What is a Woman (2022)
I’m going to review this movie without trying to argue about the conclusion the movie comes to regarding the central question the film poses then attempts to answer. Instead, I intend to focus on the aesthetics and formal qualities of the film as they relate to this question. It’s difficult to do so because documentaries especially are an ideologically pernicious genre. Think of it like this: I’m not going to argue whether or not what Walsh is saying is true or not, I’m going to argue whether or not how he’s saying is as creative and groundbreaking as the people on his side of the debate are making it out to be. I don’t think conservatives all make bad art, Clint Eastwood makes some incredible movies still, even films like birth of a nation no matter how detestable I myself find the central messaging, can be seen as artistically pivotal. Unfortunately, I do not think that Walsh’s documentary is in this selection of works.
It is a technically competent film; all the technical quality of a streaming documentary are there. I don’t see much that isn’t incredibly predictable in terms of what I’m expecting to come next. Many of the emotional beats are carried out in clichéd modes of documentary storytelling: the dramatic pause and cut to black, the awkward silence in an interview, the After Effects produced title sequence. Visually and rhythmically, this is a paint by numbers documentary meant to stir up a base of supporters. I reject the notion that Walsh has made something cinematically meaningful as many of his supporters are suggesting. If you can watch perfectly adequate documentaries about conservative issues, then watch this. If you are not staunchly in the conservative camp, you are unlikely to find a lot of appeal in this movie. I find it frustrating to speak to people who are talking about this movie as though it’s Citizen Kane because they are downright obtuse about the contents of the film. Lauren Sothern says that Walsh Doesn’t simply stare lifelessly into the camera when Walsh does that several times in the movie.
The way Walsh goes about asking this question is also very frustrating because he doesn’t get at the heart of what he’s trying to ask people: “Do you think trans women are women?” Which I’m sure Walsh could find plenty of people to juice for reactions that evoke the same response from his audience because that’s the point he’s effectively trying to make is that “men and women are irresolvable different” by staging his question in this way I think he’s trying to make his opponents seem like “reality deniers” which is something he harps on multiple times throughout the movie when there’s lots of reasons why even people who even agree with him that “trans women are not women” would not stand on a street corner and tell a guy with a mic “yeah women have pussies and guys have cocks” Even when he meets with a person explaining their point at length Walsh does a series of comedic fades to show the passage of time and how bored he is with the answer while cutting the audio where we cannot hear the response. In this way it feels as though Walsh wants to stand behind some kind of objectivity of his beliefs when his film and film at large is not an objective medium, especially documentaries. I’m sure there are plenty of Michael Moore fans who would say the same things about “it’s just reality/science/common sense” about Moore’s films.
I think there’s many times the kind of questions Walsh asks his interviewees contradict his overall premise, such as when he asks a gender therapist “if child believes in an omnipotent being then should we humor them?” Walsh meant Santa Clause but as a Christian, Walsh seems to undermine the concept of faith in the subjective here. I suppose that’s a big problem I have with this story is that Walsh relies on universal objectivity and science at times but then proselytizes against it when it suits the documentary being about what he believes are sick and twisted institutions, just like how you can opine that big money sickos are pushing a narrative through their positions in the film industry, when this film was made by the exact same type of people. I think an interesting way to look at this movie is not that Walsh is seeking an objective truth or trying to “open people’s eyes.” Rather he’s making a conservative horror film a la Jaws or Alien where you never see the monster until the very end and the questions, he asks himself in voiceover “Is this what progress looks like?” are meant to get the viewer to luridly imagine the sickos prowling the women’s bathrooms and volleyball leagues. Like Jaws, there’s a corresponding outrage to the film’s monster subject that gets people to harbor neuroses that they too could be attacked irrespective of statistical likelihood of being attacked by either a shark or a transsexual.