Clearing the A.I.R. – The Making of Am I Racist?

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Speaker 7 Every day of shooting, there was a level of dread and concern that things were about to blow up on our faces.

Speaker 8 Just had to ask who you are because you have to be careful.

Speaker 10 Never be too careful.

Speaker 7 Every 30 seconds, you're like, oh my gosh, are we exposed? Are we done?

Speaker 10 Remind me of your name again.

Speaker 12 Stephen. Stephen?

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 7 We had no right to pull off what we pulled off.

Speaker 13 Marking.

Speaker 14 That was was a robust slate right there.

Speaker 15 This film came together in the aftermath of What is a Woman? What is Woman was a big success and accomplished a great deal. I think we were all very, very proud of that film.

Speaker 10 You put out a podcast and everybody forgets about it by tomorrow and you got to do it again. What is Woman?

Speaker 10 It was my first time helping to create something that had an impact that lasted for longer than a day. Months later, years later now, people are still talking about that film.

Speaker 17 It came out, we were done, we were proud of it. And all of a sudden, I'm just seeing it every single day on every app that I'm on, Instagram, Reels, and all these different social media sites.

Speaker 17 I thought, we've got to do something else. We have to keep the momentum going.

Speaker 15 I think we realized that we didn't want to just limp in with a sophomore effort. Like, we had to kind of go bigger.

Speaker 18 They'd said they want to do a movie about race. Honest to God, like, my first like gut reaction, I didn't say it out loud, but like was like, hell no.

Speaker 17 This was, you know, summer of 2020 when whole cities were being burnt down over race. And now we're going to do race.

Speaker 17 It was just as hot as the subject of transgenderism was when we did what as a woman.

Speaker 10 I didn't think it was dangerous. I mean it is in a way obviously it's provocative but that's what we're looking for.
We're looking for the dangerous topics.

Speaker 20 Growing up in the 90s I never thought much about race. Sure you noticed if somebody was black or white or Mexican or whatever, but it never really seemed to matter that much.

Speaker 18 Maybe it's because of the time and place I was raised, LA, 80s and 90s. When I was a teenager, I I wanted to be easy E.
I mean, I didn't want to die of AIDS, but I wanted to be EZ E.

Speaker 8 I was taught and brought up to not see race as an issue. So I didn't really know that it was as big of an issue that people were making it out to be.

Speaker 21 That's how we deal with racism.

Speaker 21 We just say, oh, it's not happening.

Speaker 15 Yeah, the more you talk about it, the more you are blatantly acknowledging race. And if you want to forget about it,

Speaker 11 you need to shut up.

Speaker 10 What I guess made it dangerous to me in terms of trying to make a movie about it is that it's so big. So figuring out you can't just make a movie.

Speaker 10 You should say, well, we're making a documentary about race.

Speaker 10 What does that mean exactly?

Speaker 13 One of the first meetings I had with Justin, he just talked about his interest in pursuing this kind of DEI stuff that was happening was getting bigger and bigger.

Speaker 22 Black, Latino, and Indigenous people are suffering and dying.

Speaker 9 Violent white supremacy. White.

Speaker 7 White entitlement.

Speaker 13 We've got to do the work.

Speaker 17 I put my name on What is a Woman. Prior to that, I'd worked on a lot of things that were progressive in nature because I'm freelance, so people call me, ask me to do jobs.

Speaker 17 I filmed Obama in the Oval Office for a media outlet that is very liberal.

Speaker 16 I'm not gonna say it blacklisted me, but it's very likely that they're gonna say, oh, Anton's working on that type of project.

Speaker 17 Well, he's not gonna be working on our projects anymore.

Speaker 13 I still had one foot in Hollywood and had concerns about my livelihood and would I be hired again in Hollywood if my name was associated with this film.

Speaker 9 We need to stop being nice about racism because nothing has been advanced by being nice.

Speaker 7 You have to come at it with a lot of humility. These are massive, massive topics we're going after and powerful people we're going after.

Speaker 15 The thing that became very apparent to us was we wanted to do a comedy. We knew we were taking on these tough issues.

Speaker 14 They're hard for people to talk about.

Speaker 15 So we really felt like humor was the way that we could kind of pick the lock, get our message across, and actually have people listen.

Speaker 24 I have a petition. We want to rename the George Washington Monument to the George Floyd Monument.
We're talking about painting it black.

