What Is A Woman? (2022)
A Walsh in Sheep’s Clothing
In 2022, The Daily Wire released Justin Folk’s documentary, What Is a Woman? exclusively on its “Plus” premium website. The movie follows Conservative author, podcast host, and professional provocateur Matt Walsh around the world as he asks what has become a politically charged question in recent years. To mark the film’s first anniversary, TDW partnered with Twitter to make the film available for free during the first 24 hours of Pride Month.
On the eve of the film’s social media roll-out, however, the tech giant informed The Daily Wire that it would not only not honor their agreement, but would shut down any attempts to share or discuss What Is a Woman? on the platform. This was apparently news to Twitter owner Elon Musk, who reversed his team’s reversal and created a super-charged Streisand Effect by posting and promoting Folk’s movie for 72 hours—on what happened to be the first Friday-through-Sunday of June.
I’d been curious about the doc since its release, but not curious enough to subscribe to The Daily Wire in order to discover what all the noise was about.* That weekend, I took advantage of the access window and watched What Is a Woman? with my wife.
On his daily news and commentary show, Matt Walsh is a cantankerous millennial firebrand who attacks social issues with the Christian zeal of a man born in the wrong time. His gruff voice and deadpan humor help the scalding medicine go down. From gun rights, to immigration, to abortion, and the national discourse on sexuality, Walsh cuts a scorched-Earth path of righteous certainty across the political landscape. So it was surprising to see him assume a (mostly) neutral demeanor during the dozens of face-to-face interviews he conducted in Folk’s documentary.
We begin with some Michael Moore-style voiceover and dramatization. As a cupcake explodes in slow motion across Walsh’s face during a kids’ birthday party, he professes confusion and frustration at the ways in which social media has atomized our perceptions of “truth” and “reality”. What was once bedrock common sense, he contends, has become fodder for endless “How Do We Really Know?” think pieces and bizarre social movements.
We come to a series of sit-down interviews with academics and activists who offer wildly different definitions of sex, gender, and the importance of same—without satisfactorily answering the question at hand. One might accuse Folk and Walsh of choosing their subjects based on the degree to which they make their positions look ridiculous (“wolf therian” transgender activist with the spiked collar and toothpaste-blue hair, Naia Okami, say, or pediatrician/professor Michelle Forcier, MD, who mainly answers questions with questions). But the filmmakers wisely let their guests speak unencumbered. This may be the first time some viewers hear supposed experts either verbally flail about in an effort to define “woman”, or, worse yet, speak confidently about the ethereal nature of womanhood—a concept so lofty that it may not, according to them, even have a definition.
In fairness, Folk and Walsh aren’t impartial truth seekers. Drawing again from the Michael Moore playbook (in a move also commonly used by The Daily Show), the camera frequently cuts to Walsh’s stoic-yet-somehow-still-incredulous reactions to his guest’s wilder claims. And when he speaks with University of Tennessee professor Patrick Grzanka, we’re treated to the well-worn trope of multiple cross-fade edits that signify a rambling, senseless response from a really boring individual. This can work to great comedic effect—but when the point of the “bit” is that this elite know-it-all can’t explain a simple concept without serving up word salad, it’s frustrating being denied the full breadth of his pomposity.
Walsh takes his query to Women’s Rights protests, street interviews, and even to a Maasai tribe in Kenya, where gender roles are so culturally ingrained that his interpreter has a hard time explaining the related question, “Can a man become a woman?” It’s a fun and eye-opening exercise, but there are a few too many reaction shots of the “What are those crazy Americans thinking?” variety.
Walsh also talks with experts who are more politically and socially aligned with his point of view. It’s hard to call what I’m about to describe “editorializing”, exactly, but there’s definitely a leap in the credibility and caliber of the subjects and their responses in this section. Detransition activist Scott “Kellie” Newgent recalls years of botched surgeries and hormone therapies. Clinical supervisor Sara Stockton and adolescent and adult psychiatrist Miriam Grossman, MD, discuss theories of social contagion as relate to the explosion of gender identities and body dysmorphia in Gen Z. Female college athletes talk about losing awards, records, and opportunities to biological male competitors who were allowed to compete against them. These interviews undercut the circular definitions and sunny, empowering rhetoric of the film’s first half. with data and lived experience. The adults, Walsh and Folk want us to know, have entered the room.
