The Real Reason ‘Am I Racist?’ Was Snubbed By The Oscars

I have to confess that I don’t spend any amount of time using the app known as “Bluesky,” which is the Left’s alternative to X. And there are a lot of reasons for that.

One of them is that, if I started posting on Bluesky, my account would be nuked within about five seconds. It’s an app that doesn’t tolerate any kind of dissent from Left-wing orthodoxy. It’s an echo chamber in the purest form. If you’re not there to commiserate with self-loathing trans activists, or to come up with clever new ways that a special counsel could remove Donald Trump from office, then there’s just not much to do. In other words, it’s what every social media platform on the internet used to be, before Elon Musk got involved.

That being said, you can make the case that Bluesky still serves a purpose. It offers the same value proposition that MSNBC provided on election night, which is this: When Left-wingers assemble, and shut out everyone who disagrees with them, then at the very least, the melt-downs can be pretty entertaining. They can also reveal a lot about the Left’s thinking — and what’s going on in the institutions they control.

Case in point: If, for some reason, you’ve found yourself on Bluesky lately, then you know that — to the great surprise of Left-wing activists — they’re starting to lose control over one of their most powerful weapons in the culture war and in Hollywood, which is Disney.

The big story over on Bluesky recently has been that Disney just pulled an episode of the Marvel animated series “Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur.” According to leaked footage online, the episode is about a boy who identifies as transgender, and wants to join a girl’s volleyball team. The coach of the team is completely fine with this — either because he’s a really enlightened activist, or because he just wants to win really badly. It’s not clear. But the coach of an opposing team (who looks extremely menacing, and whose name is “Greer”) takes issue with this whole arrangement.

As the episode progresses, the boy says lines like, “I’m trans, my very existence breaks Greer’s rules.” He also wears “Pride-themed kneepads” and has a “trans is beautiful” sticker on his water bottle. Other players — including one who identifies as “non-binary” — call Greer “narrow-minded.” Ultimately, the evil coach Greer uses some kind of magical curse to confine the boy and his teammates to the locker room. She basically kidnaps them and puts their lives in danger in the process. At one point a character trapped in the locker room says, “we could literally die.”

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So this is not exactly a subtle piece of trans activism. It’s a transparent attempt to indoctrinate children into believing that there’s nothing strange at all about a boy playing girl’s volleyball, or the idea that girls can transform into boys. And of course, the episode also intends to demonize any adult who says otherwise. (And by the way, in case you’re curious, I watched some of the footage online. The episode ends with the boy player becoming really frustrated that he’s trapped in the locker room by the evil coach who hates him because he identifies as transgender. So he punches his fists really hard into the floor, and breaks through the ground — revealing that it’s actually an LCD screen. So I guess that, even in fictional cartoon works of trans activism, so-called “trans girls” are prone to uncontrollable, testosterone-fueled outbursts).

No part of this production is surprising in any way, coming from Disney. What is surprising is that — at least for now — Disney has pulled the episode. For once, they’ve decided that the indoctrination is just too on-the-nose. And over on Bluesky, someone who worked in the show’s art department — named Derrick Malik Johnson, pronouns “he/him” — posted this message to explain why. It’s not the most grammatical post in the world, but here it is: 

With writing skills like that, I’m sure this guy will be hired by Disney to script the next Marvel film. Anyway, officially, Disney has denied that they’ve pulled this episode because of the election, or because people are tired of trans activism posing as children’s entertainment. They’re also suggesting that they’re not influenced in any way by the fact that female volleyball players have been severely injured by “trans-identifying” male players.

But more recently, in the context of yet another programming change, Disney has been more forthright about their motivations. They’ve just eliminated a so-called “trans storyline” in an upcoming episode of their animated series “Win or Lose,” which is out early next year on Disney+.

As the Hollywood Reporter put it yesterday:

Pixar’s original animated series ‘Win or Lose’ will no longer include a transgender storyline in a later episode. … The series follows a co-ed middle school softball team named the Pickles in the week leading up to their championship game. Each of the eight episodes center on the off-the-field life of a character and their point of view, whether it be a player, a parent, a coach or an umpire.

Here’s the statement that Disney provided the Hollywood Reporter, to explain the change:

When it comes to animated content for a younger audience, we recognize that many parents would prefer to discuss certain subjects with their children on their own terms and timeline.

Just a few months ago, a statement like that would’ve been unthinkable, coming from Disney. They were promoting their bold decision to include “non-binary” characters with “they/them” pronouns in films like “Elemental” as recently as last year. They had the same-sex kiss in “Lightyear” and so on. Now they’re coming right out and saying, in effect, that it’s inappropriate to use cartoons to indoctrinate children into trans ideology. Of course that statement doesn’t go nearly far enough. But it’s certainly a start — and it’s another sign, among many that we’ve seen in recent weeks, that we’re seeing a very rapid and profound change in American culture, particularly as it relates to trans activism.

But that’s not to say that we’ve won the battle for our culture, particularly in Hollywood. We’re a long way from that victory. And the other day we got a very clear reminder of that fact, when my film “Am I Racist?” — the top documentary film of this year by a mile, and the top documentary film of the decade — was snubbed from Oscar contention in the nonfiction category. We didn’t even make the shortlist of the top 15 films, which they eventually whittle down to the final 5 nominees. As far as snubs go, objectively speaking, this was a pretty big one. Not a surprising one by any means, but still a big one.

