The one-year-old “What Is a Woman?” documentary has amassed more than 177 million views in less than a week on Twitter. Despite pushback from transgender activists, the documentary has had enormous success since the film was offered on Twitter at the beginning of June. CNA took a look at what the film is about and why it’s amassed so many views recently.
What is the film about?
The documentary, which stars popular culture and political commentator Matt Walsh and is distributed by The Daily Wire, tackles questions related to the transgender movement, specifically delving into the question posed in the title, “What is a woman?”
Walsh interviews a variety of people, including politicians, doctors, a professor, and a therapist, asking them whether they can explain what a woman is. When met with unclear and nonspecific answers, Walsh presses the question further.
At one point, he asks Dr. Patrick Grzanka, a professor of women, gender, and sexuality studies at the University of Tennessee, to explain the differences between sex and gender. When Walsh presses Grzanka about wanting to know the truth and the reality of whether someone is a man or a woman, the professor expresses that he is uncomfortable.
“I’m really uncomfortable with that language of like ‘getting to the truth,’” Grzanka said during the interview. “It sounds actually deeply transphobic to me and if you keep probing, we’re going to stop the interview.”
During the documentary, Walsh also speaks with women who have been forced to compete with biologically male athletes who identify as women. This includes women who placed behind their transgender competitors in both swimming and track and field and believe wins and better finishes were taken from them.
Why is the film going viral?
The film is a year old and was initially released by The Daily Wire to its paid subscribers on June 1, 2022. To celebrate the one-year anniversary, The Daily Wire made the film free on Twitter for a limited time, which began on June 1, 2023.
“What Is A Woman?” has amassed about 177.2 million views on The Daily Wire’s Twitter post since it was released for free. The film has received a lot of publicity and positive feedback from conservatives but a lot of hostility from transgender activists.
Because the film deals with the highly contentious issue of gender identity and gender ideology, it has gained publicity from both sides of the issue.
The documentary has not received many reviews from movie critics, but it received an 83% approval rating from six movie critics listed on Rotten Tomatoes and an 86% approval rating from more than 10,000 users rating the film.
“Our film has been banned from most platforms,” Walsh said in a Tweet. “Mainstream movie critics refused to even review it. It’s been blacklisted and suppressed and yet still reached a massive audience. But how many more could we have reached without the deck stacked completely against us? It’s no use lamenting these things.”
How did it survive content moderation on Twitter?
Twitter initially entered into a deal with The Daily Wire to help broadcast the documentary but ultimately backed out of the deal and began suppressing the film as soon as it was posted on the social media platform.
When the documentary initially aired on Twitter, it was given a content warning, which flagged the video as “hate speech” and limited its visibility based on accusations that it was transphobic.
Walsh and other members of The Daily Wire’s team sparred with Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal on Twitter about the restrictions. They also directly appealed to Twitter owner Elon Musk by tweeting at his account.
Musk ultimately intervened and put a stop to the suppression efforts, which included getting rid of the “hate speech” warning. He then tweeted out the documentary, saying “every parent should watch this.” He pinned the tweet for a brief period.
What have Catholics said about it?
Walsh is a practicing Catholic and the film was well received by some Catholic viewers.
CatholicVote, a Catholic political advocacy group, recommended the film for viewers aged 16 and older and suggested that high school students should discuss it with a trusted adult.
“The question ‘What is Woman?’ is a hook — to catch a bigger fish, as it were,” Erika Ahern of CatholicVote wrote on June 2, 2022.
“Yes, it’s one important question that trans ideologues have refused to tackle,” she continued. “(We hear multiple interviewees replying the Walsh with, ‘Why are you asking that question?’) But there are a number of other questions that could be posed. What is a man? What is gender? What is sex? But the central question is much deeper. Fisherman Walsh tackles it even before he lands his first interview: ‘What is truth?’”
Ann Schneible, a freelance journalist writing a review for National Catholic Register, gave the film a B+. She said it is a good starting point for this issue but would not recommend it as a tool for understanding someone with gender dysphoria.
“While it may not be persuasive to anyone who does not generally agree with Walsh, it may still be a valuable starting point for anyone who wants to delve deeper into an issue that is affecting an increasing number of individuals and families,” Schneible wrote. “From this perspective, I would recommend this film.”
Mary Rice Hasson, the director of the Person and Identity Project at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, tweeted out her support for the film and criticism of the initial restrictions.
“Matt Walsh’s documentary has had a powerful impact, sharing the truth on an incredibly important issue,” Hasson said.
Oli London, a man who formerly identified as a gender-fluid trans woman but has since detransitioned and converted to Catholicism, also tweeted about the film and the previous censorship.
“Despite Twitter censoring [Matt Walsh’s] ‘What is a Woman?’ [The Daily Wire’s] documentary this evening and Elon issuing several tweets adding to the confusion he has now tweeted that the censorship will create ‘The Streisand effect,’” London tweeted. “The Streisand effect is an unintended consequence of attempts to hide, remove, or censor information where it instead leads to increased awareness of that information.”