Speaking of which, I should note that even in what some viewers will consider to be the explicitly “anti-trans” portion of the film, each of the subjects expresses concern for the general well-being of those living with gender dysphoria. There are no cartoonish, frothing MAGA-hat Republicans screaming about Jesus, no hillbilly rock stars lighting up cases of beer with a rifle. There are certainly differences of opinion as to the root issues and how to handle the proliferation of LGBTQ+ messaging in society, but it’s difficult to dismiss these points of view as mere bigotry.
It’s here, though, that the filmmakers’ pretense of neutrality gives way to something else. In one conversation, renowned 1940s sexologist Alfred Kinsey is, for several minutes, referred to simply as “Kinsey”. It’s as if the filmmakers know that their target audience needs nothing more than a red meat shorthand reference to one of the anti-gender ideology crowd’s central villains—whereas someone coming into this movie cold might wonder if a key bit of context had been left on the cutting room floor.
By the third act, Walsh drops the mask completely. From a sparse, dusty basement set he proclaims, “I’m done asking questions” and pushes away the giant “serial killer board” on which he’s hung photos and clippings connected by strings (an unflattering visual that plays into the stereotype of the right-wing conspiracy theorist).
Walsh becomes Hunter S. Thompson by way of the Heritage Foundation, inserting himself into the public discourse by protesting boys using girls’ bathrooms (following a sexual assault incident in a Loudoun County, VA public school); penning the controversial trans-allegory children’s book, Johnny the Walrus, and waging a war of words on Dr. Phil with a panel of trans activists.
Walsh is an entertaining figure, and he makes persuasive arguments in supporting his point of view (agree with them or not, there’s no denying these are battle-tested opinions). But the final third of What Is a Woman? is very different from what it set out to be—or at least what it was initially presented as. These theatrics belong to Morgan Spurlock or (here’s that name again) Michael Moore. Despite this being an audacious and infinitely watchable jag, the final stretch emphasizes Walsh as a showman, a promoter; we’re reminded that What Is a Woman? (and, by extension, Matt Walsh) is just as much a product as it is a potentially significant cultural milestone. Don’t be too gleeful in pointing fingers, though, since outrageous self-promotion also made those other documentarians/gonzo journalists household names.
Unfortunately, the doc ends with one of the quickest triumph-to-cringe turns I’ve ever seen. After traveling the globe and talking with a wide array of luminaries and loonies, Walsh comes home to ask his wife, “What is a woman?” She offers a concise, accurate (though surely displeasing to some) definition—before handing him a pickle jar that she is unable to open.
Really, Matt? The ol’ “wife needs help with the pickle jar” routine? This bit would have gotten writers fired from The Red Green Show or Last Man Standing. My wife looked at me after the movie ended and asked why Mrs. Walsh didn’t just bang the edge of the cap on the counter. Our moms taught us this trick decades ago. Works every time.
Despite its warts, What Is a Woman? is essential viewing. It doesn’t deserve to be dismissed, censored, or algorithmically demoted. Yes, viewers will need to contend with Matt Walsh’s agenda, but he does a solid job of presenting various angles from which to discuss the myriad debates rocking our culture right now. Even if you hate Walsh’s guts…
Strike that.
Especially if you hate Walsh’s guts, this film will help you to fully articulate why (the same holds true for his fans, by the way). It may also fill you with questions you’d never even considered asking. Some of these, no doubt, will be harder to answer than others.
Note: Check out my 2019 interview with Adam Carolla, the star of What Is a Woman? director Justin Folk’s documentary about political correctness, No Safe Spaces!
*Full disclosure: I contacted the company last year, on hearing that some press outlets had received review screeners. They politely declined my request, which is, of course, their right. But I wonder how many dozens of outlets trashed The Daily Wire’s solicitation emails, unread: as of this writing, there are only 6 reviews of the film on Rotten Tomatoes.
