Anti-woke film about male basketballers competing in women’s league becomes streaming hit
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A satirical film about fake transgender basketball players has proven a surprise hit with viewers as conservative film studios hit back against “woke” Hollywood.
Lady Ballers has remained among the most popular releases for online audiences since its release on Dec 1.
It features a male basketball squad who claim to be women in order to compete in a female league in an attempt to satirise the debate over transgender people in sport.
The film was released by The Daily Wire, a Right-wing studio co-founded by Ben Shapiro, a conservative media personality who has declared it is “time to blow up the Death Star that is the left-wing monopoly on entertainment”.
Lady Ballers features cameos from anti-woke figures including Ted Cruz, the Texas senator, and Candace Owens, a conservative political commentator.
Despite a harsh reception from critics, who called it “transphobic” and “not funny”, the film remains in the top five most popular streamable movies a fortnight after its release, according to the audience rating site Rotten Tomatoes.
The film describes itself as “the most triggering comedy of the year” and follows a high school basketball coach Rob, played by Jeremy Boreing, who is also the film’s director and writer, and CEO of The Daily Wire.
After being inspired by a former student who works in a drag bar, coach Rob assembles his former high school basketball team and convinces them to compete in a women’s league, claiming they are transgender.
They perform well in the league until they come up against another team composed of men who are better at basketball and also claim to be women.
In one scene, a man taking part in a women’s basketball game has his shorts pulled down to reveal to the audience that he has a penis. The referee says: “I don’t care.”
In another, one of the men becomes “trans age” and competes in a schoolgirls’ baseball game – mocking the apparent proliferation of “woke” concepts in recent years.
More than 5,000 people have left reviews with an average rating of 94 per cent.
The film received very unfavourable reviews from critics, who said it was offensive.
Katelyn Burns, a columnist for the Left-wing cable network MSNBC, described it as an “awful anti-trans propaganda film” and an “absurd fantasy of male domination”.
But fans applauded the film’s anti-woke message, writing on Rotten Tomatoes: “Wow, laughs in the face of woke culture from start to finish. Any other studio would be cancelled immediately.”
Another added: “Very refreshing to see an answer to the leftist BS.”
Polls show the American public is increasingly likely to base their opinion of a celebrity on their political views, rather than their work.
An October survey for The Hollywood Reporter found 25 per cent of viewers would not watch a television programme or film if it contained a cast member whose politics they disliked, while the same percentage would unfollow them on social media.
Studios like The Daily Wire claim to offer refuge to Right-wing viewers who are concerned about Hollywood’s drift to “wokeness” and refusal to release comedies that joke about controversial subjects.
Another production from The Daily Wire features Roseanne Barr, a Trump-supporting comedian, and Megyn Kelly, a former Fox News anchor, as voice actors.
Angel Studios, another alternative streaming platform, recently released Sound of Freedom, which critics said had undertones of the QAnon conspiracy theory and Trumpian concern about child sexual exploitation at its core.
