Pints With Aquinas - Behind the Scenes of “Am I Racist?” w/ Matt Walsh

Episode Date: September 16, 2024

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Matt Walsh, how many of these interviews have you done over the past week? Over the last three weeks, I've probably done 20. How tired are you? Pretty tired. Pretty tired. But we're not done. We're just we're just getting started. Yeah, this is it.

Well, hey, I want to thank you for inviting us to the to the Black Carpet event, Red Carpet event. The other night, it was It was an absolutely excellent movie. And I don't say that to be nice. I didn't like Lady Ballers. I hope that I would. I don't like the cartoon thing Daily Wire has done. So I wouldn't say this was excellent

if I didn't believe it, but my wife and I, everyone came out of that theater saying it was way better than they had even hoped. So congratulations. I really appreciate that, thanks. It's great to have you guys are. Yeah. Yeah. And I heard you say in an interview something like we didn't put the best bits into the trailer. And when you said that, I thought, I hope that's true. But that might be

just something his coach to say so that people will actually go watch it. I can fully testify that the most cringiest, secondhand embarrassment, crazy things were not in the trailer, so well done. Yeah, we debated, I mean, as you can imagine, what stuff to put in the trailer, and it was really, if I had my way, we probably would have had a total spoiler trailer because I wanted to put it all in there,

but they held me back, which is probably for the best. Yeah, it had David Brent from the British office levels of secondhand embarrassment. I was chatting with Caleb Robinson at the private after party and his wife said that her hands were sweating profusely. And I myself just kept making sounds unintentionally just because of how awkward it was. So, you know, they say that Americans can't pull off that type of humor, but you did it. So well done. Take that as a major compliment because that's my that's like my North Star personally of

comedy is the British office. All right. Am I a racist? In order to know that I need to know what racism means. So how has racism traditionally been defined and what does it mean today or what have people tried to make it mean today? Well, I mean, traditionally racism is pretty simple. Racism is you don't like people of other races based on their race or you think that people

of another race are inferior to you in some way because they are a member of that race. I mean, that's traditionally what racism is. That's what racism actually is. So it's pretty, it's kind of simple and easy to know whether you are racist. If you have those feelings about members of another race, then you're racist. If you don't, you're not. But these days, it's taken on a very different meaning. Not taken on, it's been given a different meaning by these academics and these race

hustlers and DEI people. And trying to get them to actually define it, to try to tell you what their definition is, is difficult. They're not very forthcoming in their definition because their actual definition is that racism is an inherently white construct. In fact, it's something inherent to whiteness itself. It's something that all white people are and no non-white people are. That's what they believe and teach racism to be these days. That seems pretty racist to say that because of your race, there's something intrinsically wrong about you

that you can't change. I mean, it's the definition of racism, it's the actual definition, especially, yeah, saying that there's some inherent internal flaw, some inherent moral flaw in members of a certain race is like textbook racism. At least it was textbook racism before they changed all the textbooks. But yeah, it's a racist view.

It's a racist against white people. It's dehumanizing and infantilizing for, you know, so-called people of color. I think it's degrading to everybody involved, ultimately. Yeah, and it sounds like you trivialize the great evil that racism actually is when you pretended something else and make a meme out of it. The other thing is like slander is also a grave evil, you know? Like speaking falsehoods about someone to destroy their character. And if I change the definition of racism and then accuse you of it when you're not, I'm

also doing a grave evil. So it seems like there are multiple things being done here. One of them is trivializing the real evil that racism is and then slandering people. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the one of the many problems is that that yeah, racism, I mean, I've gotten this in response to the film, I get it all the time. Are you denying that racism exists?

Are you denying that people are, of course I'm not denying the racism, I guess, there could be racist people out there. There could be racist people of all different races. But it is true that because the word racist is thrown around so often now and so lightly and casually, it doesn't really mean, if someone comes to me and says, oh, I was the victim of racism, it doesn't necessarily mean anything because I have to know, well, actually you were the victim of racism or were you the victim of quote unquote

racism. So there's kind of a skepticism that you have to apply to all these claims now to an extent that you didn't in the past. And it ends up, you could have people that are actually victims of racism and now are not believed. I mean, it's like with hate crimes, hate crime hoaxes are so common that when somebody comes along and claims that they were the victim of some kind of hate crime or something like that, your reflexive response is to not believe it. You can't help it because it's a hoax so often. But every once in a while somebody might actually be the victim. And now, well, it's like we can't, we don't believe you at first either,

because unfortunately there are all these hoaxers out there. It reminds me of how some feminists abuse the word rape. They might take it to mean if a man looks you up and down, that's a form of rape. And then if you start using the term rape that way, you've just diminished the great evil that actual rape is. We have other words for different reasons. Yeah, it's exactly the same kind of thing. Yeah.

