Jeremy Jahns and His Ignorant Review of “Am I Racist”

Jeremy Jahns is one of the more popular film critics on YouTube. An aspect that some might attribute to his success is his that he is unbiased. He doesn’t seem to cave to the culture war grift for easy views, nor does he seem to be more critical of the politics surrounding films. As I’ve observed from his many fans, they seem to favor him as the unbiased critic more in tune with the average movie-goer.

While this perceived mindset might be satiating enough for reviews of superhero movies and ongoing franchises, it does not bode well for all the films he reviews. This is very much the case when Jahns reviewed the Matt Walsh film Am I Racist.

Matt Walsh is a political commentator at the right-wing organization known as The Daily Wire. His political rants laced with misinformation have led to real harm. In August of 2022, Walsh denounced Boston Children’s Hospital for offering youth transgender healthcare. Following the denouncement, the hospital received harassment, death threats, and a bomb threat.

One would think that Walsh would learn something from this event, but he didn’t. In fact, he did the same thing again a month later, when he called out Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Tennesse, leading to more death threats for a hospital. This is to say nothing of Walsh’s hateful propaganda book, Johnny The Walrus, a book intended for children that compares being transgender to being a walrus.

The Daily Wire has a film division and Matt has been very active on this front. His first major film was the documentary What Is A Woman, which is more transphobic nonsense. Matt tries to trip people up by asking those who believe in trans rights if they can define what a woman is. The question itself is not an easy one and when Matt finally does get a thoughtful answer from somebody who studies gender, the film deceptively edits the long explanation into sounding boring.

What Is A Woman is not curious or interested about explaining the topic of gender further than their own lens. The film ends with Matt delivering his answer, or, rather, his wife’s answer. When asking the film’s central question, Matt’s wife says that a woman is defined as “an adult human female.” But that is less of an answer and more of a circular fallacy. The answer then begs the question, what is considered female. I imagine that if Matt were posed this question, he would say that a female is a woman. This isn’t an answer; it’s a synonym.

Matt’s same style of incuriosity led to his next film, the aptly titled Am I Racist. It’s the same format except now Matt focuses on the race relations and tries to go undercover like Borat. The problem is that Matt sucks at playing characters as much as he does at asking meaningful questions. Portions of the film feature people recognizing him almost immediately, where his liberal ponytail and shoes does little to conceal his true identity.

The few times that Matt gets into legit costume where he could play up the comedy, he is terrible at finding the funny. During a dinner where race is discussed, Matt tries to disrupt the event as a waiter that keeps dropping food. Nearly every time that Matt tries out a bit, hoping to catch anti-racists off guard, he fumbles. Such awful jokes include trying to restructure the Washington monument as the George Floyd Monument, to be painted black and lengthened by 30%. Get it? Because of the stereotype that black people have big dicks? This is humor to Matt Walsh, making light of a man murdered by the police with dick jokes.

There is a case to be made for how some anti-racist movements have clouded the method of combatting racism too neatly. But that topic requires a dissection of neoliberalism’s motivations and how activism becomes lost in simplistic platitudes. Matt Walsh is not equipped to handle this subject for a documentary, let alone a Borat-style comedy.

This is an incredibly uncritical and unfunny movie.

Anyway, Jeremy Jahns found this movie funny.

It’s remarkable how Jahns begins his review with several blindspots. He says that Matt is playing a character commenting on DEI, and then has to look up what DEI means in this very video. He’s not off to a great start here.

He also mentions Walsh’s previous documentary being on the streaming service Daily Wire+, but cites his primary reason not looking into that film was because there are too many streaming services. So far, Jahns doesn’t have much insight into Matt Walsh or The Daily Wire.

Jahns starts by praising Matt Walsh as being funny, specifically for his disguise at the DNC that fooled absolutely nobody. This admittance is decent prep for when Jahns tries to admit that Walsh is clever in his many bits.

Jahns is also woefully inept about how this film was made. He does bring up how the people interviewed for this film might’ve been duped into appearing, not knowing what documentary they were being interviewed for. This literally happened with Matt’s previous documentary and it’s happening again.

Robin DiAngelo has come out with a statement about how she was deceived, which Jahns does cite. And by cite, I mean he mentions that she made a statement that he didn’t read. It’s one thing to ignore the lies that manufactured this movie. It’s another thing to boast about how much you ignore those issues.

Anyway, Jahns kinda stumbles around in the dark for the remainder of the review. He cites social media creating echo chambers and brings up how Walsh is asking the right questions.

Is he though? Which tough questions are those, Jeremy? Because the only example that he gives is when Matt asks a small-town resident if they checked their whiteness, a question so absurd that only the most awkward of liberals would ask. The person he asks, a middle-aged man likely to represent the right-wing crowd Walsh wants to coat with innocence, is dismissive and doesn’t give much of a response or thought to the question. This type of staging feels like Matt trying to stress that race isn’t an issue, but it only seems that way when posed with nonsense questions at passive white guys that don’t directly engage with or challenge the topic.

