'Am I Racist?' director Justin Folk targets DEI dreck with humor

Director Justin Folk understands why people might liken his film “Am I Racist?” to the 2006 comedy “Borat.”

"Borat" found Sacha Baron Cohen going under cover as a boorish Kazakhstani. “Am I Racist?” follows Matt Walsh of “What Is a Woman?” fame posing as a DEI “expert.” Both deploy improv shtick in the “Candid Camera” mold. Each is uniquely hilarious.

The director insists his team didn’t take the DEI proponents out of context.

Folk sees a critical difference between the two.

“Sacha Baron Cohen set out to make fun of regular, everyday Americans. Yes, it can feel a bit mean at times, but at the same time it’s very funny,” Folk tells Align. “What Matt does is different. He’s not making fun of people. He’s making fun of bad ideas. ... These are not personal attacks. He’s after the ideas they’re propagating to the public.”

“Am I Racist?” is the first Daily Wire production debuting in theaters. The docu-comedy finds Walsh interviewing “White Fragility” author Robin DiAngelo and other DEI luminaries. He’s nominally in disguise, courtesy of a man bun and a herringbone jacket.

The point is to target the woke mindset, under attack across the culture in recent months, with humor.

“People are opened up to ideas when they laugh,” Folk says. “People are so tense over the issue of race. It’s important to find some commonality and lighten the mood.”

Walsh seems like a curious person to do just that. He’s a stoic presence whose strong Catholic faith infuses his podcast musings. On-screen, his unflappable demeanor is the perfect fit for a project like “Am I Racist?”

“[Matt Walsh] does deadpan better than anybody else I’ve ever seen. That allows him to introduce insanity into a situation without it being picked up on, without giving the tell,” he says. "He’s able to go all in into a moment without forecasting that it’s a joke.”

Folk and Walsh originally teamed up for 2022’s “What Is a Woman?” That documentary infected the mainstream and put the title on the lips of many Americans. The film’s brief appearance on X generated nearly 200 million views, according to one report.

Folk dismissed the idea of a sequel but wanted to keep his partnership with Walsh going. The duo settled on race, another “untouchable” subject.

Audiences may wonder how Folk’s crew captured the sequences from the film. Yes, it’s a brand of awkward comedy that dates back decades, but they ingratiated themselves with groups that wouldn’t normally rub elbows with Walsh.

Folk describes the process.

“Everything we do with these people is exactly what we told them we would do,” he says. “We’re making a movie about anti-racism. ... We’re coming to them as experts. Can you enlighten us? They agreed to do that in front of the cameras.”

The director insists his team didn’t take the DEI proponents out of context. Nor would his subjects backpedal on what’s said on-screen, he suspects.

“I do believe the things that these people say in the film they would 100% stand behind, even today,” he says. Several people featured in the film, including DiAngelo, have since gone dark on X.

Talk about "White Fragility"!

The rare documentary can have an outsized impact on the culture. Al Gore’s 2006 film “An Inconvenient Truth” changed the way many Americans view climate change, no matter where you stand on the issue.

Folk hopes “Am I Racist?” has a similarly outsized impact on the culture.

“DEI is full of toxic ideas. It’s divisive. Personally, I think it should be illegal,” he says, citing the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibiting race-based preferences. “The timing is right for a film like this.”

“What Is a Woman?” rocked the culture while mostly living behind a paywall. “Am I Racist?” debuts in theaters nationwide September 13, 2024.

That matters, says Folk, who believes the multiplex is key to getting the message beyond the online conservative bubble — “so we’re not just talking to ourselves."