‘The secret sauce is comedy’ — Matt Walsh and Daily Wire Studios are taking aim at DEI

In the opening scene of the new film “Am I Racist,” Matt Walsh strides onto the set of “Good Things Utah,” a show produced by Salt Lake City’s ABC4, and is enthusiastically greeted by the hosts, who introduce him as a certified DEI expert. Walsh, wearing a blazer, jeans and hairpiece drawn into a “man bun,” then leads the women in a stretching exercise designed to “stretch out their whiteness.” They are smiling throughout, but it’s clear the hosts are wondering what they’ve gotten themselves into.
What they got themself into was theaters across the country — whether they wanted to be on the big screen or not.
“Am I Racist?” is the first film that Daily Wire, a conservative media company known as the home base of personalities like Walsh, Michael Knowles and Ben Shapiro, has released in theaters. Walsh’s previous film, 2022′s “What Is a Woman?,” was only available through streaming on the Daily Wire website. Both films are of a genre often described as “mockumentary” — a documentary-style film that uses satire to make its points, sometimes at the expense of the subjects.
It is a format used by the English comedian Sacha Baron Cohen who adopts the persona of a fictional character called “Borat” in his films, two of which are set in America. Is Walsh becoming the Borat of the political right? Like Cohen, his films put the subjects, and often the audience, in deeply uncomfortable places, and the filmmakers at times misrepresent themselves in order to advance their storylines.
ABC4 did not respond to repeated requests for comment about the footage used in the film.
But Christian Toto, an independent journalist and podcaster who covers Hollywood from a conservative point of view, said both men “are trying to expose thinking.”
“Obviously, there’s a lot of awkward, uncomfortable comedy that comes out of both camps. There’s some overlap there for sure. But I think Matt Walsh has said — and I think this is fair — that he is not really making fun of the people (like Borat was). He’s making fun of the ideology.”
Some of Walsh’s targets might not agree.
In “What is a Woman?” Walsh traveled the world asking people to answer the question, in a quest to point out what he considers untenable and ridiculous aspects of gender ideology. In “Am I Racist?” he stays in the United States, and for part of the film, assumes a different identity, in order to give the same treatment to DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) programs, which he considers to be an industry made up largely of charlatans and grifters. As part of the film, he obtains “DEI certification” online which enabled him to conduct workshops and appear on TV shows like “Good Things Utah,” speaking as an authority on the subject.
“Literally anyone can get DEI certified, is what we discovered,” Walsh said on the Jordan Peterson podcast. “It’s not like becoming certified to be a plumber or electrician. It’s not a real profession. It’s not a real thing. So anyone can get certified, anyone can declare themselves an expert.”
At one website featured in the movie, two-year DEI certification is offered for $29.99 for anyone who can pass the test. The website says it takes about an hour to complete the online training and you can take the test at no additional cost until you pass it. “You are guaranteed a certificate,” the website says.
Of course, other kinds of DEI training are much more involved; some colleges and universities now offer degrees in the field. An online certification program at the University of Utah’s David Eccles School of Business requires two hours a week of study for 15 weeks. And despite a growing backlash, many people argue that DEI initiatives, to include the hiring of “chief diversity officers” at businesses and universities, are necessary to ensure that workplaces are welcoming and inclusive.
Actor John Leguizamo also spoke in favor of DEI at the Emmy Awards ceremony, calling himself a “DEI hire” and saying Hollywood needs to make “more stories from excluded groups: Black, Asian, Jewish, Arab, LGBTQ+ and disabled.”
Many conservatives, however, say that it’s their viewpoint that is not represented in Hollywood, and that films like “Am I Racist?” and “What is a Woman?” are finally giving them a reason to return to the theater.
In two of the most talked about scenes in the movie, Walsh goes undercover to interview Robin DiAngelo, a scholar of race and social justice issues and the author of “White Fragility,” and, posing as a bumbling waiter, infiltrates a dinner organized through Race2Dinner, a project in which white women pay thousands of dollars to have conversations about white supremacy, racism and xenophobia with the project’s leaders, two women of color.
In another scene, Walsh and an assistant go to the National Mall in Washington and ask passers-by to sign a petition to change the name of the Washington Monument to the George Floyd Monument. A majority of the people they approached seemed enthusiastic about the idea and sign.
That was shocking to the film’s director and co-writer, Justin Folk, who told me, “We didn’t think we were going to have much luck, honestly. We thought that people were going to look at us like we had two heads when we told them we wanted to rename the monument … But the opposite was true. We had trouble finding people who wouldn’t sign it. It was a little unsettling, actually, that Americans would be willing to get rid of their history to absolve themselves of any guilt.”
Walsh is not the first person to raise eyebrows at Race2Dinner, which one 2021 article described as “Guilty Parties.” Like DiAngelo, the hosts of the dinners, Regina Jackson and Saira Rao, were already controversial before Walsh showed up, but their statements during the dinner are shocking. They ask the well-dressed women seated around the table to describe things they have done recently that are racist, and then say, among other things, “Republicans are Nazis,” “This country isn’t worth saving” and “Whiteness robs you of your brain.”
In her segment, DiAngelo tells Walsh that she has conducted workshops for companies like Netflix, Google and Amazon and patiently coaches him on race-related issues, while he leads her into a role-playing exercise and, eventually, into pulling out her purse to offer cash to a Black person accompanying Walsh as “reparations.”
