A friend of mine hyped me around this film, that due to its critical stance towards transgenderism, it had been blamed by many as «transphobic». Not only that but we also saw the trailer, which gave us a small bite of the upcoming controversy and one of the interviewees appearing there was Jordan Peterson himself. This was guaranteed to be a courageous attempt to question the current woke ideology and we were up for the ride.
Now that I have watched this “documentary” (don’t ignore the quotations marks) I must remind the reader that I myself don’t buy into the identity politics of today and that I am highly critical of the SJW movement. Even though I do hold certain opinions that would land me in the conservative spectrum, I wouldn’t like to be classified as a conservative right winger. Why? Because I like to have an opinion of my own without having me being carved into a specific political cliché.
I can understand that Matt Walsh has certain biases when dealing with different subjects. There is nothing wrong with it, since we all do. Nevertheless what I do find problematic is when certain people stop being people with biases, like we all are, but turn into biases with lips and vocal cords themselves.
That doesn’t mean that I don’t agree per se with many of the interviewees criticizing the current political climate regarding sex and gender. Quite on the contrary, major issues like sex reassignment for minors, transgenders winning athletic competitions against biological women and sex offenders faking being transgender to enter women saunas are often ignored if not denied completely their existance. We need to address these problems without resorting to the comfortable silence where many lay on their backs today. A voice must be heard and the seek for truth is more necessary than ever these days.
Nevertheless what I find troubling is that Walsh sells “What is a Woman?” as a seek for truth, which ultimately it isn’t at all. Instead of trying to objectively hear «the other side» in the seek for the coveted truth, he clearly treats some of his interviewees in a condescending and arrogant way.
The first example is when talking with Dr. Forcier, she mentions that if a male child believes that he is indeed a female, then his statement should be believed regardless of his age. Of course I myself, as most of the audience, find this rather problematic. Walsh too, obviously, but he uses a terrible paradox to illustrate his point. He asks if a four year old believes that Santa Claus is real why should we believe what he says. I try to imagine Walsh using this same example, but instead with a staunch christian conservative (I think that this description fits a big part of his audience) saying that he believes in a bearded all-powerful man living in the sky. Can you imagine that?
And this is the lesser of the sins of this so-called “documentary”.
Another example is the lack of journalistic integrity when he interviewed Dr. Patrick Grzanka, a gender studies professor. Walsh asks him about the difference between gender and sex; and Grzanka answers in all honesty that it took him and his classroom an entire semester to deal with that question. When he explains further the details of the difference it is all fast forwarded in a very disrespectful manner. Although I understand that due to the length of the documentary, he (Dr. Grzanka) couldn’t have gotten that much screen time, Walsh could have used a different method instead of what he did. You cannot fast forward the response to a question that in academia takes months if not years to dissect and to even try to answer. To even define a term, many definitions of different authors across history are compared and pondered. That’s a scientific method. That’s the method of academia.
But Walsh is a different animal. Here’s a quote of him when Dr. Grzanka slowly grows annoyed by his antics and directly asks him what is his “truth”:
«Well I don’t think that I really have the truth, I think that there is just THE TRUTH. Like THE REALITY. And so we should begin by trying to figure out what the reality is»
Yes, the reality is that a woman is an adult human female, as said by Matt Walsh’s wife at the end of the movie before asking him to open a glass of pickles for her in a dramatized depiction of their daily life.
If it is so… then why make a fucking 90 min movie about it?
Then later in the movie (because it has more of fiction than reality thanks to the many dramatizations), when Walsh interviews Naia Okami, a woman that identifies itself as a wolf, he asks her to act like an animal in front of the camera for the sake of humiliating her and she smartly declines.
And that’s my problem with Walsh: he doesn’t treat all his interviewees with the same respect and professionalism required. Supposedly he is on a journey to seek the truth, but the only thing he does is to pander his moronic neo-conservative ideology onto his audience. Just the end of the entire film summarizes what it is. Nothing more than a lecture on what he believes how the world, according to his neo-conservative wet dream, should be.
And this is really sad, because, yes, the current woke political discourse is dangerous and quite totalitarian. Yes, we should ask the most uncomfortable questions even if they offend anyone. Yes, yes, yes and a thousand times yes. But making a cartoonish propaganda while presenting one-self as impartial or objective investigator is exactly the same shit, that I detest from many people on the left.
If you want to watch a decent documentary, watch «The Red Pill» by Cassie Jaye; a feminist that interviewed members of the men’s rights movement and that filmed herself as she slowly changed her mind about them. That’s true commitment to listening to a different uncomfortable opinion other than yours.
If you want to watch this «doc» ask a friend that already has access to it to give it to you. Don’t pay the stupid subscription to The Wire for some hour and a half propaganda.
Radwulf
22.06.2022