Jahns recommends the film, having admitted that he laughed at Walsh’s antics without the use of alcohol. I don’t doubt that Jahns found the film funny, nor do I fully believe that the Daily Wire somehow paid him off to give a positive review. What I do believe, however, is that Jahns is willfully ignorant to understand what is really going on with this film.

Jahns narrowly skirts by all the controversies regarding Matt Walsh and The Daily Wire. That might make his opinion seem more unbiased, but it shows a lack of insight when talking about a Matt Walsh film developed by The Daily Wire. Quick reminder: These are the same people who pushed transphobia so hard that multiple hospitals received death threats.

The manner in which Jahns expresses himself in this review seems to favor avoiding politics. While that apolitical framing might suffice for blockbusters and franchise films where the politics are more in the background, it does not work here. This is not Matt Walsh playing a character, despite his attempt to do that for part of the film. This is Matt Walsh presenting himself and his political views in a documentary.

I’m sorry if you thought the best way to review movies was to avoid politics, but that does not work with every film. Are you going to walk into a film like Reagan and only comment on the makeup? Are you going to review God’s Not Dead 5 and only talk about the editing? Are you going to blindly ignore every political aspect of these deeply political films for the sake of being a centrist?

On this topic, there’s a memorable quote from the film Enola Holmes. The black woman Edith asks a white Sherlock Holmes why he has no interest in politics. Sherlock responds that he finds politics boring. Edith corrects Sherlock by citing that the real reason is because he has no interest in changing a world that suits him so well.

That may be why Jahns finds the film so funny. It’s trolling on a topic he has little interest in exploring beyond what jokes can be made. If Jahns did care, he would’ve looked into this film’s controversial figure and the propaganda-pushing network that made this film happen. He also probably wouldn’t have laughed at that grotesque George Floyd joke.

Before starting this review, Jahns mentions that he almost considered not seeing this film. He should have taken that advice and skipped Am I Racist. If Jahns was indeed trying to stick to this apolitical route, he should steer clear of deeply political movies if he’s incapable of engaging with them on a political level.

Reviewing films like Am I Racist requires a level of intellectual honesty and political belief that most critics would be comfortable enough to explore. Jeremy does not and this refusal to engage with the film beyond its South Park levels of trolling is more of a hindrance for his views than it is an appeasement to remain palatable.

I acknowledge that Walsh’s film has one apt relation to Borat. Borat Subsequent Movie Film was a comedy that said something important about politics in how it framed the Trump administration. Matt Walsh’s Am I Racist also says something about racial politics, and it’s not useful to willingly ignore its greater messaging by downplaying its minimizing of racial issues.

We are at a point in time where right-wing production companies are starting to crowd the cinema more. There’s been a Reagan film that ignores the AIDS epidemic, a God’s Not Dead sequel that wants the audience to believe that Christianity is under attack by politicians, and an upcoming documentary from the political criminal/liar Dinesh D’Souza, whose previous documentary on election fraud was overflowing with so much misinformation that the distributor pulled it. These are all hideous films filled with fabrications that will not be easily readable for the YouTubers who exclusively review mainstream franchise sequels, line their shelves with Funko Pops, and prefer to “stay out of politics.”

If that crop of YouTubers would prefer to remain apolitical, they’d steer away from political movies. Those who want to review such films as Am I Racist would do well to form an opinion on the issue and bring some thought to what message is being communicated. The best reviewers are those who engage with the material and bring some insight into how they interpret the material. I’d much rather read/watch a review from someone with insight and thought into the topic of race rather than someone who only judges on how funny Matt Walsh can be, divorced from everything that he says, who he associates with, and the politics he wants to promote in this film.

I’m sorry, but you can’t review Am I Racist without bringing your own political opinions into the mix. Jahns might’ve believed he found the cheat codes for this by never once acknowledging the controversies of Walsh or The Daily Wire, but he hasn’t. Like the person who likes to claim they are apolitical while ignoring all the rights-rollbacking of the Republican party, a stance is chosen, even if by accident.

You can’t appease everyone as a centrist while offering some milquetoast take on a right-wing film. You only think you’re apolitical until a political issues confronts you and there will be a choice made, even if you favor the lazy route of the status quo. Whether Jahns was being deceptive or ignorant, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that he’s not telling the full story about why Matt Walsh and The Daily Wire are controversial.

Too much dangerous rhetoric has been whipped up by Matt and his right-wing ilk in the past few years to still be in the dark about what is going on. We have to be talking about these types of films on a level beyond whether or not we need booze to watch them. All the booze in the world can’t convince me that Matt Walsh is a funny comedian or that someone as incurious as Jeremy Jahns is offering fair movie critiques simply because he doesn’t engage in the politics this film is trying to promote.