So given how popular you became after your last documentary, how many times did you step into one of these situations, one of these seminars or interviews, and people realized right away who you were, and you had to sort of throw that scene away and not put it in the final cut? Um not not often not not nearly as often as you would think not often as we thought what would happen when we started making this uh especially with the disguise we use it's not exactly you know it's it's it's not the most elaborate disguise uh we're not using facial prosthetics and fat suits so we talked about doing that kind of thing, but it's just too expensive and difficult and takes too much time. So yeah, we didn't know going in.

We assumed that I would be recognized relatively frequently, just be something we have to navigate. And it happened very rarely. In fact, one of the first things we shot was a little short scene in a bookstore where I just go to get some anti-racist literature. It's one of the first things in the movie. It's one of the first things we shot sequentially. I did get recognized there. It was kind of a weird thing where I was talking to the, I guess it was one of the employees of the bookstore and she was walking me through and she's the one on camera.

Meanwhile there was rumblings around us of people saying, that's Matt Walsh, and not happy about it because this is a liberal bookstore. I was waiting for them to just intrude and kick me out. They never did for some reason. And after that experience, we kind of thought, well, you know, it's one of the first things we shot. I got recognized. We thought this is gonna be an issue. But it really wasn't much after that. And I think what we discovered is that a lot of these people, they live in such a bubble that,

you know, they really aren't, you know, you could be, you know, prominent in conservative media and they really aren't, you know, you could be, you know, prominent in conservative media, and it's like they might not even heard of you because they just don't pay attention to anything that they don't agree with to begin with. So that worked to our advantage. Yeah, that's a good point. Because I think a lot of conservative people know who Robin D'Angelo is. But a lot of people on there, so I didn't know who you were. How did you get the cameras into these places? Like that seminar, for example, what did you tell them to be able to get in there?

Yeah, none of it's hidden camera. So that's a misconception, I think, from some. It's not a hidden camera thing. Everybody knows they're on camera. They sign releases. And you know, they knew we wanted, pretty simple. They knew we wanted to film one of their seminars. Same thing for Race to Dinner. They knew we wanted to film a Race to Dinner event.

And that's what we did, you know, and they signed the release. So it's real people, it's a real thing. But yeah, they were aware of the cameras. So I know you said you couldn't get to the race to dinner conversation because apparently you're not a woman, which is a rather bigoted assumption. But so how then did you get a job in the kitchen? Yeah, I don't wanna go into all the nitty gritty.

But it was, once we found out that not only will they allow white men to serve them, but actually they are quite welcoming of that, they encourage that, then it wasn't too hard to kind of set up a scenario where I could be one of the people serving them. Let's put it this way, they didn't do background checks on the people serving them. Maybe they will in the future though. Yeah, yeah, it seemed too good to be true. I just, I love your ability to stand in an uncomfortable situation and go to 11, you

know, because so many times I thought, okay, all right, yeah, that's about as much as I can take. And then to have you come in, and I can say this because it was in the trailer, with a glass of champagne and invite everybody to raise their glass if they're a racist and toast to racists and they did it, that was outstanding. Yeah, that was one of my favorite ones to film. We had a lot of fun with that.

As much fun as you can when you're in the room with these people, given that I think that they are, what they're doing is quite evil and these are some of them quite unpleasant people. But you mentioned the British office before. Like I said, to me, that's quite a flattering comparison because I'm a huge fan of that. I guess you can kind of tell when you watch the movie. I'm just the kind of cringe dry, for me comedy can never be cringey enough, like I just think that stuff is hilarious.

And so one of the things we want to do in this movie is, yeah, you know, you have a, we have a message we want to get across and I think that's pretty clear and we have something we want to expose. I mean, this is a documentary still because this is all real people. It's a real thing. But also we want to be entertaining.

