What Is a Woman?

The most important thing about this documentary is that Matt Walsh lets the people he interviews talk. Very little of this film is Walsh speaking. That is worth something. You can actually understand the arguments people are making and consider what you think.

Now, where I think this could have been better is because Walsh has an agenda, he is overly-antagonistic. I get that everyone has an agenda, but if he would have kept the tongue-in-cheek stuff down and stuck to letting people talk about an issue that is interesting on its own, it would have been more palatable.

Still, there is not another documentary out there like this, and maybe there never can be as many might be afraid to be so candid on interviews in the future.

So, its fairly well produced, it looks good (certainly comparable to other documentaries out there.) All of the technical aspects of the film are in order. Nothing truly stands out as exceptional, but everything is very much professional.

From an approach perspective, it really is more of a documentary than most "documentaries" in that, the main character (Matt Walsh) is asking questions to try and understand the opposing opinion. Most "Documentaries" have a side and then only interview supporting perspectives of the thesis. In this case, Walsh actually interviews the opposing side a lot. For that reason alone, this a more honest documentary. Now, fair-is-fair, I don't like the subject of documentaries to be the documentarian. I believe that would classify it as more journalistic or activist (a-la, Moore or Spurlock.) But it is a common documentary style.

That said, I guess we get into the meat of it and why people love it or hate it. As before mentioned, there is a lot of exchanges with opposing view points, and those view points did not make strong arguments. Did Walsh interview the actual leading experts on the subjects? Maybe, maybe not. They do have considerable credibility, but Walsh himself is by no means an expert in the field, so even if the people he's interviewing are not the leaders, it's not like it's an unfair fight.

I think if you're for or against this subject matter, it's probably a good film to watch. It's always good to know what the opposing arguments are, but for some reason this topic people get very passionate about. From a purely creative standpoint, I think it's great, not exceptional, but if you like documentaries, it's going to be one of the best ones this year.

Very enjoyable to watch, but too biased to be called a documentary, and is well designed to support e certain narrative. It cherry picks interviews with stupid or dangerous people in the LGBTQ+ community and well grounded/sophisticated people on the conservative side to present a reality with lunatics vs pragmatists. There are bright minds, like the ones that have helped society move forward the last 100 years, that could provide the real arguments on why gender as a term is a valuable tool in order to study social behaviours and understand ourselves. These bright minds were not presented.

An incredibly important and insightful documentary for our time and surprisingly funny at times.

Highly recommended to anyone who is interested in the topic and wants to learn more about how gender has become politicized including what different people from various fields and communities have to say from both sides of the discussion. 10/10.

On the plus side

• interviewed a lot of solemn, pious academics who could not give a non-circular answer to the question "what is a woman?"

Gaps

• not much investigative zeal; very partisan
• did not present the evidence from the UK, Swedish, Finnish and French medical regulators who are raising doubts about treating adolescents with puberty blockers and steroids. Lost opportunity to challenge American gender zealots.