest to film critics and film historians generally — is where it sits vis-a-vis its genre, a genre popularized (though not originated) by progressive filmmaker Michael Moore. Since Moore’s landmark 1989 debut film Roger & Me, the genre’s markers have largely ossified into stone: a provocateur host/narrator undertakes a linear investigation into a single, controversial topic, mixing thoughtful narration with serious interviews, public pranks and carefully scripted ritual humiliation of political foes. When well-executed, the formula can be immensely entertaining, whether or not one shares its ideological conceits. When poorly-executed, it verges on self-indulgence, pretentiousness and didacticism. Rarely, however, do such films ever move the needle on public opinion. Simply consider that Moore’s greatest success — the Cannes Film Festival-winning Fahrenheit 9/11, the most successful documentary of all time, was released four-and-a-half months before its target, President George W. Bush, handily won re-election. Likewise, Dinesh D’Souza’s debut film, 2016: Obama’s America, the second most successful political documentary of all time and fifth most successful overall, was released four months before its target, President Barack Obama, handily won his re-election. Whatever their entertainment value or aesthetic merits — such films still fundamentally preach to an already converted choir.
That’s not to say the genre hasn’t blossomed since Roger & Me. In addition to Moore’s subsequent films and those of D’Souza and now Walsh, we’ve seen entries from actor Nick Searcy, comic and television host Bill Maher, comic and podcaster Adam Carolla and a host of aspiring unknowns, all hoping to ride a well-worn formula to similar success as both filmmakers and personalities. Apart from Maher’s Religulous in 2008, however, it’s curious that Moore’s heirs fall almost exclusively at the opposite political pole. That Moore has failed to inspire any heir apparent from his own caucus — while instead inspiring an army of ideological rivals — begs for further analysis. A clue is likely found in the movie from which Moore borrowed the format for Roger & Me, Michael Rubbo’s 1974 Canadian documentary Waiting for Fidel, itself inspired by Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. Those who have seen Waiting for Fidel will remark that while it reflects poorly on the absentee Castro, it’s the conversation between Rubbo’s colleagues — ex-politician Joey Smallwood and broadcaster Geoff Stirling — which makes a memorable impression precisely because the discourse is balanced. At the same time, it all comes at the expense of the notorious Cuban dictator (for whom Moore would later offer a guarded apologia in Sicko) making Moore’s overtly progressive oeuvre more an exception than the rule. That Moore’s heirs lean right isn’t a departure — it’s a homecoming.
Keeping that history in mind, it’s easier to make sense of why Walsh’s What is a Woman? works as well as it does — while deliberately avoiding any pretense of serious investigative journalism. Directed and co-produced by Justin Folk, who also directed Adam Carolla’s and Dennis Prager’s 2019 effort No Safe Spaces, the film takes a decidedly Roger & Me approach to answering its titular question, finding the answer as elusive as Moore did General Motors CEO Roger Smith. It’s Waiting for Godot redux once again as what should be a simple pursuit grows increasingly absurd — and intermittently amusing — the longer it drags out. The point, of course, isn’t to answer the question but to wallow in mockery of those who either can’t or won’t. Among the frothier interview subjects are female therapist Gert Comfrey, who identifies as non-binary; blue-haired pediatrician Dr. Michelle Forcier, who won’t concede that imagination doesn’t constitute reality; temperamental University of Tennessee sociology professor Patrick Grzanka, who is triggered and offended by the concept of truth; and California Democratic Congressman Mark Takano whose interview goes south so quickly, his staff is forced to pull the plug before Walsh can even pop his big question. While Grzanka and Forcier also threaten to prematurely end their interviews once they realize where the questions are headed, to their credit — and Walsh’s — they’re able to lower the temperature and at least briefly veer into more serious territory. That Walsh secured these interviews at all seems like something of a small miracle — it’s unthinkable that none of them knew what they were getting into. Some have accused Walsh of engaging in an elaborate scheme to dupe his subjects, but this also seems an unserious excuse given that Walsh is at least as known to the left as Michael Moore is to the right, and it’s impossible to imagine anyone not fully attuned to Moore’s politics voluntarily sitting for a filmed interview with him. It’s also never explained precisely how or why these particular subjects were chosen — they don’t come off as especially bright or knowledgeable, although they do manage to embarrass themselves in a kind of “Libs of TikTok: The Motion Picture” way.