And we saw some of this some of these some of this stuff and some of these places as just really good forums for comedy. We just thought it's like let's let's and let's kind of put that first. You've got the story, you have the comedy, you need it to be funny, and let's prioritize that. That's the first job, is we gotta make sure we're telling the story

and it has to be funny. And all the other stuff is secondary, and I think that, although still very important, but I think this is traditionally in kind of conservative media and also in Christian films and all of that, one of the mistakes that's been made is you flip that upside down, to my mind it's upside down,

where, well, the message is the most important thing, so let's get the message down. And as long as we have that, then story, entertainment quality, all of that is kind of secondary. And I think that's the way conservatives have approached it for years. And the problem is that you end up not really getting your message across because it's not high quality entertainment. So nobody, no one's watching it unless they already fully agree with you because you're

not putting the story first. The funny thing is that now, I made the point before that on the left, they're kind of making this same mistake. It's like the left is kind of regressing in a way, in terms of their artistic output, where now they're doing this and they're putting out movies where it's pretty clear that the thing they care the most

about is getting their message out, their woke leftist message. And then they put things like plot and story and narrative and acting and writing as a second tier concern. And you can tell based on the product. Yeah, I know that's a good analogy. I've got a question from local supporter Alex, and I think this is a good question. It's one that's probably given to you a lot.

Do you see mockery and insults as conducive to solving the issues with the left on most hot button issues? Why or why not? Definitely. Well, I think my answer's pretty obvious, but yes, I think that it is conducive. I think it's not only conducive, but essential.

And I don't mean that everybody should be mocking the left all the time, and that's the only thing we should ever do. But that should be a tool in our arsenal. It should be a weapon in our arsenal, rather, tool in our toolbox. It should be something that we do. And this is the other thing that we, if you have a healthy kind of movement, not everyone is doing the same thing all the time. And so you have to kind of,

you have to have people in your movement who are good at certain things and certain approaches and let them do that. And other people have a different approach. So for me, I like to think that mockery, satire, trolling, whatever you want to call it, is kind of my wheelhouse. I know how to do that. There are other people who shouldn't even try it because it's not their thing, but they're

very good at getting the message across in other ways and ways that I can't. And so let's have a diversity of tactics, let's say. Yeah. Now, I know that it must have been super awkward enough sitting in front of people you had no respect for in the man bun and the thin rim glasses, et cetera. But you told me that when you see when I saw this commercial and you were sitting in what looked like a bar in the South in front of these good old Southern boys, I just assumed that they were paid actors

because I can't imagine how unbearable it would be to walk into a place like that, ask the kinds of questions you were asking when you're like, I don't really mean this. I know this is bull crap. I'm just this is a documentary. So how did that take place? Yeah. Again, there's no, they're not actors, real people. We didn't explain. We didn't want to do something where like, if we think we're going to agree with you, we tell you

what we're up to. Because then we want to get your authentic, we want to get an authentic answer. We want to get both because that's more honest, we've come up with a more honest film, but also it's just better. It's just going to be better. The other thing is that most people are not actors. That's not something that comes naturally to most people. And so if you try to, even if we wanted to,

if we wanted to coach them and say, look, this is what we're hoping to get out of this. Here's what you should say. It just wouldn't work because most people, again, it's just, you know, that's not like a natural skill I think that most people have. So you gotta just let people respond as they do. Now, yes, it's very awkward.

In fact, I think you're right to single out that scene because probably for me personally, that was the most awkward thing that I did. Because it is a different thing when you're in a room with people who you don't respect and you're kind of making fun of their own world. You're like creating this cartoonish version of themselves and reflecting it back to them, respect and you're kind of making fun of their own world view. You're like creating this cartoonish version of themselves and reflecting it back to them,

which is what we do in a lot of the film. That can be awkward too and kind of tense. But when I'm going into a place where I know none of them agree with this and I'm presenting this version of myself that's completely like this is not who I am in real life at all. Yeah, it's embarrassing, right? But we also know that we're making a film. I mean, we did similar things in What is a Woman. That sequence in Emma Racist is similar in some ways to in What is a Woman, we went to the Maasai tribe in Kenya and started asking them about transgender stuff and they were laughing.

