Will Ferrell is hilarious.
He's charming and self-deprecating.
He is clearly a loyal and caring friend.
And he's also living in a bubble that allows him to willfully misunderstand why there is any tension over the transgender issue.
in his new Netflix Documentary, “Will & Harper” The actor learns that his old friend, former Saturday Night Live writer Andrew Steele, is transitioning to live life as a woman named Harper. The pair embark on a friend's road trip through America to see how Steele, a beer-drinking, sports-loving father of two, adjusts to this new identity.
And how small-town America responds.
For the most part, the film avoids the political to focus on the personal. It's a journey between their decades-long friendship in the wood-paneled Wagoneer and Steele's realization that he wanted to be a woman.
However there are some exceptions also. In one scene, Ferrell takes a photo with the Governor of Indiana, Eric Holcomb, and he expresses regret at not confronting him about the state's ban on so-called “gender confirmation care”.
In other words, Holcomb is against the medicalization and potentially sterilization of confused children in the name of gender identity. General knowledge matters.
and in a new Interview with The IndependentFerrell shows his further confusion.
“But I don't know why trans people are threatening me as a cis man,” Farrell told The Independent. “I don't know why Harper is threatening me.”
No person in their right mind sees Steele or any transgender person as a threat to a six-foot-three-inch tall man. Ferrell is not a woman and does not have her own space – the locker room, the prison, the rape center and the game – invaded by biological men who are only able to gain entry with a few magic words:
“I identify as a woman.”
They weren't told to shut up or canceled or suspended when they were asked to compete against biological males at every level of sports from youth to collegiate. for the paralympics,
he hasn't done it Riley Gaines was harassed And even she was attacked simply because she advocated fairness in women's sports.
They don't have daughters so perhaps they don't have to worry about this blurring of biological truth.
And yet, a high-minded Ferrell conflates actual genuine objections with ignorance and intolerance. Why can't everyone be as open-minded as him?
“It's very strange to me, because ultimately Harper… His” Farrell says. “After all she is who she always wanted to be. Whether you can ultimately get your head around it or not, why would you care if someone is happy? Why is he threatening you? If the trans community is threatening to you, I think it stems from you not being confident or safe with it.
Most people aren't angry at Steele's happiness. We care that Steele's pleasure violates our rights as women.
After all, the film itself proves that people are generally kind. In the film, the pair go to an Oklahoma dive bar decorated with pro-Trump flags and Steele arrives alone and strikes up a friendly conversation with some locals.
Ferrell then enters and is introduced to him by Native Americans as a toothless man, drinking bottled beer, preaching acceptance. At a racetrack, Steele talks to a man about transitioning but still wanting to enjoy the traditionally masculine activities that Andrew once loved. But now, as Harper.
Of course, the stranger is welcoming and sweet. Both encounters led Steele to admit, “I'm not afraid of these guys. I'm afraid of hating myself.
Nobody can help like Steele, which is clearly Ferrell's goal. He wants to protect his friend. But he is making false allegations.
And while it is a compelling, raw and at times funny documentary, there is a great irony to it. Neither Steele nor Ferrell, who buys diamond earrings for his friend, knows the first thing about being a woman.
I wish Steele a long, healthy and fulfilling life.
But I also wish Ferrell would stop preaching from inside his ivory tower of virtue.
