What Is a Woman?

Not many documentaries begin with a bearded man in a flannel shirt staring blankly at a Maasai tribesman, but then again, not many documentaries are designed specifically to be a digital hand grenade. Released in 2022 through The Daily Wire’s private streaming silo, What Is a Woman? is an artifact of a very specific, very loud moment in contemporary culture. It’s a film that exists almost entirely outside the traditional Hollywood ecosystem, bypassing theaters and major streamers to find its audience through the sheer force of social media friction.

I watched this on a Tuesday afternoon while my radiator was making a clicking sound that sounded suspiciously like Morse code, and the domestic setting felt appropriate. This isn't a "big screen" epic; it’s a "second screen" phenomenon, the kind of movie you watch so you can talk about it on the internet later.

The Art of the Deadpan Everyman

At the center of the storm is Matt Walsh, who isn't an actor in the traditional sense, yet delivers a performance that is a clinic in weaponized awkwardness. He adopts the persona of a wide-eyed, slightly dim-witted seeker of truth, wandering through interviews with a deadpan expression that suggests he’s either deeply confused or waiting for a sandwich. This "clueless traveler" trope is a staple of documentary filmmaking—think Michael Moore or Sacha Baron Cohen—but Walsh strips away the frantic energy and replaces it with a dry, midwestern stoicism.

The "drama" of the film doesn't come from a script, but from the tension in the room. Director Justin Folk, who previously worked on the documentary No Safe Spaces, understands that the most compelling thing you can put on camera is a person who is visibly uncomfortable. Whether Walsh is sitting across from Marci Bowers or Michelle Forcier, the camera lingers just a few seconds too long on the silence between questions. It’s in those quiet beats where the film does its heaviest lifting, forcing the viewer to sit with the friction of two opposing worldviews colliding in real-time.

The Emotional Core Beneath the Provocation

While much of the film plays like a satirical road trip, it hits a sharp, dramatic gear shift when it introduces Scott Newgent. In a film that often leans into the "gotcha" humor of a late-night talk show segment, Newgent’s interview provides a necessary layer of human complexity. It’s here that the movie stops being a cheeky exercise in philosophy and starts feeling like a character study. Newgent brings a raw, lived-in intensity to the screen that grounds the film’s loftier debates in the reality of medical and personal consequences.

The film also features a brief appearance by Phil McGraw (better known as Dr. Phil), whose inclusion feels like a nod to the era of daytime television where these conversations first began to bubble into the mainstream. However, unlike a talk show, Justin Folk opts for a visual style that is clean, clinical, and high-contrast. The cinematography doesn't try to be "artsy"; it stays out of the way, letting the subjects speak (or refuse to speak) for themselves. It’s the cinematic equivalent of poking a hornet’s nest with a very expensive stick, and the film's pacing ensures that the stings come at regular intervals.

A Ghost in the Streaming Machine

What makes What Is a Woman? a curiosity for a site like Popcornizer is its status as a "ghost" film. You won’t find it on Netflix, and it didn't have a glitzy premiere at Sundance. It’s a prime example of the "Parallel Polis" of modern cinema—a movie made by and for a specific digital community that eventually leaked into the mainstream through sheer viral persistence. Its "release" on X (formerly Twitter) in 2023 arguably reached more eyeballs than most Oscar-winning indies from the same year.

The film serves as a time capsule for 2022’s specific brand of polarization. It’s less about the answer to the titular question and more about the impossibility of the conversation itself. As a piece of filmmaking, it’s remarkably effective at achieving its goal: it irritates the people it wants to irritate and emboldens the people it wants to embolden. It coasts on a certain level of narrative simplicity, but it earns its runtime by refusing to blink during its most contentious moments.

Whether you find it insightful or infuriating, there’s no denying the film’s craft as a piece of persuasive media. Justin Folk and Matt Walsh created a documentary that functions like a Rorschach test for the 2020s. It’s a lean, mean, and intentionally provocative film that proves you don't need a traditional studio to start a global conversation. It’s a fascinating look at how the streaming era has allowed niche platforms to produce content that rivals the reach of the old-school giants.