‘Am I Racist?’, a mockumentary produced by and starring Matt Walsh, is hitting dozens of theatres across Canada throughout the week.
Sébastien Roback
Canadian Anti-Hate Network
Source: Pexels/Husam Wafaei
A movie mocking diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts, produced by a far-right media company, is playing in major theatres across Canada.
"Am I Racist" is a mockumentary starring Matt Walsh, and produced by Ben Shapiro’s media company Daily Wire. A trailer for the movie shows Walsh going "undercover" as a DEI expert, mocking anti-racist activists, and downplaying the impact of racism in the United States.
In the movie, Walsh wears a wig and poses as a "DEI expert" in order to access anti-racism workshops and interview DEI practitioners. Not unlike films like Borat, Am I Racist mixes slapstick and unscripted interactions. He uses the format to mock the core ideals of diversity, equity and inclusion.
In one of the very first scenes of the movie, Walsh, in his covert role, is a guest on a morning news show and brings up the idea that white North Americans should recognize the fact that their society was built on Indigenous land. He then engages the hosts in a ridiculous stretching exercise aiming to "stretch out of their whiteness." This tactic, used throughout the film, aims to depict legitimate beliefs as worthy of ridicule.
Still image from the ‘Am I Racist’ trailer. Source: YouTube
In another scene, Walsh attempts to get signatures on a petition to rename the George Washington Monument after George Floyd on the basis that the first American President owned slaves. He then uses the opportunity to make jokes regarding the phallic shape of the structure and stereotypes involving Black men.
Walsh is perhaps best known for his previous movie, "What is a Woman," an anti-transgender documentary which has faced extensive criticism for spreading inaccurate information about transgender healthcare and for the makers’ use of dishonest tactics in order to obtain interviews.
This new movie shows Walsh reprising much of the same approach. Robin DiAngelo, an affiliate associate professor at the University of Washington who is featured in the film, released a statement saying the makers lied about the nature of the film and used fictitious identities in order to secure an interview with her.
"Their deception was carefully planned and well-funded. The website they had sent me was fake, as were their identities," said DiAngelo, who authored the New York Times bestseller "White Fragility."
In several scenes, Walsh misrepresents the views of those he interviews, with edits seemingly indicating that their responses to his oftentimes derisory line of questioning – including a five minute snippet wherein he asks a DEI practitioner whether he should be able to buy a Moana costume for his daughter – have been truncated in order to make them look equally laughable.
In spite of this, Am I Racist? is getting a full theatrical release, with no less than 49 theatres across Canada and large chains including Cineplex, Galaxy, Landmark, as well as Scotiabank carrying the film.
An ex-employee of Glenn Beck’s The Blaze, Matt Walsh is a pundit, occasional actor, and podcast host. His role as the narrator and star of the 2022 movie "What is a Woman" secured his place as a major figure in the far-right media sphere.
According to an extremist file published by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Walsh "frequently demonizes LGBTQ+ people" and promotes "racist and anti-transgender conspiracy theories." He has led efforts to push companies to refrain from using 2SLGBTQA+ Pride as part of their branding.
In a March, 2023 episode of his YouTube show, Walsh tells his audience: "The gay pride flag signifies drag queens dancing for toddlers, males invading women’s bathrooms. It signifies castration drugs given to children. It signifies the destruction of the nuclear family. When government officials send that thing up the flagpole or paint its ridiculous colors in the street, that is what they’re promoting. It’s what they’re advertising. It is the cause they want us to salute. Not only should we refuse to salute it, but we should treat it with disdain. We should treat it as a hate symbol because that’s what it is."
Walsh, who once described a child coming out as transgender to his parents as "a fate worse than death in a lot of ways" and that womens' suffrage was an error, also routinely expresses racist beliefs.
In the aftermath of the 2022 Buffalo shooting, committed by a supremacist who cited the belief that white people were being replaced through immigration, Walsh told his audience that the "so-called Great Replacement… isn’t a conspiracy theory… it’s a fact."
He also once described reports of mass graves in Canada’s genocidal residential schools as "one of the greatest and most destructive hoax in history," alleging a conspiracy to "demonize Christians."
Cineplex Entertainment and Landmark Cinemas did not respond to our request for comments.
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