“I really like this nation a lot. I simply don’t know if it loves me again proper now,” says Harper Steele, the previous Saturday Night time Reside author who goes on a cross-country highway journey along with her longtime good friend Will Ferrell of their new documentary, Will & Harper, now streaming on Netflix.
After Steele transitioned into being a girl, she and Ferrell determined to navigate their new dynamic by touring from New York to California—stopping in elements of the nation that will have been a bit much less welcoming to trans individuals alongside the way in which. Their expertise within the movie is essentially joyful—a feel-good karaoke scene in Illinois, a heartfelt journey to Steele’s childhood residence in Iowa, and even a constructive final result upon entry to an Oklahoma dive bar the place a “Fuck Biden” poster hangs on the wall.
However issues flip prickly in Texas when Ferrell and Steele go to Massive Texan Steak Ranch—an Amarillo restaurant the place a 72-ounce reduce of steak is free if patrons can scarf it down in below an hour. Ferrell decides that this would be the good place to mud off a prop he’s introduced alongside on the journey: the Sherlock Holmes costume from his 2018 flop Holmes & Watson. “Women and gentleman, the world’s best personal investigator, Sherlock Holmes,” he declares in full regalia, taking a seat within the restaurant reverse Steele as one buyer shouts “Ricky Bobby!” of their route.
What begins as a comedic stunt quickly begins to really feel claustrophobic. When an worker publicly broadcasts Ferrell and Steele’s presence, he stumbles over calling her “Ms.” Dozens of cellphones and curious stares fixate on the pair from all angles. “I’m consuming out of nervousness,” Steele admits, the music turning as ominous because the room itself. “As a lot as I’ve been in a fishbowl in varied instances in my life,” Ferrell replies, “this trumps all of it.”
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Whereas footage of this doesn’t seem within the documentary, Steele additionally took a possibility to lift a glass—and an necessary problem—that evening. An outtake on social media exhibits Steele toasting “to your nice state of Texas” earlier than telling the group, “I want you guys would do extra for trans rights on this state,” because the room fell silent. “It went lifeless, fully lifeless,” she added. “That’s not how we deal with you up in Iowa.” One girl shouts, “We nonetheless love you,” a comment that didn’t sit nicely with Steele.
“I hate the phrase,” she later instructed The New York Occasions. “I might be misinterpreting this girl fully, however that is the sensation I had within the room: The ‘nonetheless’ is conditional. You continue to love me once I lastly surrender being trans and provides my life over to Christ. They nonetheless love me regardless that I’m some type of sinner or one thing. I felt that.”
The movie’s director, Josh Greenbaum, instructed The Guardian how the second affected his stars: “That was a studying level, definitely for Will, that not all consideration is nice consideration, notably for these within the trans neighborhood. It was an unexpected error, however I didn’t need to then sweep that below the rug and never embrace it. An enormous a part of the trans expertise is that there’s only a large quantity of hatred, quite a lot of it on-line.”
Ferrell and Steele depart the institution with out incident. The next day, although, they’re greeted by transphobic social media assaults which are included within the movie. One outlet notes the “awkward response” Ferrell and Steele acquired on the restaurant, which posted concerning the go to on its varied social media accounts however didn’t determine or spotlight Steele. (Vainness Honest has reached out to the Massive Texan Steak Ranch for remark.)
“The room began to really feel very fallacious to me,” Steele says within the movie, the day after their expertise. “I used to be feeling just a little like my transness was on show, I suppose, and instantly that type of made me really feel not nice.” Ferrell grows emotional, tearing up as he tells his good friend, “I really feel like I allow you to down in that second, you realize? I used to be like, Oh shit, we gotta fear about Harper’s security.”