I think they over-simplify the mere exposure effect a bit at the start, although they definitely don't rely on that entirely throughout the film. If it was as simple as they say, they you could just counter all of this with mere exposure to Christianity. The added element of rebelliousness against society and sexual titillation is playing a role in powering all of this too. Mere exposure to "Just Say No" doesn't get people to buy into that, because it's asking you not to rebel and be hedonistic. This situation puts parents into a bind, because they have to sometimes play it cool about this stuff. It might be better to yawn in reply to your kid coming out as trans rather than to aggressively try and talk them out of it so they don't get the thrill of rebellion they are seeking out. OTOH, some kids might react to that yawn by upping the ante and doing something crazier. The film goes on to discuss social media and social contagion later along with the trust in authority stuff (Milgram experiment), which is more on the mark than mere exposure effect alone.
I think the social media section would get a lot of nods from a general audience. I think it's fair that they include early exposure to pornography in general as an issue, not just LGBT content. Possibly unfortunately, as the documentary progresses, it becomes clear that this is almost or totally a choir preaching film. I think the target is Republicans who laugh the issue off as not a big deal. It is not targeted at converting Democrats. I think the film will begin to lose some of the general audience when they include, "Just do good old fashioned hobbies like taking your kids out in the woods to shoot guns instead." They refer to Rachel L. Levine as a confused man. Not saying they are wrong, just that this reveals who the intended audience is. The discussion of communism and left-wing authoritarianism in the education section is similarly preaching to the choir. Referring to pro-trans surgery people as "pro-mutilation" is accurate but that will not be well received by the neutral audience, especially when say it over grisly visuals of hyenas. I wish they would have toned this stuff down and maybe aimed this more at a skeptical audience rather than an already persuaded one. You can't blame opponents all that hard for backing away from interviews because of your bias if you are, you know, biased.
Additionally, the vast bulk of the interviews are with friendly experts. If there was any opposition to the filmmaker's position in their youth focus groups, they didn't include it in the film. The Matt Walsh documentary was more persuasive in some ways because it confronted the other side more comprehensively, who were completely unpersuasive. Now, I understand some of this is absolutely not the Starbucks' fault, because the woke just fucking refuse to engage especially post-Walsh making a fool of his subjects. I did get a laugh out loud from their line about, "Well we were going to try to interview the first transgender state legislature representative for their perspective but unfortunately they are unavailable due to their child porn arrest." The Jolene Vargas (gender creative parent) interview did have a great point about how when child stars film with Disney there is a shit ton of protection to keep them from being abused for the sake of stardom, as a result of all the abuse of child stars in the industry in the past. She compared that to parents who push their kids into social media stardom with no such protection. Rand Paul was a good addition to discuss the topic from a libertarian perspective, and he hit the right notes focusing on how what kids are allowed to do and what adults are allowed to do are different even for a libertarian.
Kinsey's stopwatch experiment was new to me, and is horrifying. However, the way it is presented in the documentary heavily implies he was timing the prisoners he studied raping kids. As far as I can tell, without digging in too much because NSFL, this was actually his "researchers" jacking off kids, which is obviously still child rape but I'm still annoyed with how the filmmakers presented this. It's bad enough as it is. There are certain subjects where a dry, clinical presentation of the facts can have more impact than maximizing your use of every trick in the rhetorical playbook. The dude they were interviewing there takes up a lot of the runtime of the first half of the film and he is mostly making solid points but he really over-emotes the whole time and I found him off-putting. Also making me roll my eyes was when Riley Gaines is describing Lia Thomas in the locker-room instead of showing a picture of Thomas, which is bad enough, they show a huge ripped black boxer instead, rofl.
The possibility of excruciatingly painful nerve damage from double mastectomies was new to me, but not that surprising. The detransitioner interview in general is more persuasive and terrifying than what was in the Walsh documentary. Anybody who watches this and doesn't feel that it is incredibly messed up that this was allowed to happen to her at a young age is broken in the head. If I was doing this documentary, I might have opened with some of this to try and grab ahold of the skeptical/hatewatching audience and keep them in their seat for the rest.
I think the best thing the filmmakers did is give validation to the complaints of people like Riley Thomas and Abigail Martinez that they aren't bad people. I'm sure some here will consider it corny, but when the Starbucks tell Abigail that they believe her daughter is looking down from heaven thankful for how hard her mother fought for her and that she is a good mom, that they genuinely believe it to be true. I think if Abigail can walk away from this feeling less alone, then something good has come from this film. I think this kind of thing, revealing that hatred is not the place the film is coming from, is more powerfully persuasive than a bunch of slick editing or fear mongering about communist infiltration or atrazine. There is a stark contrast between that genuine moment of human sympathy and the discussion with the drag queen representative. Landon does serve up kind of a stereotypical, "Won't someone think of the children?" but "Veronika Electronika", acting as a spokesperson for their movement, can't even PRETEND to give a genuine response. Instead he gives an instant, catty, dismissive, mocking, "Ohhhh, it's for the kids...." and waves it off. Veronika does make what I consider a somewhat strong point when comparing drag dancing with stuff like NFL cheerleader dancing. Is it exactly the same? Nah, but it's not that far off. We're arguing about cheerleader panties vs. a g-string, it's just not that different. However, the problem with that point is the same as the comparison with stuff like child beauty pageants and drag kids. Both cheerleading and child pageants in the long run are on the way out as feminism marches forward. Just like F1 grid girls, booth babes, and Tracer's butt. I suspect that if the Starbucks had the ability to make a deal on behalf of society, they would agree to ban both the cheerleaders and the explicit drag shows for kids if that's what it took. At the end of the day, people understand the cheerleaders are there for sex appeal, not to raise morale. These things are either okay for kids (and adult men playing video games and watching sports) or they ain't regardless of orientation. It's not tenable over the long run to ban child pageants but allow Desmond is Amazing and to allow drag cheerleaders at pride parades but not cheerleaders at football games. Pick one.
So it's a pretty powerful documentary overall, despite some flaws. I'd say the main thrust of the documentary is an argument for why Republicans, and particularly Republican men, should care about this issue and what they should do about it. The Starbucks are calling on traditional men to join groups like Moms for Liberty in vocally fighting back against this stuff on the family and community level regardless of consequences. I think the best material from this documentary could have been cut into a shorter film that would have had a lot more persuasive power outside of that Republican audience, but that doesn't seem to be the objective here. I think that Republicans generally agree that transing children is wrong, but a groundswell of anger over it is just never going to happen because for most people it just doesn't impact their day to day and also Donald Trump is sucking all of the attention away from stuff like this. That's why the guy from Florida isn't gonna be the nominee. Sorry, Elon. People will continue to vote more on the economy or the border than this aspect of the culture war. So, maybe a film like this represents a realization among conservative culture warriors that they will have to take this on with their school boards, mayors, doctors, and kids directly and not expect a politician to come save them.
