Jeremy Jahns Gets Called a Racist for Reviewing a Movie
Alex Gherzo | Sep 18, 2024 |
Who’d have thought entertainment media’s public enemy number one would ever be Jeremy Jahns? Not to insult the man, but he isn’t exactly a provocateur. He reviews movies honestly but doesn’t talk much about politics or social issues; he presents himself as a regular guy who just wants to have a good time at the movies and tell others if he thinks they will, too. (His rating system involves telling viewers how much alcohol they’ll need to enjoy the film, if enjoyment is possible.) And he’s been quite successful at it; his YouTube channel has 1.98 million subscribers. But this week, he’s been attacked by other online reviewers because he had the temerity to break with mainstream critics and review a movie.
Most mainstream critics have ignored our film. But Jeremy Jahns had the guts to not only review it but even praise it. His review also has over 300 thousand views in less than a day. Maybe that will inspire other major critics to follow his lead. https://t.co/cKoEQHOUEi
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) September 16, 2024
The movie in question is Am I Racist?, Matt Walsh’s documentary/comedy produced by The Daily Wire that investigates the anti-racist industry of books, speakers, and workshops. The film was released on September 13 and was one of the top five movies at the box office this past weekend, with $4.75 million in ticket sales from a little over 1,500 screens (and, I imagine, very little advertising outside of social media). As expected, the mainstream critics are avoiding this movie like the plague, hoping it’ll die in obscurity and deny Walsh and The Daily Wire another theatrical distribution – maybe even a bigger one, depending on how well Am I Racist? does at the end of its run. They don’t even want to trash it; they want to suffocate it. Enter Jeremy Jahns, who not only reviewed the film but… hold onto your chai latte… liked it.
This made Jeremy Jahns a fly in the mainstream media’s ointment. See, there was a coordinated effort to keep a lid on Am I Racist?, which Matt Walsh detailed in an X thread. The Daily Wire offered to send screeners of the film to all the big entertainment outlets, and they either never responded or sent insulting messages to Walsh and The Daily Wire. As always, their political agenda is much more important than journalistic integrity or film as an art form; look how these people fell all over themselves to defend The Acolyte. (In fact, I suspect something similar to what video game reviewers are doing with Lollipop Chainsaw RePop is going on; they know people take their disdain for a movie as a sign that it’ll actually be good, so they’re keeping quiet and hoping it goes away.) After it premiered and did much better than they thought – and hoped – it would, several outlets did request screeners, though they haven’t published reviews yet. They’re still trying to tamper down excitement for and awareness of Am I Racist?, but they’re covering themselves by requesting the screeners, so they can say they at least gave it a fair shake. (“We couldn’t, in good conscience, write a review of something this heinous!”)
One of these things is not like the others pic.twitter.com/4cQVSQXTX2
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) September 16, 2024
But Jeremy Jahns reviewing the movie makes them look bad. If it were Geeks + Gamers, for example, or some of the usual guys from our side of the internet – The Critical Drinker, Nerdrotic, Film Threat – it could be written off as right-wing evil, racists being racists, or whatever. But Jeremy Jahns isn’t in that camp; he’s never been interested in politics or the culture wars, just talking movies with people who love movies as much as he does. Now, they’ve got someone normal people can point a finger to and say, “Why did he review it, but you won’t?” So, of course, the other side is coming for him, specifically outraged social media users who are calling out Jeremy Jahns, led by YouTube commentator Matt Jarbo. Walsh collected a few screenshots of their angry X posts and shared them while admirably defending Jahns:
The Left has labeled Jeremy Jahns a racist and a sell out simply for reviewing my film. This is how they play the game. Viciously denounce anyone who positively acknowledges the existence of the film so that other critics will be too afraid to follow suit. pic.twitter.com/MrVe3Y2ho6
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) September 16, 2024
So your position is that film critics should refuse to review a top 5 box office film and the top movie in its genre on the assumption that it’s “tripe” because of the politics of the person who made it? Okay. Thank you for announcing that you have no credibility. https://t.co/K45o13po3q
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) September 16, 2024
It’s the typical nonsense from these types, who, of course, refuse to explain why reviewing a movie makes Jeremy Jahns racist or why Am I Racist? is racist; the latter would probably be difficult because they haven’t seen it, but that’s never stopped people like this before. As far as Jarbo is concerned, his YouTube channel has 110,000 subscribers, so I don’t think Jahns has much to be worried about. Actually, the reverse is true; remember earlier when I said Jahns had 1.98 million subscribers? As I was writing this, it jumped to 1.9 million. I have no doubt this situation is boosting his numbers, and he’ll be over 2 million very soon. Someone like Jarbo might take a lesson from that: people respect that Jeremy Jahns was honest and fair when the bullying class demanded he not be. That’s why Jeff Zhang, the other reviewer Matt Walsh responded to, admitted that mainstream movie criticism is “in dire straights;” nobody trusts them anymore because they know they base their opinions – and now, even what movies they’ll review – on their personal politics rather than the quality of a film. You can’t behave this way and then wonder why people go to Jeremy Jahns or other online critics. When Rotten Tomatoes has too few reviews to give a critics’ score but plenty to give an audience score (which is overwhelmingly positive), there’s a problem, and it’s not with the audience – or Jeremy Jahns.
Let us know what you think of Jeremy Jahns reviewing Am I Racist? in the comments!
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Comments (4)
“Dog whistle” is just something they say so they don’t have to point to actual evidence. They can perceive anything as a dog whistle. Jeremy Jahns was wearing a black jacket while he reviewed it, which is a racist dog whistle despite him wearing a black jacket in all his videos.
Dog Whistle, and yet, Jahns is free to review while Zhang is on the leash.
Zhang talks about how Jahns needs to “level up” his film game. Ok, but to who’s level? Strange Harbors has 291 subscribers on youtube and the last video was 4 months ago, and this guy is a “Tomato approved critic?”
Finally saw the movie. It was just ok to me, but people that I heard review said that it exposed DEI. To some degree it did, but if the movie made DEI look bad, it made the media look far worse.
Very disappointed in Jeff Zhang for his Low T. What does he mean dog whistle? I did not hear it nor see it on the screen. Who is the dog whistle to? So much for the movie reviewers and critics.
Let me tell you, when I saw Jahns reviewed this movie, I was as surprised as everyone else. He came out so soon with a review on an untouchable subject and Jeremy made the other critics look a lot like the DEI authors in the film.
Really though, it was a zany take on the fish bubble of hoaxes and lies that Americans are bombarded with by a dishonest media. The scariest thing is to realize that media and academia and corporate are all in this together.
Last thing, but I did not care for this film that much, but Jarbo and Zhang confirm it to be actual art, which brings the challenge to the system in a way they can no longer do because they are as much frauds as the authors, media and academia.
Ok, one final point, but when Matt went to the book store, what obvious book was left out of the collection? “The HATE U Give” that starred Amandla Stenberg. Pure DEI hoax fiction on par with To Kill A Mockingbird or A Time To Kill. All FICTION!