As in previous genre entries, the public pranking tends to be both the weakest and the most entertaining part of the film. In addition to the usual array of man-on-the-street interviews, Walsh takes an amusing, if superfluous, detour to a Masai tribe in Kenya where the American fixation with gender and sexual fluidity is regarded as a bizarre first world indulgence. There’s also a somewhat uneventful trolling of the Women’s March which, despite Walsh’s best efforts, never quite explodes into the “incident” he’s clearly trying to provoke. Most of this, however, is filler between interviews which vacillate between sensational and substantial. The latter are where What is a Woman? ultimately scores points, though even here it barely scratches the surface: In addition to a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance from Canadian sex researcher and author Debra Soh, Jordan Peterson weighs in to argue that “gender identity” is really just a euphemism for temperament while “gender critical” psychiatrist Miriam Grossman outlines the history of modern-day “gender ideology,” laying blame for its excesses squarely at the feet of famed sex researcher Alfred Kinsey and notorious sexologist John Money. Each of these interviews provokes troubling questions which beg for further discussion — yet such discussion never ensues. That’s both disappointing and understandable. At a minimum Walsh has a self-awareness Michael Moore does not — recognizing that as a polarizing figure, he stands little chance of winning converts to his position, so he may as well have fun mocking his most extreme adversaries instead. At the same time, there’s a journalistic dereliction in failing to be sufficiently inquisitive when presented with so many genuinely compelling tangents.
The most compelling such tangent is the contrast offered between surgeon Marci Bowers, a male-to-female transitioner, and activist Scott Newgent, a female-to-male transitioner. While Bowers coolly advocates for gender transition surgery and downplays concerns over medical or ethical malpractice, Newgent tearfully summarizes the life-altering and life-threatening medical complications with which he continues to struggle, the ideological framework that led him there — and why children should be safeguarded from any exposure to it. It’s a powerful moment which stands apart from the rest of the film — but which also begs for further inquiry and some kind of serious response. Here is where one almost wished Walsh would exit his role as tour guide and allow his subjects the opportunity to confront and question one another. As much as Walsh is laser-focused on his central thesis and works to corral the interviews accordingly — the interviews can’t help but raise a host of broader existential questions about life, meaning and truth which overshadow that thesis. What might emerge, for instance, from a conversation between Bowers and Newgent? Or between Grossman and Grzanka? That’s obviously not a direction Walsh and Folk intended to pursue — but it’s a certainty that in the coming months and years others will.
The real question ultimately centers less on the film’s merits than on whether any film so hampered by personality and political baggage can serve as a starting point for more constructive debate. You would be hard-pressed, for instance, to find anyone to the right of Michael Moore who wasn’t at least sufficiently familiar with his arguments to debate them — but it’s an open question whether those debates have produced any positive outcomes. Even still, the issues raised here, aren’t going away. Acclaimed Indian documentarian Vaishnavi Sundar’s recently completed Dysphoric: Fleeing Womanhood like a House on Fire — a followup to her 2018 exposé on sexual harassment, But What Was She Wearing? — is next in the queue, with others sure to follow. As more serious documentarians like Sundar take up the baton, evading debate will become increasingly difficult — and those imagining that simply ignoring a film like What is a Woman? might make it all go away will quickly find themselves several steps behind and struggling to play catch-up.
In the interest of spurring that debate, it might constitute an act of good faith — and a smart business move — if Walsh and his Daily Wire backers — namely producer Dallas Sonnier and Daily Wire co-founder Jeremy Boreing, both of whom have lengthy Hollywood credentials — elected to at least temporarily make the film available independent of a Daily Wire subscription. It’s no secret that Sonnier and Boreing have designs to build The Daily Wire into a more substantial production and distribution Hollywood alternative — their first film, director Kyle Rankin’s Run Hide Fight, was invited to the Venice Film Festival, followed by the generally well-received DJ Caruso-directed thriller Shut In earlier this year. Doing so at sufficient scale to make an impression in the broader culture, however, will necessitate eventually separating their entertainment efforts from The Daily Wire’s political activism. Given the buzz and awareness surrounding What is a Woman?, doing so now and with this film might be just the tonic to encourage a more transparent dialogue on an increasingly incendiary subject before it turns into an even bigger dumpster fire than the one which has already singed both Netflix and Disney.
Such a move would also give hesitant film critics one less excuse to not do their jobs, which is no small matter at a time when our individual voices are being increasingly submerged in aggregated Rotten Tomatoes scores. For movies to remain relevant, we need critics to remain relevant — and for critics to remain relevant, film criticism must re-learn its traditional artistic and ideological independence. That’s not likely to happen overnight — but it needs to begin yesterday.
(Reviewer’s Note: Since initial posting, author has been reminded that Michael Moore’s first and, to date, most prodigious progeny was and remains Morgan Spurlock of “Super Size Me” fame. While Spurlock’s consumerist-skewering work in film and on television is largely apolitical or, at least, a-partisan, it nonetheless aligns more closely to the Moore and Maher school than that of more recent — and strident — right wing provocateurs.)
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