Like several others in the film, DiAngelo had been paid by the filmmakers for the interview — in DiAngelo’s case, $15,000. Walsh has said DiAngelo and others were paid because, to his mind, that is part of the story — that DEI is a moneymaker for many people.
On her website, DiAngelo published a statement responding to the film, which she said she will not see. The statement says, in part:
“Back in 2023, I was contacted by a group who claimed to be making a documentary film called Shades of Justice, about efforts to address racism in the United States. They planned to interview anti-racist activists, authors and thought leaders in service of supporting the cause of racial equity. They offered me between $10-20,000 for an interview. I said let’s meet in the middle with $15,000 and agreed to participate (I have since donated that sum to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund).
“When I arrived for the interview, a few things felt off. The grips would not make eye contact with me and the interviewer, who was introduced as ‘Matt,’ appeared to be wearing an ill-fitting wig. Matt presented himself as someone new to antiracist work and seemed earnest, and his questions did not come across as adversarial. By the end, however, things got weird.”
She went on to say that she expressed her concerns after the interview, and had asked that the part about reparations not be included, because that wasn’t how reparations are supposed to work. She added: “Their deception was carefully planned and well-funded. The website they had sent me was fake, as were their identities, the project title used in the legal waiver, their description of the project, and the last name they gave for Matt.” She referred people to the website of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which identifies Walsh as an “extremist” and accuses him of white supremacist rhetoric and violent speech.
While much of the film mocks the excesses of DEI, it also makes its point in moving conversations when Walsh approaches ordinary Americans and engages them in conversations about race. In this, he makes clear that DEI discussions so prevalent in academia and business don’t trickle down to everyday life in small towns, where many people try to live their lives color-blind, are perplexed by the concept of “white fragility” and say that racism isn’t a problem in their lives.
In his conversation with Walsh, Jordan Peterson, no stranger to controversy himself, said that he would not be comfortable doing what Walsh did in order to make a point and asked how Walsh how he is able to do so, and how it felt.
“In the moment, it’s extremely uncomfortable and not fun, as you can image. … I wouldn’t choose recreationally to be in those rooms with those people.” He went on to say, “I am a human being, and so it does go against our wiring to intentionally say and do things that are going to create more tension and are going to bring attention to you in a very negative way. I don’t think anyone is wired to do that, at least I’m not. …
“But the fact that we’re making a film and trying to tell a story, we’re attempting to reveal something — in a humorous, comedic way — I just have that ever present in my mind. … So to me, when we’re making a movie, it’s like that comes first: what do we need for the scene, what do we need for the story, here’s what we need for it, and I’m just going to go in and get it, no matter what.”
At least one theater cancelled its planned showing of the film after complaints, but the film was dubbed “hilarious” in The Wall Street Journal and The Hollywood Reporter called it a “surprise hit.” Per that publication, “Over the Sept. 13-15 weekend, Am I Racist? — fueled by conservative moviegoers in cities like Nashville, Denver, Phoenix, Dallas and Meridian, a suburb of Boise, Idaho — seemingly came out of nowhere to gross $4.5 million from 1,517 screens across North America — the top opening for a political documentary since Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 two decades ago in 2004. The movie shot up the chart to No. 4 and did almost double the business of Dave Bautista’s action-thriller The Killer’s Game ($2.6 million).”
Last week, it was playing in 1,600 theaters, with more being added, and performing best in the South, Midwest and Central Mountain states, according to The Hollywood Reporter. So far, the film has made more than $9 million.
According to Christian Toto, the Denver-based host of the “Hollywood in Toto” podcast, “The secret sauce here is comedy. This is a very funny movie. And I think the comedy makes the ideology go down easier,” he said, noting that late-night talk show hosts have long exerted political influence using humor. There’s also a novelty factor involved in Walsh’s success, he said. “This is not being done anywhere else … And at the end of the day, what Matt Walsh is doing is letting these DEI experts speak. And if that hurts them, that’s on them if they can’t defend their ideology.”
Folk, the director, said the goal of “Am I Racist?” was not to embarrass people but to expose “bad ideas” — although, he added, “when people are advancing bad ideas, you do have to put them on the spot.” In contrast, he thinks the Borat movies were mean-spirited and intended to ridicule ordinary people.
He believes that “What is a Woman?”, which he also directed, helped people who felt they were being bulldozed by progressive ideology become more comfortable in expressing their opinions. “Both are subjects that people don’t want to touch. It’s just not easy to talk about these things. But it’s important to talk about these things.”
“They say politics is downstream from culture, and I think ‘What is a Woman?’ proved that,” he said, citing changes in laws regarding transgender medical care in the past few years. “It changed the conversation. It allowed people to be courageous on the issue. I think for a long time people were afraid to talk about the issue … but the film allowed people to say, ‘I stand with that. That makes sense to me.’ It gave people courage to speak out and say, ‘no, I don’t agree with what is going on here’.”
As for a followup, Folk said the Daily Wire team is kicking around ideas for another film, but none that he’s willing to share — Walsh is already recognizable enough that it makes it difficult for him to go incognito. But for people who want more of the genre, the conservative humor brand Babylon Bee is venturing into the space, with its forthcoming film about the Capitol riot, “January 6: The Most Deadliest Day.”