Sachin Jose, a Catholic journalist and social media influencer, encouraged others to step up and discuss this issue.
“Matt Walsh is one the greatest evangelizers in the West and Catholic Church today,” Jose said on Twitter. “He is able to save the lives of thousands of kids. We need priests, bishops, and laypeople who are not afraid to speak the truth.”
Story from Catholic World Report.
All Matt Walsh does in that documentary is show liberal elites talking honestly about their opinions about sex and gender. If it’s offensive hate speech, it’s because showing liberals speaking what they really believe is offensive to liberals. Liberals don’t want you to know what they believe. It’s high time that normal America put a stop to LGBTQHIVABCD being shoved in our faces and forced upon our children everywhere all the time.
If there were a disease spreading as fast as gay and trans are spreading among kids, the CDC and Democrats would impose lockdowns to stop it.
Look how many Hollywood celebrities have queer children. It’s upbringing. It’s not genetic. It’s not biological. It’s environmental and it’s psychological. These Hollywood types encourage their kids to be queer because they want queer kids because it will increase their woke credentials and their stature in the entertainment industry.
Megan Fox dresses all her boys like girls. Do you think those boys really want that? Do you honestly believe all of them are biologically gay or trans?
It’s a social contagion. Libs shut things down for Covid. But they are positively promoting the spread of gay and trans because it’s anti-Christian. That’s the real reason.
Social contagion-like when politicians from gated communities post on Instagram something that is nunya’bizness and you spread it.
Watch those agenda driven “experts” evade answering the question. What Is a Woman is a must see.
Here’s an example of the bias in reporting that regular Americans are sick of. A report stated: “So far this year, state legislators have introduced a record wave of more than 400 bills and enacted at least 60 laws aimed at limiting transgender people’s access to bathrooms, health care and school athletics.”
It would have been more correct to report that the laws are aimed at limiting sexual deviants’ access to bathrooms in order to protect women and girls from the presence of men in a female-only facility, aimed at protecting children from irreversible chemical and surgical mutilations made to their bodies before they are legal adults or mature enough to make informed decisions about their bodies, and aimed at ensuring fairness in girls’ and women’s sporting events by prohibiting biologically-stronger males from competing against females in female-only events.
As usual, Republicans are the mature and thoughtful ones in the room, doing what needs to be done in truth and wisdom.
I am one of those veiws probably, but I did not watch it. I would watch until it got boring (very quickly) and then skip ahead. (I never found anything that held my attention.
I do not know about this platform but on YouTube, you only have to watch for 30 seconds to be counted as a view.
My favorite part:
Matt Walsh: “What about if someone was non-binary?”
Maasai man: “Come again?”
I couldn’t stop laughing. Priceless.
I ain’t laughing. He took the concept to them and planted the seed and it will grow.
Nonsense. Strong very strong masculine and feminine identities and culture.
Can’t imagine what’s going through the minds of those Masai.
“These people don’t know what a woman is? And they call US primitive!”
I don’t want to stand with the alarmists, but still I would recommend all Cal Catholic readers pray for the safety of Matt Walsh. I would not be surprised if attempts are made on his life or that of his family. I do believe Satan is enraged at his efforts to reintroduce sanity and godliness into the public square, and his voice is like one crying in the wilderness, a modern day John the Baptist (sort of). And we all know how it ended for John. Pray it doesn’t end that way for Matt.
Google his income.
Immortality is not for sale
At the same time, people need to disrupt pride events and parades and school board meetings. Fight back against the encroaching gay tyranny.
Even only 20 years ago, who would’ve thought that the question “What is a women?” was somehow difficult or unanswerable. Everyone knew the answer. As famed atheist and biologist Richard Dawkins declared earlier this year, “there are two sexes, and that’s all there is to it.”
Starbucks corporate has ordered franchises not to display pride symbols. Corporations are waking up to the fact that the pushback has begun, and shoving pride in consumers’ faces is not good for business. Target is being threatened with bombs from transgender activists for reversing the sale of pride merchandise. The rainbow guerrilla warriors are showing their true colors, and they are terrorists.
That is not true.
The Starbucks union says it’s true.
Do a little more research.
Maybe he could do a documentary on the question, “What is a president?”
Currently, there seem to be no minimal standards or agreed upon cognitive minimums.
Out of the mouth of Maasai tribesmen come gems:
“If you want to become a lady but you are a man, you have something wrong in your mind; something wrong in your family; something wrong in YOU.”
“A woman has its own duty, and a man has its own duty; and a lady cannot do the duty of a man, and a man cannot do a duty of a woman.”
. . . But lest we fall for the old Noble Savage fable, the Maasai have practiced female genital mutilation (FGM) for centuries. Imagine Walsh broaching that subject with them!
You seem to be right about that one.