Speaker 11 We're going to raise it 30%,

Speaker 24 increasing it in the height.

Speaker 16 You're trying to battle in common sense and facts and being serious about something, but it doesn't work.

Speaker 11 Truth is hilarious.

Speaker 17 And I... think that the truth speaks for itself best in comedy of all forms.

Speaker 15 Humor is not easy to do. It's actually probably the hardest thing to do.
It really does take a credible amount of talent to pull it off and this is where Matt Walsh just completely shined.

Speaker 10 I told them to find anybody but Justin Folk and they came back and said he's the only guy willing to work with you.

Speaker 19 So I said, shit.

Speaker 10 No, of course there's no question at all. Is he sitting around here? It was awkward if I'm complimenting him if he's.
Can you leave, Justin? Get out of here.

Speaker 5 Oh, you are there.

Speaker 10 You can't.

Speaker 10 I don't compliment people normally, so it's always awkward for me. One of Justin's best features as a creative is that he's willing to listen to ideas and be collaborative.

Speaker 10 It's actually a very rare trait. Now, he's got a real great creative vision himself, so it's not like he's going into this and he has no idea what to do.

Speaker 10 But if you step in and say, well, what about this? Or what if we think about it this way? He's willing to listen to that and we can have a conversation about it. And like I said, that's pretty rare.

Speaker 10 There's a lot of egos in this business.

Speaker 13 One of the things that makes documentary filmmaking difficult is it's constantly evolving.

Speaker 18 You have to roll with the punches. You can't get a take two.

Speaker 17 With what is a woman, our very first day, Justin told me, hey, by the way, they might cut this interview off immediately.

Speaker 25 You know what? I think this interview is over. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 25 I think this interview is over.

Speaker 10 I just had one last question.

Speaker 5 Well,

Speaker 25 the interview is over.

Speaker 4 We want to know what is a woman.

Speaker 24 I was like, like, wait, what?

Speaker 13 You get the interview that you didn't think you were going to get, and then you have to pivot.

Speaker 13 You don't get the interview that you were hoping to get, or you don't get the location that you were going to get. There are decisions that have to be made along the way.

Speaker 13 And not only is it your livelihood that you're entrusting in your director, you're entrusting in your reputation. Ultimately, the decision is his.

Speaker 13 And we all as a team are very confident in him as a director. He's very much a leader that we all trust.

Speaker 18 If you don't have confidence in your director, you have nothing. Okay, like you might as well direct it yourself.

Speaker 7 Sean Hampton has a great quote about directors. It's that directors are the only people who have seen the movie while we're making it.
He's the only person that actually knows what we're doing.

Speaker 7 Everyone else is just kind of showing up and trying to support and help him.

Speaker 18 Daily Wire!

Speaker 15 Oh, that's good. That's good.
Okay, now let me grab your hat. Stay right there.
Don't move.

Speaker 16 Justin, compared to most of the directors that I've worked with, is way more planned and organized and strategic and outlined.

Speaker 19 And

Speaker 16 there's purpose for everything. It's not like a director just filming a whole bunch of stuff and saying, here you go, editor, make something cool.

Speaker 15 Matt, can you slide just a little bit to your right, just a hair,

Speaker 15 just a fraction?

Speaker 10 A little bit more, a little bit more.

Speaker 15 There it is, there it is. Okay, ready?

Speaker 14 He can see the edit while he's shooting.

Speaker 18 Justin understands how to play those moments in the moment while Anton's shooting, while Matt's in the zone.

Speaker 5 Okay, good. Back down, back down to one.

Speaker 18 When I saw his nuanced directing like that, obviously I'd seen What is a Woman, No Safe Spaces. Justin created a genre that didn't exist.
And that's, to me, really exciting.

Speaker 18 Because we can push boundaries at that point.

Speaker 10 Yeah, I mean, it's a great team. I really like three of them.

Speaker 10 It's pretty good batting average.

Speaker 13 Matt's ability to sit in discomfort and

Speaker 13 just like relish it is such an amazing skill set. So I think like Matt's ability to do that coupled with Justin's storytelling is one of the things that sets it apart.

Speaker 9 I would like you to close your eyes. What does that loss feel like in your body?

Speaker 29 Feels like a thousand knives plunging into my my soul.