A similar thing because they just look at me like I'm a crazy person and they almost feel sorry for me. And we never told them. Like I left there with them still thinking that I am a hopelessly confused, you know, poor man. And the same thing for that sequence in Am I Racist? Yeah, my gosh. Do you, how many theaters have you sold now?

And we're gonna be releasing this today and tomorrow. And so it's before the movie releases in cinemas. So how many theaters have you sold? Is that beating your expectations? And why should people go get a ticket? It is. It's beating my expectations by exponentially. And I think it's beating anyone's expectations.

So right now we're at over 1,500 theaters. By the time it's released, which it should be, I don't know, should be more than that. They're adding theaters by the day. We started around 200-ish, I believe, if I remember correctly. And the funny thing is that we assumed we would run into some pushback getting this into theaters

because of the subject matter. And that wasn't the case, that the subject matter actually, to the theater's credit, the subject matter didn't seem to scare them. What scared them, not really scared them, but what made them hesitant, if anything, was just the genre. And this is technically a documentary. And so they said, you know, documentaries are not box office draws. You don't get, they don't make millions of dollars of the box office, so we're only gonna give you a few screens. And we had to sell tickets, we had to get a lot of pre-sales

to earn, kind of earn our keep early on, and we did. So we expanded to 1,500 screens, and you could still get tickets at MRASIS.com. And the more we sell in pre-sales, the more people who can ultimately see the movie because we get the more screens. So did someone approach you with this idea rather than immediately releasing it to Daily Wire Plus

that we do this in the theaters? And did you believe that would work? Yeah, actually it was our director, Justin Folk, who this was something that he was pressing early on. And he was the first one to bring it up to me anyway, the first person I heard this idea from. And initially I was definitely skeptical and pretty nervous about it because, I mean, his point from the beginning was, look, there's a scoreboard when you're in a box office.

Nobody can deny the box office. If you have a big success with a film on daily wire platform, for example, like we did with What is a Woman, it's great, but nobody can see that. And so you kind of have to kind of take your word for it when you tell them that this was a huge smash success, which What Is A Woman was, but again, like no one has any framework for that. They don't really, you know. But when you're in box office, if you have a success,

then there's no, everyone can see it. There's no denying it. And that's just gonna amplify the cultural impact of the film. Of course, so he made that case to me and I said, well, that's appealing. The flip side of that is that if you do terribly and you flop, then that's also on the scoreboard that everyone can look at. And that's a huge embarrassment.

But that's the risk. And it hasn't come out yet. We'll see what happens. But presales are going really strong. So it's certainly a risk. I think it's a calculated and smart risk. But you've got to, this is a thing with conservatives. We get in our, we're in our little like ghettos and we like to stay in our little areas, which

I understand. But at a certain point, you have to break beyond that and be willing to just go into mainstream culture and say, hey, here we are. Here's this thing that we made, guys. What do you think of it? And I get it. It's a scary thing to do that. But we have to if we want

to actually compete in the culture. One of the most difficult scenes to watch was your interview with Robin DiAngelo. So how did that come about? And if you don't mind me asking, how much did she charge you? Yeah, she. So we 15,000. If I remember correctly, it's in the movie. As you know, we put all the we put all the price tags on the screen so everyone can see because this is part of the story that we're telling. These people are grifters in it for the money, in my opinion. So 15,000 was her fee.

And what was the first part of the question? How do we get her in the film? Yeah, I guess I want to know, like, okay, so they booked it. That must have been awesome to realize this is going to be in a way the climax to the film. What was it like walking in there meeting her? Presumably there's a lot that wasn't put on the film in which you had to make her feel comfortable so that she would open up to you. What was that whole experience like? Yeah, it was pretty tense and it was a long conversation. I probably talked to her for, pretty tense. And it was a long conversation. I probably talked to her for, I don't know, a couple of hours. And we have, I don't know, the spoilers are all out there. But I don't want to,

you know, I don't want to give it. Yeah, I don't want to. I'm pretending that they're not. So I'm not going to talk about spoilers. But we did have in that we knew that when we filmed that, that we wanted this to be kind of our third act, you know, climax. And so we knew we needed to do it. I didn't want to just go and sit and talk to her. We needed to do something. We needed to like take this somewhere. We wanted it to build to something.

