Am I Racist?, the controversial documentary that satirizes Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives, failed to make the Oscar shortlist of nonfiction features today, despite earning more money at the box office than any other documentary this year, by far.
The film directed by Justin Folk features conservative author and podcaster Matt Walsh going undercover to infiltrate DEI seminars, dinners and the like. It scooped up more than $12 million at the domestic box office, but that wasn’t enough to sway the minds of Academy Documentary Branch members, who determine the shortlist (as well as the eventual five Oscar nominees).
It may come as cold comfort to the Am I Racist? team, but films with an overt take on American politics were all spurned by the doc branch. Those include Zurawaski v Texas, the abortion access documentary executive produced by Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence and others. Similarly left out were Carville: Winning Is Everything, Stupid, Matt Tyrnauer’s film about Democratic political strategist James Carville, and the Michael Douglas-executive produced and narrated film America’s Burning – a hot take on political polarization and dysfunction.
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Two films that document the rise of the Christian nationalist movement qualified for Oscar consideration but failed to make the shortlist cut: God & Country, directed by Dan Partland, and Bad Faith: Christian Nationalism’s Unholy War on Democracy, directed by Stephen Ujlaki and Christopher Jacob Jones.
Gonzo for Democracy, a film that follows “journalist Lauren Windsor on her quest across America to expose election deniers and impending threats to democracy ahead of the 2024 election” didn’t make the shortlist either.
Am I Racist? is distributed by DailyWire+, part of the conservative media company founded by Ben Shapiro and Jeremy Boreing. The documentary participated in Deadline’s Contenders series during the lead up to Oscar shortlist voting, with Folk and Walsh appearing on behalf of the film. During the panel discussion, they acknowledged racism has existed historically in the U.S. but suggested left-wing supporters of DEI are out of step with the majority of the American public on the question of whether structural racism continues to be a reality in the United States.
“We are a country that had slavery at one point,” Walsh said during the panel. “Now, although slavery existed as an institution all across the world for thousands of years, in this country it certainly was a racist institution. Nobody denies that. But, in modern America as it stands today, there are no laws or policies on the books that have the intention of disadvantaging Black people, people that we call, quote unquote, ‘people of color.’ That doesn’t exist today, and I think you have to allow society to progress.”
Films that focus on political questions beyond U.S. borders did get love from the doc branch voters, among them The Bibi Files, Alexis Bloom’s documentary that serves as a brutal takedown of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (the PM tried to block the film from being released before its unofficial bow at the Toronto International Film Festival, but an Israeli court rejected his bid). That documentary features never-before-seen police interrogation video of Netanyahu and his wife as they were forced to answer questions about alleged corruption.
No Other Land, a frontrunner for the Oscars, condemns Israeli government policy in the occupied West Bank. A collective of Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers made the documentary which shows Israel Defense Forces evicting Palestinians from their homes in the rural Masafer Yatta area and Israeli settlers shooting unarmed Palestinians.
Hollywoodgate, directed by Ibrahim Nash’at, reveals how the Taliban inherited billions of dollars of U.S. military equipment after American forces quit Afghanistan. And Union, the documentary directed by Brett Story and Stephen Maing, can be said to be political inasmuch as it follows the first successful campaign to unionize an Amazon warehouse operation – a facility located on New York’s Staten Island.
One more thing bears noting about Oscar Documentary Branch voters. They don’t necessarily reward big box office yields. Case in point – in 2018 the doc branch shortlisted Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, the hit film about children’s television pioneer Fred Rogers directed by Morgan Neville. That made even more money than Am I Racist?, collecting almost $23 million worldwide. But when it came time to vote on Oscar nominations, the doc branch shockingly snubbed the film, advancing five other neighbors from the shortlist.
Perhaps the lesson is, if you want recognition from the Oscar documentary branch, don’t put a question mark in your title.
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