Speaker 29 And a sack being

Speaker 29 hit by bats and bricks. And the whole sack is thrown into the ocean.

Speaker 13 Thank you.

Speaker 29 That's what it feels like.

Speaker 18 Matt goes to the White Grief Counseling. That shoot made me the most nervous.
We went into that needing something specific for the story. But there was no guarantee we're going to get it.

Speaker 9 We're moving to her now?

Speaker 26 Well,

Speaker 30 I hadn't finished.

Speaker 26 Please finish.

Speaker 29 With a sack's throwing the ocean, then the sacks taken out,

Speaker 29 and it's set on fire.

Speaker 30 Thank you. That's what it feels like.

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Speaker 10 You get three months free of the number one prayer app, Hallow. I think with the group setting, it's sort of easier.
It feels like a higher probability to get what you want.

Speaker 9 Can you please leave?

Speaker 15 I would like it if you left.

Speaker 12 I'm trying to learn. I'm on this journey.

Speaker 18 Come with me.

Speaker 5 Well, thank you.

Speaker 24 I didn't consent to be touched.

Speaker 10 Maybe there's somebody in the group who's not exactly reacting how you want. But then you got all these other people.
And there's just a lot you can sort of play with there.

Speaker 18 And then, in a moment.

Speaker 24 Are you saying I needed a better disguise?

Speaker 12 Is that what you...

Speaker 26 I don't know, maybe.

Speaker 9 But you can figure that out as you walk out the door.

Speaker 16 It all came together.

Speaker 19 And it's all thanks to Matt.

Speaker 18 There's nobody I know that's quicker on his feet than Matt.

Speaker 10 It was my favorite to film. It's also my favorite scene in the movie to watch.
The very last scene we filmed, even though it's early in the film.

Speaker 10 Obviously there's a lot of like awkward cringe humor in the film, quite intentionally of course, but that scene has the most of it and it's in a very concentrated form.

Speaker 13 I am here

Speaker 13 to dig a little bit.

Speaker 12 I'm sorry, can I?

Speaker 24 I forgot one other thing I wanted to promise to the black community.

Speaker 9 It's really important that we don't interrupt each other.

Speaker 10 That one was hard for so many reasons.

Speaker 17 I'm a cinematographer, so I'm thinking about lighting and that sort of thing. If you notice, there's windows 360 degrees in that room with sunlight coming in.

Speaker 17 If you were to film that with no lighting, everybody would look like a silhouette. So we actually had a light called the Aperture InfiniBar mounted to the ceiling.

Speaker 17 It took us a day beforehand to pre-rig all that.

Speaker 16 So a ton of equipment that we have to break down.

Speaker 17 Afterwards, they called the police and the police showed up.

Speaker 10 Now, of course, I fled because the cops were called. As a leader I left my team behind to deal with the cops.
I was gone.

Speaker 17 So I don't know like am I gonna have to you know give a statement to the police and also we're gonna be here for hours afterwards breaking all this equipment down.

Speaker 17 So as far as like the stress of production that day specifically it was very very stressful.

Speaker 7 Every day of shooting there was a level of dread and concern that things were about to blow up in our faces and there was a divine providence in the works of creating this film that it didn't.

Speaker 7 There wasn't one specific moment. There was every 30 seconds while cameras are rolling that you're like, oh my gosh, are we exposed? Are we done?

Speaker 7 And that just kept on not happening right up until the workshop scene in New York.

Speaker 20 If they know that I'm Matt Walsh, I'll always be an outsider. I need to go deeper undercover.

Speaker 7 And that gave rise to this amazing character that Matt got to dive into, this woke man in a wig.

Speaker 18 When we were talking about what should Matt's disguise be, he didn't want to shave his beard, to be honest.

Speaker 10 Because I have to go home to my family at the end. I mean, I have to walk in the door to my wife and kids, and I cannot walk in barefaced.
It would legitimately be traumatizing.

Speaker 10 My wife's made it very clear that she likes the beard. She doesn't want to see my entire face.

Speaker 10 And when it comes to my face, I guess, like, from here up is just, it's a better experience than from here down.

Speaker 5 What was the question?

Speaker 18 The idea of putting him in Professor Grazonka's costume, A, is hilarious. B, I will give all credit to Sean Hampton who came up with that.

Speaker 18 I wish it was my idea.

