Why Critics Are Running Scared From My Movie

Aside from taking my word for it, there are a few different ways you can decide whether my new film “Am I Racist?” is worth seeing in theaters. You can look at the audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, where we’re sitting at 99% audience rating — what Rotten Tomatoes calls “Verified Fresh.” That means that 99% of the people who actually watched the movie — the verified audience — liked it. So, you can look at that or you can look at the box office returns, which put us in the top 5 of all films in the genre released in the past decade, and the top 4 this weekend. Or you could watch the interviews and trailers and behind-the-scenes videos.

But if you really want to know how effective the film is, there’s an even better, much simpler option. You can just take a look at what professional, mainstream movie critics are saying about the film. You can go to websites like Time and The New Yorker and IndieWire and Rolling Stone and The New York Times and the AP, head over to their movie reviews section, and search for “Am I Racist?”. And what you’ll find is … absolutely nothing. None of these outlets have said a word about the film. In fact, as of today, there is not a single mainstream movie critic who has reviewed “Am I Racist?”, two days after the film’s opening weekend.

As far as I can tell, “Am I Racist?” is the only top-5 box office film that hasn’t had a single mainstream critic review by the end of its opening weekend. I am not aware of a single other case of this happening, ever. To get a sense of how unusual this is, consider a couple of other movies that also debuted in theaters this weekend — like “The Killer’s Game” for example. It was playing in 1,000 more theaters than our film. It also grossed 2.6 million dollars against a budget of $30 million.

For comparison, “Am I Racist?” grossed more than 4.5 million dollars against a budget of $3 million. So our movie performed a lot better, despite having a smaller budget and appearing in fewer theaters. We also have a much higher audience score. And yet, “The Killer’s Game” has an official critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, coming in around 38%. There are more than 30 critic reviews for the film. 

Meanwhile, the film called “My Old Ass,” which apparently is not a Biden biopic, also came out September 13. It was only in seven theaters this weekend, as part of a limited release, and made $170,000. So it didn’t even rank in the box office top-10 this weekend. But it has an official Rotten Tomatoes critic score as well, with more than 85 critic reviews.

If “Am I Racist?” were a bad film — if we didn’t succeed in doing what we set out to do — then this wouldn’t be happening. We’d be getting panned by every mainstream outlet. They’ve done that to a lot of other media created by people outside the Hollywood bubble. Usually if they have an opportunity to rip a piece of “conservative” entertainment to shreds, they are more than happy to take advantage of it. But they’re not doing that here. Instead, they’re ignoring “Am I Racist?” entirely, as if it doesn’t exist. They’re terrified to even mention a film that mocks the DEI industry because they know that the DEI industry can only survive if no one is allowed to question it. 

Am I Racist? Is In Theaters NOW — Get Your Tickets Here!

Also, our movie is actually good. I think that’s what scares them the most. I know that sounds self-serving. Saying that critics aren’t reviewing my movie because it’s too good sounds like some grade-A, hardcore cope. But in this case it’s true. I invite any critic to challenge me on that point. 

So this is why they won’t write about our film, even to condemn it. It’s the same approach we saw with “What is a Woman?“, except it’s even more flagrant this time. They can’t hide behind the excuse that the film is only available on a streaming platform anymore. These mainstream reviewers, in this case, are deliberately ignoring a theatrical release in more than 1,500 theaters. 

At the same time, as I outlined last night on Twitter, we did receive a handful of reactions from independent critics when we sent out screeners for the film back in mid-August. And many of the responses from these critics strongly suggested that the mere presence of the screener in their inbox had triggered a full-on mental breakdown. 

One critic wrote, “You’d have to strap me to a chair like Malcolm McDowell to get me to watch this thing.”

Another responded with this: “Ew. Take me off of this list.”

As for more mainstream outlets, some of them did indicate some potential interest in writing a review. One of those outlets was Variety — which actually wrote a pretty fair article covering our film’s expansion into 1,500 theaters about a week ago. But they still haven’t reviewed the film. In fact, they wrote in an article that The Daily Wire, “did not screen [the movie] for critics.” That’s an odd claim to make, especially since we sent Variety a screener of the film. We asked them to correct that error, and they didn’t. 

Meanwhile, Rolling Stone was one of the first outlets to request a screener all the way back in July. But they still haven’t published a review either, which is too bad, because I was really looking forward to their take. They went on a tirade about my last film, labeling it “transphobic,” so I can’t wait to see their meltdown over “Am I Racist?”. Maybe that’s coming. We can only hope.

WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show

But there are some independent critics who aren’t this cowardly. Jeremy Jahns is one of them. He has a large fanbase on YouTube, with about two million followers. He’s the single biggest independent reviewer who’s reviewed our film. I encourage you to watch the whole thing, because he makes a lot of smart observations. Here’s part of it:

The introduction to that review is maybe the most interesting part. It’s clear that Jeremy Jahns understood that, by reviewing my film, he’d get a lot of backlash from the Left. That’s not because anyone on the Left has actually seen the film. It’s because activists on the Left can’t tolerate any kind of mockery of their ideology. They know that nothing they believe survives any scrutiny, and it certainly doesn’t survive satire. That’s the case with gender ideology, which is why they were so outraged by “What is a Woman?“. And it’s true of DEI as well.

The simplest thing to do, if Jeremy Jahns wanted to avoid this inevitable backlash, would have been to ignore the film like everyone else. Then he wouldn’t have a horde of angry, unhappy people attacking him on social media. But Jahns decided that the film looked interesting, so he reviewed it. 

