Grass Valley, CA — If you thought Grass Valley’s small-town theater drama couldn’t get any more bizarre, you clearly haven’t been keeping up with the latest outcry over the Del Oro Theater’s refusal to show Matt Walsh’s “Am I Racist.” The film, which purports to ask essential questions but is just a 90-minute exercise in alienating as many people as possible, has been the subject of ire on both sides of the culture war.
Just this morning, right-wing internet celebrities Elon Musk and Matt Walsh leaped to the film’s defense after Del Oro’s owners decided it wasn’t worth the popcorn sales to deal with the backlash. “Censorship!” screamed Walsh from the echo chamber of his Twitter feed, where the only things louder than his opinions are the desperate cries for attention from his own shrinking audience. Musk, seemingly unable to resist any opportunity to play the champion of “free speech,” chimed in, denouncing Del Oro’s decision as yet another sign of society’s imminent collapse, a familiar refrain from a man who’s got the collapse of multiple business ventures on speed dial.
The movie, which some critics describe as “racism wrapped in a thin veneer of pseudo-intellectualism,” was set to play a single screening at the Del Oro Theater before the owners decided to axe it due to “the potential for community unrest” (translation: We don’t want to deal with the fallout of showing this dumpster fire of a film). Nevada City activist and frequent chemtrail observer Sairhra Ramun applauded the decision. “We’ve got enough problems in this country without deliberately bringing hate into our community,” she said, through a megaphone with the force of someone who’s spent more time rallying against Irish jokes in Blazing Saddles than watching films that are actually offensive.
Walsh, on the other hand, is appalled that his masterpiece, which is less about asking important racial questions and more about shoving his narrow view of reality down everyone’s throat, would face any form of criticism. “This is proof that the woke mob is out to destroy free speech,” tweeted Walsh, as if there’s some grand conspiracy against white guys with podcasts.
Meanwhile, Musk, who’s been flailing about trying to make Twitter (or X, or whatever he’s decided to call it this week) relevant again, weighed in with his brand of nonsensical outrage.
“First they come for the movies, then for the memes. This is just the beginning!” wrote Musk, in between what we can only assume were panicked phone calls to his PR team asking if this tweet would help tank Tesla stock.
It’s worth noting that the refusal to screen Walsh’s film is hardly censorship—it’s a business decision. But to hear Walsh and Musk tell it, you’d think the Del Oro’s owners had personally slapped the popcorn out of their hands and told them to go sit in the corner.
Blazing Saddles, however, continues to stir up trouble of its own, with protesters like Derrick Packard of Nevada County Peeps fame leading the charge against its portrayal of pretty much everyone.
“What’s funny about racism?” he asked in an interview that went so far off the rails we had to hire a special editor to keep it within a word count that didn’t require its own ISBN number. But hey, if you’ve got enough spare time to be offended by a 50-year-old satire, maybe you’ve got time to spare for a little perspective, too.
The protests against Blazing Saddles pale compared to the social media storm now surrounding Walsh’s Am I Racist, which—spoiler alert—doesn’t attempt to answer that question so much as give its intended audience a permission slip to stop asking it. While Walsh claims the film is an exercise in intellectual honesty, most people with even a passing acquaintance with history or, you know, other humans have seen it for what it is: a desperate attempt to ignite outrage and rally the easily agitated.
But the Del Oro Theater? They’ve got more sense than to get dragged into that circus. “We didn’t want to divide the community,” a theater representative said, “We just wanted to play movies people want to see. And, well, ‘Am I Racist’ didn’t fit that bill.”
Still, Musk and Walsh aren’t backing down. And why would they? When your entire brand is based on keeping people angry, nuance isn’t exactly in your wheelhouse. “It’s a sad day for America when a film can’t even ask important questions,” wrote Walsh in his latest attempt to pour gas on the fire.
Important questions? Perhaps. But we’ll keep siding with Del Oro on this one until Walsh and Musk start answering a few themselves—like why they’re so intent on dragging a small-town theater into their performative outrage. If you’re really in the mood for self-reflection, there are plenty of other places to start. And most of them don’t involve a film with a title that could be its own punchline.