Speaker 15 The first time I saw the disguise, I laughed because it was the perfect bad disguise.

Speaker 15 You know, I mean, we, instead of giving him a full transformation, it was like, okay, we want Matt Walsh, but just slightly different and slightly more woke.

Speaker 13 I honestly still can't believe that he didn't get recognized. Like, there were moments where as a team, we were like, oh my gosh, like, we did it.
Like he's actually not getting recognized.

Speaker 18 This is how clueless they are. That was all it took.
I mean honestly I'm still freaking shocked.

Speaker 7 People can have their opinions. People keep on crafting on the wig.
It's a fantastic wig. I know that because no one called him on it.

Speaker 15 As soon as that man bun came on, he was a different guy. It was incredible to watch.
It was like Clark Kent going into the phone booth, coming out woke, and that was Matt Walsh.

Speaker 7 When we're traveling with the Walsh costume, we have the entire wardrobe in a suitcase that we call the football.

Speaker 7 And that's a reference to the briefcase that the president carries around for the launch coats and doing nuclear attacks. And that's exactly how important this thing was to the film.

Speaker 7 I thought to myself, well, like, if I choose between sacrificing myself for the wig,

Speaker 7 I'm going to have to take that bullet.

Speaker 10 It's easy to come up with theoretically ideas for disguises, but they have to be things that we can do on the fly.

Speaker 10 So if we get an opportunity, you know, we hear from Robin D'Angelo, she says, I can talk to you tomorrow, then we have to be able to just show up there.

Speaker 10 And if it's something that requires seven and a half hours in the makeup chair doing prosthetics and all this stuff, it's just not going to work. Felt very weird putting it on the first time.

Speaker 10 I didn't like it. The wig was made of human hair.
I was very aware of that, that I'm wearing someone else's hair. I asked for information on the person.
Did we take it with their consent or without?

Speaker 10 I don't know. So that felt weird at first.
By the end of it, though, it became part of me. I started to like it.
It's changed me as a person.

Speaker 10 I'm revealing something I've never revealed before. You're telling me I'm full of shit.
But you liked wearing the costume? Yes.

Speaker 15 There were a number of scenes that I did not know if it was going to work or not. Up until the very moment that we were in those scenes, race to dinner.

Speaker 15 We have these ladies who are doing this charming dinner for these white women and telling them that they're all racist. And there's a lot of moving parts there.

Speaker 15 There's the food, there's the filming of it, there's Matt coming in and out of that scene. There's just so many things that are taking place.

Speaker 13 Matt's security team had bets on how long is this actually going to last. One guy was like, five minutes.
One guy was like, I think I'll go 23 minutes. And so everyone's placing these bets.

Speaker 9 All you do is talk shit about each other, talk shit about yourself.

Speaker 5 Oh my God, I'm so sad.

Speaker 26 That's all they do.

Speaker 26 I'm telling you, these white women?

Speaker 7 The Indian woman came off camera a few times and was just wondering, hey, what's up with this waiter? That's all.

Speaker 26 We may have to add you to our team. Oh, I would love to take a seat and join you.

Speaker 9 No, you're not allowed to.

Speaker 26 Okay. Definitely not allowed.

Speaker 11 I do have my DEI

Speaker 21 certification that I got.

Speaker 7 So he's kind of throwing off the flow. Seems, you know, seems odd.
And of course we were like, oh, we don't, you know, I wait or I don't know about that.

Speaker 13 So many people on our team had to wear so many hats because we had to be so careful about confidentiality and not wanting to get found out.

Speaker 13 So I did set decorating and hired the florist and then raised to dinner. One of their requirements was that we hired a black-owned catering company.

Speaker 13 So we hired a catering company and they brought it in, but then we didn't want extra people on set. We have to have sign an NDA or whatever.

Speaker 13 So I actually cooked the food, plated it, was handing the plates to Matt.

Speaker 9 Matt dropped the plates. This country is a piece of shit.

Speaker 6 Oh my goodness.

Speaker 26 Oh, sorry.

Speaker 8 We'd have to like scramble to find a band-aid because he got his hand or we'd have to hurry up and get the plates all set and back out.

Speaker 13 Sorry.

Speaker 10 It is a really uncomfortable situation to be out there and I'm making a total ass of myself. And then you go into the kitchen and it's like, I don't really want to have to keep going.