As Deadline reports:

Am I Racist?, the controversial documentary that satirizes Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives, failed to make the Oscar shortlist of nonfiction features today, despite earning more money at the box office than any other documentary this year, by far. … It scooped up more than $12 million at the domestic box office, but that wasn’t enough to sway the minds of Academy Documentary Branch members, who determine the shortlist (as well as the eventual five Oscar nominees).

Yes, the minds of the “Academy Documentary Branch members” have apparently decided that documentary audiences don’t know anything about documentaries. We might have an audience score on Rotten Tomatoes of above 95%, and we might’ve exceeded box office totals for documentaries going back six or seven years. But in the end, none of that matters.

What does matter is what the “Academy Documentary Branch members” think. And these Academy Documentary branch members, according to the Academy, have, “demonstrated exceptional achievement in the field of theatrical motion pictures,” mostly by producing their own documentaries. And they have decided that “Am I Racist?” is not, in fact, an achievement in the field of theatrical motion pictures. Some of these branch members have even produced films that have grossed more than $50,000 internationally, so you know they’re qualified to make that determination. They have their finger on the pulse of audiences everywhere.

Screenshot courtesy: DailyWire.

So what films did meet the branch members’ high standards this year? It turns out that, to no one’s surprise whatsoever, they rewarded a handful of films that address political issues from a Left-wing perspective. This is from Deadline’s report once again:

Films that focus on political questions beyond U.S. borders did get love from the doc branch voters, among them The Bibi Files, Alexis Bloom’s documentary that serves as a brutal takedown of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. … No Other Land, a frontrunner for the Oscars, condemns Israeli government policy in the occupied West Bank. … Union, the documentary directed by Brett Story and Stephen Maing … follows the first successful campaign to unionize an Amazon warehouse operation – a facility located on New York’s Staten Island.

Ah yes, who could forget “Union,” the highly compelling documentary? The one that followed that successful campaign to unionize an Amazon warehouse and make your Amazon deliveries slightly more expensive. It was a film that audiences just couldn’t get enough of. After all, it’s a documentary that grossed a whopping $47,000 at the domestic box office, which is more or less what we got with “Am I Racist?,” minus around $12 million. It’s also a movie that no one has said a word about, but who cares? In terms of cultural impact and relevance in the year 2024, you’ve got “Union,” and then — far, far down the list — you’ve got “Am I Racist?”.

To be clear, of course, this is an entirely expected outcome. No one here is bent out of shape in shock and horror because the Academy isn’t celebrating us. We didn’t make the movie in order to seek validation from Left-wing activists in Hollywood, and it’s no great surprise that we didn’t get it.

But two things can be true at the same time. This snub can be completely predictable and unsurprising, while also being outrageous and totally discrediting for the Academy Awards. If a conservative can make a documentary that crushes every other film in its genre that year and beats every film in its genre in the past six or seven, and yet still not even crack the top 15 by the Academy’s standards, that means that conservatives are simply excluded from having their work recognized by Hollywood. There is no other way to interpret it.

Granted, box office totals and audience reception don’t necessarily mean that a film is awards worthy. It would be easy to point out that super hero films always — or at least, until recently always — make billions of dollars and achieve high audience scores. Does that mean “Spider-Man” should win the award for best picture? No, it doesn’t. However, if there was a short list for best picture — if they whittled it down to the top 15 — then yes you would expect the highest grossing film of the year to at least be in the running for consideration.

MATT WALSH’S ‘AM I RACIST?’ NOW STREAMING ON DAILYWIRE+

More to the point, documentaries are a different animal entirely. It is very easy for a big budget super hero film from a major studio to earn a lot of money. It’s basically guaranteed. On the other hand, it is extremely difficult to create a documentary that makes even $1 million at the box office, let alone $12 million. That is proven by the fact that our film is in the top 35 all-time, among all documentaries that have ever been made, for domestic box office totals. What this means is that, in the non-fiction category, it is very challenging to tell a story and explore an issue in a way that a large audience finds compelling and interesting. That is, after all, the whole point of a documentary. If your documentary doesn’t connect with people, then by definition it cannot be good and should not be in the running to win any award.

The performance of our film — both in the theaters and on our platform — proves that we succeeded not just financially but artistically. We explored an issue and told a story in a compelling and interesting way. Which means, yes, at a bare minimum we should be in the running for a nomination. And by all rights we should get the nomination, and win. But none of those things happened, purely because of politics.

And whether you want to admit it or not, that does have larger ramifications for our culture. It affects the kinds of films and shows that Hollywood produces. More importantly, it affects what our children see, as well. Disney is relenting, as I mentioned earlier, but only to a point. This is very much an ongoing fight.

One thing I’ve learned after getting into filmmaking is that the Left truly believes it owns the art of filmmaking. Any conservative who makes a film is an intruder, a sinister usurper showing up in a place where he doesn’t belong. The truth is that the success of my films — and they are both, easily, the most watched and influential documentaries of the decade — actually makes it less likely that they’ll be recognized by critics or awards. Our success is an affront to them. They hate us for it. They feel personally insulted by it.

If this snub tells us anything, it’s that we’re angering all the right people. And unfortunately for the esteemed “Academy Documentary Branch members,” all they’ve accomplished this week is guaranteeing that we’re not going to stop.