It appears that woke elites have constructed yet another platform from which to harangue the masses.
In what might have passed for satire as recently as ten years ago, establishment-media movie reviewers have waxed rhapsodic over “Will & Harper,” a new documentary in which actor Will Ferrell chronicled a cross-country road trip with longtime friend Harper Steele, a man who recently decided to begin masquerading as a trans woman.
The documentary premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, on Monday.
According to entertainment reporter Patrick Ryan of USA Today, the 63-year-old Steele “came out as a trans woman in an email to family and friends” in 2022.
For decades prior to that coming-out moment, Steele had maintained a close friendship with Ferrell. They met in the mid-1990s on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live,” where Steele worked as a comedy writer.
Kevin Fallon, senior editor at Obsessed — the Daily Beast’s entertainment wing — noted that Steele and Ferrell have also collaborated on a number of projects beyond SNL.
Ferrell, of course, achieved superstardom by playing likable comedic roles in hit movies such as “Elf,” “Anchorman” and “Talladega Nights.”
On the surface, therefore, “Will & Harper” amounts to a film in which two longtime friends documented a road trip.
Of course, modern woke audiences and film critics would never swoon over that kind of film. So the documentary’s focus on Steele’s “transition” gave them precisely the element they needed to showcase their own moral virtue.
Are you done watching Will Ferrell movies?
Ryan, for instance, described “Will & Harper” as “a joyous and life-affirming documentary.” The reviewer then dutifully referred to Steele as “she” and “her” — as if writing it made it true.
Then — and here came the near-satire — Ryan alerted the reader to “uncomfortable” and “tense moments” in the film.
Ah, there is nothing like the tension that builds during a great drama. One thinks of the legendary courtroom scene in “A Few Good Men,” starring Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson. Audiences could feel the high stakes involved.
So what “tense moments” did “Will & Harper” provide?
“Steele is misgendered on multiple occasions by waitstaff and restaurantgoers,” Ryan wrote.
A predictable, parenthetical note followed: “‘I am not a bro,’ she politely but firmly corrects one man, sitting at a bar adorned with Confederate and Trump flags.”
Believe it or not, Ryan’s melodramatic claptrap appeared subdued next to Fallon’s self-righteousness.
“It’s not just that the project is brave and characteristically unusual,” Fallon wrote. “It’s that — and please do your best to strip this upcoming phrase from all of its corny, eye-rolling earnestness — the film is an endeavor that could change and even save lives.”
One way to “save lives,” of course, is to showcase the parts of America whose residents you deem bigoted, so that you and your friends can feel morally superior to them.
“The film is a travelog illuminating where different parts of the country are when it comes to acceptance or having an empathetic curiosity about trans people,” Fallon nauseatingly wrote.
In case readers missed the most important point — implied but unstated — “Will & Harper” has an educational purpose. Thus, it allows our woke social betters to instruct their backward inferiors.
Fallon, in fact, described the conversations between Steele and Ferrell as “a bit of Trans 101.”
The film’s broader purpose, of course, will alienate all sensible moviegoers exhausted by wokeness.
As for its apparent preachiness, one need always consider the source.
For instance, in a clip posted last month to the social media platform X, Ferrell exhibited the vacuity characteristic of his Hollywood peers.
“Isn’t it just time for women to run the planet?” Ferrell said to female-sounding cheers from an unspecified audience.
Funniest thing he’s ever said.
Will Ferrell Says Women Should Rule the World https://t.co/SjERvfth37 via @YouTube
— CannoliSasquatch (@CannoliSasqtch) December 15, 2023
When a man has said something like that, one need not attend to anything else he might say.
Ferrell’s continued friendship with Steele, of course, is admirable.
But “Will & Harper” has not earned early plaudits for its depiction of friendship. It has earned them for its promotion of transgender ideology.
After all, it was not enough for people in “different parts of the country” to treat Steele with kindness. They had to show him “acceptance” as a trans person and “empathetic curiosity” about his transgender claim in order to demonstrate where they “are.”