Speaker 10 I want this just to be over. So I got to like psych myself up each time to go back out there and keep antagonizing them.

Speaker 13 He was kind of like, what else can I be doing to kind of like troll this dinner? And I was like, just take this butter and like really flop it on the plates.

Speaker 13 And even if someone's like, no, I'm good, I'm good. Just, you know, keep, are you sure?

Speaker 13 And that was really fun.

Speaker 16 All that preparation time, all that work to get to that point paid off because now you're in that moment and you're watching it unfold.

Speaker 15 And I wouldn't say my job is done at that point, but it is nice to kind of step back and be like, okay, I'm just going to watch Matt Walsh do his thing. I'm going to watch this scene.

Speaker 15 And frankly, it's pretty enjoyable to watch.

Speaker 16 If you sit for an hour watching this whole scene play out, I'm like, what do you cut? These women and this scene is so crazy, like you could put that out as its own feature link dock.

Speaker 16 As we kept whittling down to try to get this from an hour and a half to 60 to 30 to 20 to seven or eight minutes now, Justin had to kind of like, hey, man, like, it's not about these women.

Speaker 16 It's about Matt inserting himself so many times over and over just to make the audience just so uncomfortable with all these different moments that Matt is having.

Speaker 10 Are you an actor?

Speaker 9 You let us, we're trying to listen and trying to have this conversation.

Speaker 11 You know, we're all acting all the time in our lives. And I think that that's part of the problem, you know?

Speaker 10 After like the fifth time I came out and interrupted, the audience is almost like groaning a little bit.

Speaker 10 Like, they think it's funny, but it's almost like they want me to stop too, because it's just too much, it's too uncomfortable. And I very much felt that as well.

Speaker 12 Can I just say one last thing?

Speaker 21 Can I just propose a toast? Raise a glass if you're racist.

Speaker 9 Oh, I'm not racist.

Speaker 26 Let me talk to you.

Speaker 26 All the rest of it.

Speaker 26 Too racist.

Speaker 18 Matt Walsh is a very special talent. We can come up with all the scenarios we want, but it's on Matt to pull it off.
And

Speaker 18 he does.

Speaker 31 Uncle Frank, it is not funny to mock marginalized people.

Speaker 31 It's not a joke. It's not funny.

Speaker 15 So to become this character, he had to understand what this character believes. This character was a creature of this anti-racist movement.

Speaker 15 And he actually understood that movement probably even better than some of the people that are in the movement themselves.

Speaker 10 Ultimately, should we be colorblind society is what Martin Luther King said, not to judge people by the color of their skin.

Speaker 22 So Martin Luther King said a lot of stuff.

Speaker 15 Really amazing to watch and as a director it made my job a lot easier.

Speaker 13 More and more as the film went on everyone felt he's just part of the team and I felt like Matt feels like he's one of the team and I think from a talent perspective that's exceptional.

Speaker 13 I don't know that I saw a need to be like reverent to him as talent. I think he just really wanted to make a really solid film that would change the culture.

Speaker 7 If you ever bump into Matt Wolf on the street, please run up to him, say hi, give him a hug. He's a really big hugger.

Speaker 7 That's just kind of the tenderhearted soul he is.

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Speaker 25 Is there a black person around here? I would hug them and apologize to them all day long for what they're doing. What's that black person right here?

Speaker 24 Does he not exist?

Speaker 12 I'm sorry, I just didn't look that direction.

Speaker 24 Sounds like you're in the habit of overlooking marginalized communities.

Speaker 23 Brother?

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Speaker 7 You are an American.

Speaker 25 I love you. I'm sorry for what happened in the past.

Speaker 18 For me, the most fun thing to shoot was Washington, D.C. Grassroots, like we're just going to come out here with a camera and Matt in his wig.

Speaker 18 and we're going to try to talk to real people and we're just going to grab them.

Speaker 24 We have a petition to readdress historical inequities. Would you mind signing it?

Speaker 10 You will.

Speaker 12 We want to rename the George Washington Monument to the George Floyd Monument.

Speaker 18 There's something really special about being there. When you're on the mall in Washington and you're at the monuments, you feel it.
Like you're like, America's not perfect, but pretty cool.

Speaker 25 So are you going to erase all of them?

Speaker 7 Yes.

Speaker 19 No.

Speaker 24 Well, can you sign it anyway? Nope.