In fact, he says that his hesitation about reviewing the film ultimately made it more interesting to him. And that makes sense. Forbidden topics are more interesting than the usual, rote corporate propaganda. For making that decision, Jahns has been subjected to a smear campaign over the last 48 hours. 

A guy named Jeff Zhang, for example, wrote: “Mainstream criticism is in pretty dire straits, but most critics can still recognize dog whistle tripe when they see it. Also, Jeremy Jahns hasn’t leveled-up his film analysis once in almost two decades.” 

For the record, Jeff Zhang calls himself a “film critic,” and here, he’s demeaning another critic for reviewing a film. Jeff Zhang has not seen “Am I Racist?”, but he’s calling it “dog whistle tripe,” and then he’s launching into a personal attack on someone who has seen the film. And then, for good measure, Jeff Zhang laments the state of “mainstream criticism.” It’s maybe the least self-aware post ever made on X, which is really saying something.

Zhang illustrates a major underlying problem with the movie industry very well, which is that the role of “film critic” has changed a lot in recent years. They now think that their job is to enforce ideological orthodoxy, not to review films. In that sense, film critics are no different from the swarm of online Left-wing activists who relentlessly attacked Jeremy Jahns all day yesterday. There were hundreds of posts accusing him of “embracing full-blown racism” and taking money from The Daily Wire and so on. Reddit was especially furious. There were posts saying Jahns was “openly racist and fascist” and was “preparing to become a right-wing grifter.” 

Matt Jarbo, who runs some kind of film podcast, wrote: “Midlife crisis Jeremy Jahns is not the villain origin story I was expecting.” Yes, for reviewing a film, a film critic is having a “midlife crisis.” He’s become a “villain.”

This is how they’re enforcing the near-total blackout of mainstream reviews for “Am I Racist?”. They don’t want anyone to even mention the film. Fortunately, not every reviewer is going along with it. The folks at FilmThreat also just posted a lengthy and quite interesting review of the film. Here’s part of it:

It would be interesting to see what “Jeff Zhang” and “Matt Jarbo” think of FilmThreat’s review. Is everyone at FilmThreat having a mid-life crisis too, because they reviewed a movie? Are they also villains for liking it? Is that guy a fascist white supremacist for laughing about the Jussie Smollett scene? 

These kinds of mob tactics stop working the moment people stand up to them. As soon as people disregard the activists and actually watch the movie, or watch some of these independent reviews, then they immediately realize how absurd the smears really are. That’s why their real goal has been to prevent anyone from seeing the movie in the first place. They don’t want theaters to show this film — and at least one theater in Northern California relented a few days ago.

The Del Oro Theater / Prime Cinemas in California posted this message on September 12th. This is a paragraph that belongs in a museum of cowardice. It should be a monument to Left-wing censorship, to show to future generations how desperately the Left seeks to censor anything — even a film — that they find objectionable. 

“Due to the strong reactions from our community (for and against the film), and concerns for the well-being of our staff, we will not be playing the film Am I Racist as originally intended. Please know that it was not our intention to cause such division by playing this film. We noticed that many of the theaters in the Sacramento area were booked to play this film and quite frankly this reaction caught us off guard. The safety of our staff is our number one priority. Please accept our apologies.”

As reported by @robbystarbuck, left wing activists are bullying theaters into dropping our film. This theater just issued an apology.

The only way to stop the Left from shutting down the film is to support the theaters that are showing it. Tickets here: https://t.co/iJv1cNRoWV pic.twitter.com/JCpR7Ft8tf

— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) September 13, 2024

So there’s the usual vague claim that people’s “safety” is in danger if they screen a film that Left-wing activists don’t like. And in this context, it’s a pretty ironic claim if you’ve seen the film. I won’t spoil anything but suffice it to say, this is such a stock complaint of insane Left-wing activists that it found its way into a prominent scene towards the beginning of “Am I Racist?”. And as usual, it doesn’t stand up to any scrutiny. It’s a laugh line, actually, because of how melodramatic and neurotic the claim is. No one on the Right is threatening anyone because of this film. This film does not endanger anyone’s safety. 

WATCH THE TRAILER FOR ‘AM I RACIST?’ — A MATT WALSH COMEDY ON DEI

What they’re really suggesting in that theater in Northern California, if that statement means anything at all, is that Left-wing activists might get violent if the film is shown. That’s the implicit statement that they’re making, whether they believe it or not. That’s how enraged these activists are, all because of our film.  They’re furious because of a documentary that allows the foremost fake experts in DEI to speak, at length, without any unfair editing whatsoever. And they’re enraged by this conceit for a few reasons. One of them is that the modern Left is intellectually bankrupt. They can’t defend any of their nonsense with an actual argument, so they have to resort to threats and hysteria.

The other reason they’re furious is that, right now, we are insurgents in the movie industry. The Left believes that it owns the entire art form of film. I’ve even gotten comments calling me a “grifter” for making this movie. In their world, any conservative who makes a movie must be a con artist running some kind of scam. It can’t possibly be that we love film, too, and want to use it to tell our own stories. That’s not something that these activists even consider within the realm of possibility. But it’s the truth. The film industry has been dominated by one ideology for so long that these people have come to expect that every film, and every artistic work in general, will mirror their world view. The Left in Hollywood have maintained a monopoly for a very long time. They’ve successfully pressured distributors and studios into producing the same narratives over and over again, all in the service of weeding out any semblance of competition. But after the success of “Am I Racist?,” it’s clear that — whether mainstream critics and publications want to hide from it or not —  competition has finally arrived.