But in order to get there, then you've really got to buy credibility with these people. And the way that I, similar thing with What is a Woman, for all those interviews, in both movies, it really, you know, it's like, whatever you see there, there was probably an hour before that of just total fluff. You know, I'm not challenging at all. I'm just asking a bunch of fluffy questions. I'm bored out of my mind. I'm just trying, you gotta make them feel comfortable

and get them in a flow. And then after a while, they start to feel like, okay, well, this person, I'm in a safe space here. This person obviously is very credible and interested. And once you get that, then you can start getting honest moments. But it does take, in both films, there are interviews that, well, there's plenty of stuff that doesn't make it in the movie because it's only 90 minutes or, you know, 100 minutes.

I'm hoping for a blooper reel. Right. There's a lot. But there's also, you know, in both films, I can think of cases where I made the strategic mistake of going into something and kind of being impatient and just wanting to get right to the good stuff. And when you do that, it's jarring and they clam up and they shut down and they're just not going to be honest with you. So you had to do what nobody thought you could do, be charming. Charming is a strong word.

Charming is a strong word. Charming is a strong word. At least in a way. I mean, it's because it's easy to be charming with these sorts of people. Charming to them just means that you agree with them. To charm them, all you need to do is agree and show, say that you know the buzzwords, you say those and you act like you're interested in their BS ideas and you can charm them all day long. So yeah, I guess so in a way, in a way, charming. Do you think that there was anybody in the film who doesn't yet know they're in this huge film? Does that make sense?

Like they didn't know they were going to be putting this massive documentary. Do you think they all know, oh crap, I'm in this documentary that these right-wing fundamentalists are putting in? Yeah, I think at this point, just because of the trailer and some of the clips that have been put out, they know that they're in it. Now they might not know exactly what part of our exchange and our experience together made it into the film. So they might not know that.

And we, so far, well actually, this is breaking news. Kate Slater, who's in the film, first person we talked to. Yeah, she's, finally we have one person in the film who's come out and denounced the film, that just happened. She posted on Instagram, she called the film a piece of crap, but she didn't say, you know, she used the more inappropriate word

and said that she's gone off the radar. And she deleted her Twitter account, her ex account as well. So, you know, we got that. We still have not heard from Ramadi Angelo. And I think maybe after the movie premieres and people have seen that scene and are talking about maybe one moment in particular, she might finally feel the need to say something. But the truth is that there's not a lot that these people can say because if they could accuse us of deceptively editing it or making it seem like they said and did things they didn't really say and do then they certainly would

come out and say that but we didn't do that. I mean it's all there. This is them in all their glory and there's not a lot they can say about it. Right, you had them sign contracts. Yeah, everyone signed waivers. So did you just, did they just have, were they just under the impression that you're doing a documentary about race? The correct assessment? Yeah. Well, they exactly, we were doing a documentary on race and, and related issues, which is what we're making. It's what we have out. You know, am I racist? I'm sure everybody has told you this, but there was such a heartwarming moment in the middle of that film, right?

Because it starts out like secondhand embarrassment. And then it's just so beautiful and uniting for America. Some of those interviews, especially that fella in the garage. I was almost in tears watching that. And then you took the back of my head and you thrust it into Secondhand embarrassment to the point that I couldn't breathe. So it was the flow of the movie was excellent Like I don't know much about making movies, but I know this one was like second to none as far as how it was put together I appreciate that and that and that you know

I wish I could take credit for the flow part of it because but that can't really. That's all Justin Foulke, our director, and Marshall, our main editor on the film. Movies in general, I've kind of realized as I've gotten into a little bit, until you get into it, you don't realize how much, it seems obvious, but you don't realize how much of making movies happens after the cameras are off. And especially with something like this, when there's just so much raw footage.

And we had many cuts of this film. We had a first cut of the film a year ago that was not great and even maybe not good, at least by our standards, even though a lot of the material is kind of the same, but it's just like, you gotta, the flow wasn't there because we hadn't gotten it down in the editing yet, and you gotta just go and once you figure out, it's like a, you know, there's a certain,

it's like a symphony in a way that you're conducting. Again, I'm not doing that, it's like a symphony in a way that you're conducting. But again, I'm not doing that. That's other people. Yeah. But I think it's, yeah. Keep going. Yeah. I was going to say, I don't think it's hyperbole to say that your documentary, What is a Woman,

changed the conversation about trans ideology, child mutilation for children, et cetera. So what do you hope this video accomplishes? Of course we hope to, and I think we do in the film, expose the DEI, not just DEI but the so-called anti-racist hustle in general, expose it for the absurdity that it is. So we hope to do that. We hope that people come away from it. You mentioned that middle section of the film and some of the people that we talked to in that.