Speaker 8 We have to get permits to be there. So that was part of my job is pulling permits to make sure that we are okay to be filming on the street.

Speaker 8 And getting people to agree to be on cameras, kind of being in the moment and and running down the street to find somebody, you know, being out in the middle of the traffic, those things are always fun.

Speaker 18 We were flying by the seat of our pants. Even Benyam out there, he was freezing.
He gave his coat to Kelly, the hair and makeup person.

Speaker 24 She was cold.

Speaker 18 So Benyam's such a gentleman, he gave her his coat. When you're watching the movie, he's freaking cold.
But he did it anyway. And he did that so many times.

Speaker 18 The truth is, this movie isn't this movie without Benyam. All of us played a part.
All of us are integral to making this thing.

Speaker 15 Film is such a collaborative medium. You really do rely on everybody to do their job.
You have to trust people. You have to allow them to do what they're going to do.

Speaker 15 And ultimately, you're putting these people in these roles for a reason because they're smart people and they're good at what they do.

Speaker 13 This is probably the first project that I've worked on, whether it's Hollywood or in the conservative space, where I completely trusted everybody.

Speaker 13 I never had to make sure that Anton had done his thing or make sure that Rebecca had sent that email. That was something that was really powerful.

Speaker 13 So for me, like having our team be who they are was the most important thing to me.

Speaker 15 And so my job as a director is to just harness that and let those people run and do that and keep just sort of reminding all of us about what the vision is of this film.

Speaker 15 I think the entire film was difficult to make. Essentially, we're creating these scenarios for Matt to be in.
The way I describe it is we created a sandbox for him to play in.

Speaker 15 At any moment, it it could all take a turn and go completely in the wrong direction.

Speaker 7 The Robin DiAngelo scene, which was the first time I went on camera, we didn't quite know what is the craziest thing to do in this scenario.

Speaker 7 Well, why don't we try to get her to pay some more reparations?

Speaker 10 I want to pay you reparations right now.

Speaker 27 Will you accept?

Speaker 30 I won't turn it down. Okay.

Speaker 11 I don't know.

Speaker 29 Well,

Speaker 10 this is all I have. I don't remember where that idea came from.
I want to say it was my idea because I want to say that all the good ideas are mine.

Speaker 10 We went into that interview with a rough kind of outline of what we wanted to get out of it, but it is very rough because, again, you don't know what's going to happen.

Speaker 10 You don't know what someone's going to, you can't script it. And I've found through two movies now, as long as I know where this is all supposed to go, what is my end point supposed to be?

Speaker 10 Then I feel pretty confident that we can sort of construct a plan and then revise it on the fly to get to that end point.

Speaker 10 Did you want to

Speaker 26 pay anything?

Speaker 9 That was really weird.

Speaker 10 Why was it weird?

Speaker 9 This just seemed really weird to me.

Speaker 10 Of all the things that we did and all the kind of little stunts we wanted to pull, that was the tallest task. This is a real person.
This is not a cartoon.

Speaker 10 There's no way we can get her to actually do this.

Speaker 7 The moment she got up was a feeling of pretty immense pride in our team and what we pulled off. It was that moment where I think collectively we realized, well, we have a movie now.

Speaker 16 When Justin sent the hard drive for D'Angelo, I'm like, like, dude, you guys got this already?

Speaker 19 This is gold.

Speaker 16 This is like the end of our film. Everything else that came after that was just cherry on the top.
And then you get like raced to dinner. I'm like, you guys got this?

Speaker 5 How do you guys pull this up?

Speaker 7 There's a lot of power that Matt has when it comes to him being very, very comfortable with silence. A lot of people can't handle that.
Robin can't handle that.

Speaker 7 When Matt asked her the question and just let it hang in the air.

Speaker 9 Because I think reparations is like a

Speaker 13 systemic.

Speaker 24 This is something that I can do right now.

Speaker 10 Why wouldn't I do it?

Speaker 7 You'll actually see Robin start looking around the room for anyone, anyone to give her an excuse to not go down the road of her own ideology.

Speaker 7 In that moment, I kind of had a new hope about conservatives and conservative media actually being able to take on Hollywood.

Speaker 15 When you make a film, it takes a considerable amount of time and you go into essentially a dark room with a computer and you just pore over things for weeks and months at a time.

Speaker 15 And ultimately, you don't know if what you're making is good or not.

Speaker 10 I was pretty well terrified before it came out, especially once we decided to release in theaters.

Speaker 10 I believed in the film, we all believed in the film, but there are a lot of films that are good and the people who made them believed in them and they didn't work.

Speaker 15 When you finally get to sit down in an actual movie theater with people and hear them laugh and hear them gasp, and hear them groan at some of the uncomfortable points in the film where they're just crawling out of their skin.

Speaker 15 There's something really magical to that.

Speaker 10 I think about 10 minutes into that experience is when I finally was like, okay, we're good. And I wasn't worried anymore.

Speaker 10 And hearing how much they really legitimately loved it, like thinking that all the things that we thought were hilarious were hilarious, like that's, it just clicked with the audience.

Speaker 31 It brought in huge crowds this opening weekend.

Speaker 2 Your movie is really funny. It's really funny.

Speaker 10 It's one of the best comedies I've seen in a long time.

Speaker 28 It's had enormous success in exposing just how extreme and dangerous this movement has become.

Speaker 18 The impact that this film has had is huge.

Speaker 7 This film was wildly successful, the most profitable political documentary of the past 20 years.

Speaker 18 We are showing people that we can create culture and not just fight. Fighting it is important, but creating the reality that we want to live in is everything.

Speaker 15 My goal for this film, which is actually similar to What is a Woman, it's the same goal.

Speaker 14 It's courage. I want people to have courage to speak out against bad ideas.

Speaker 12 This experience has really taught me something. The anti-racist industry says that America is racist down to its bones.

Speaker 20 And if that were true, there wouldn't be anything we could do about it.

Speaker 10 White people could only wallow in their guilt and black people in their victimhood.

Speaker 7 This movie gives people permission to question things that were not allowed to be questioned two years ago. That's the Andrew Breitbart line.
Politics is downstream from culture.

Speaker 7 And this film does shape and move culture.

Speaker 16 I would get texts and phone calls from people that I haven't talked to in years or old college buddies or whatever saying like, dude, you worked on Walsh's dock. This is badass.

Speaker 16 Like over and over again, people saying like, this stuff is crazy and all stuff like that.

Speaker 12 They don't say that I'm racist and you're a victim because that's what they think we are.

Speaker 12 They tell us that because that's what they want us to be.

Speaker 12 Well, it's time for us to say no.

Speaker 18 Do I think that most Americans are racist? No, absolutely not. I think most Americans just care about getting through their day and if you're nice to them they might be your friend.

Speaker 8 I grew up in a community that is predominantly a black community and never ever looked at anybody any different. They were just my friends.

Speaker 8 I think for me the biggest lesson of all is just to love people with your heart and not look at people's skin color.

Speaker 8 That's it.

Speaker 7 A lot of these bad ideas that are dominating this cultural battle of ours is being ran by and organized by a powerful, a vocal, a well-funded, but a very, very small minority of people.

Speaker 7 Once you get out of that bubble, once you talk to the average person, you realize it has a lot less power than you think it is.

Speaker 10 I've kind of been working on decentering my whiteness.

Speaker 26 Oh, you're white man?

Speaker 26 No, baby, I'll be the same thing, dude. If I caught you right now, you will be just like me.

Speaker 13 I think just what Milton said,

Speaker 13 I almost could start crying. Like, we just kind of love each other, you know.

Speaker 13 And I think the divisiveness that's happening in our country is heartbreaking.

Speaker 13 And when you see someone like Milton, you know, hit Matt's arm and be like, we all believe the same.

Speaker 15 Like,

Speaker 8 we just got to love each other.

Speaker 23 Great final note to him, Don. And that's okay.

Speaker 18 That good? Is that it?

Speaker 19 Yeah,

Speaker 19 that it?

Speaker 23 You racist,

Speaker 23 but they call everybody racist.

Speaker 23 I guess that means nobody is racist.

Speaker 23 Nah, it doesn't mean much when you say it, when you say it.

Speaker 23 Will you

Speaker 23 No, say

Speaker 23 I'm racist,

Speaker 23 but they call everybody racist.

Speaker 23 I guess that means nobody is racist.

Speaker 23 Nah, it doesn't mean much when you say it, when you say it. They gon' say you're racist,

Speaker 23 but they call everybody racist.

Speaker 23 I guess that means nobody

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