And just normal people, black and white, who have not been touched by this DEI stuff and have, I think, just a healthy, not perfect saints or anything, but these people, but just normal people and they have a healthy kind of attitude about race. And if people come away more with that attitude then I think it's great. But also even aside from the race and the DEI issue, I hope that it continues a trend of conservatives getting into, you know, entertainment. And we're obviously not the first movers at all in terms of conservatives in the theaters.

I mean, many people, Angel Studios has been doing it quite successfully. But so we were part of a trend that I already started. And I hope that that continues as well. You know, when I came here from Australia, my wife and I got married, we were living in Ireland, Canada. When we came back in 2012, I remember feeling that there was a concerted effort

to accuse me and my friends of being racist. And I remember thinking, am I crazy? Like that seems so weird. Like, and I was even embarrassed to bring it up in case maybe that was racist, you know? And I was second guessing myself. And I thought if I said, well, I'm not a racist. They told me that that was proof that I was one.

It's, I think a really kind of, it's a very disgusting manipulative tactic to make people feel guilty about things they haven't done so that you can then make them do what you want them to do. And that's what it seems to me is being done in this country. And I think that this excellent documentary is going to be a sort of antidote to that. So when I show my teenage son and daughter this,

they'll see the insanity of it for what it is. And the next time someone comes around and tries to accuse them of being something that they're not, they can tell them to please go to hell. So I think that's what a big boon from this documentary is going to be. Yeah, I think that's the right message for such people. You're also right, it's interesting that you say 2012 because as someone who's lived in America the whole right, it's interesting that you say 2012 because as someone who's lived in America the whole time, it's always seemed to me, and I'm not the only one, many people have remarked on the seeming irony that we had a black president obviously elected in 2008.

And after his first term, really in the middle of his first term, it seemed like, quote unquote, race relations started to plummet, which is, I guess, what naive people would have expected exactly the opposite when you have your first black president. And that's not a coincidence. I think that that was a deliberate thing by the people who are behind this agenda. And they had to ramp it up after Obama was elected because normal people would look at the election of a black man. I mean, I didn't vote for him. I didn't want him to be elected because I think his politics were terrible. But a normal person would look at that and think, OK, well, even if I don't like him,

at least we can say about this that it's pretty good evidence that systemic racism is not really an issue in America anymore, now that there's a black guy at the top of the system. But I think the race hustlers realized that Americans would make that connection and were worried about that because racial guilt and resentment is such a potent tool for them to use. And so really they had to redouble their efforts because of Obama's election. They had to redouble their efforts to convince Americans that they are racist, which I think when you got here, 2012 is kind of what you were, it's like they were right, it's like

right when they were first kind of ramping that up. And that's what you were picking up on, I think. Yeah. All right. Well, just the final question, tell people why, I mean, Yeah. All right, well, just the final question. Tell people why. I mean, you already said it, but let's do it again. Why is it important that people go right now to your website, which I don't want to screw up.

So I'm going to have you say, I guess I get it wrong, and buy a ticket. EmmaRacist.com is the website. Yeah, well, there's two reasons. One of the first reason that I often say that maybe should be the second reason. But if you want more movies like this in theaters, if you want movies that reflect our values as conservatives,

then you gotta support the movies when they show up. It's the only way that you get more of them. But the second reason is that I believe it's actually a good movie and it's entertaining. And so when I say support, I don't mean it in a charitable sense. Um, uh, I think it's, it's, you know, for your investment, we will deliver entertaining time at the, at the theater and you can walk away. Yeah.

With all these, maybe, maybe taking a good message from it, but, um, actually, you know, feeling entertained and that's what we hope to do. Well, a big thanks to you and to the director, the editors, all the hard work your team put into making this happen. Thanks for coming on the show as well. Thanks, Matt. Appreciate it.