Jordan Peterson on What Olivia Wilde Got ‘Cataclysmically Wrong’ About Him in ‘Don’t Worry Darling’

Back in 2022, Olivia Wilde made headlines when she claimed the villainous character in her film Don’t Worry Darling was based on Canadian author and psychiatrist Jordan Peterson, whom she called a “pseudo-intellectual hero to the incel community.” 

Peterson emotionally reacted to the actress-turned-director’s remarks at the time, telling Piers Morgan he has long been demonized for “speaking to disaffected young men” and noting it is “very difficult to understand how demoralized people are” – specifically, “many young men are in that category.”

But there are also several things Peterson believes Wilde failed to understand about him and his audience in her caricature of him. On Wednesday’s show, he joined Megyn to discuss the controversy and what Hollywood and the left get wrong about the cultural shift currently underway.

Wilde’s Wild Claim

If you were not among the very few people who saw the film (it grossed just over $45 million at the domestic box office), Don’t Worry Darling is a thriller that follows a housewife (Florence Pugh) in an idyllic 1950s town who begins to suspect there is a sinister secret being kept from its residents by the man who runs it, a character named Frank (Chris Pine).

In a September 2022 profile with Interview Magazine, Wilde – who directed and starred in the film – shed light on the inspiration for Pine’s role. “We based that character on this insane man, Jordan Peterson, who is this pseudo-intellectual hero to the incel community,” she told interviewer Maggie Gyllenhaal. 

She described “incels” as “disenfranchised, mostly white men, who believe they are entitled to sex from women” because “society has now robbed them.” According to Wilde, incels also believe “that the idea of feminism is working against nature, and that we must be put back into the correct place.”

In her view, “they’re actually succeeding in many different ways” because of people like Peterson. “This guy Jordan Peterson is someone that legitimizes certain aspects of their movement because he’s a former professor, he’s an author, he wears a suit, so they feel like this is a real philosophy that should be taken seriously,” Wilde claimed.

The Character

At one point in the movie, Pine’s character asked a group of residents to identify “the enemy of progress.” When someone correctly answered “chaos,” he called it a “nasty word” and launched into a sermon-like lecture. “Merciless foe, that chaos,” Frank said. “Energy unfocused. Innovation hindered. Hope strangled strength. Greatness disguised. I see greatness in each one of you. I know exactly who you are.”

Megyn said she believes the intention was to make Peterson, by way of Frank, “seem like some faux preacher-type or a cult leader from the 1950s,” which he did not necessarily take issue with. “There is an element to me that is like a 1950 preacher, and that is fair enough,” he said. “I mean, I have been teaching people religious stories for 40 years, and I gather large audiences, and the lectures are emotional and motivational.”

What he did take issue with was the film’s interpretation of his philosophy. “That clip is very interesting because it indicates the misapprehension of what I think,” Peterson noted. “It was interesting that the screenplay focused on ‘chaos,’ for example, because it is the case that ‘chaos’ and ‘possibility’ tend to be symbolized with the feminine.”

He said that imagery is “the basis of literary symbolism and psychological symbolism for thousands and thousands of years” partly because “the feminine is a useful symbolic marker for possibility” due to women’s ability to give birth. “So chaos isn’t the enemy of order,” Peterson explained. “It is the dance partner of order in the transformation that leads to progress across time.” 

Peterson Wilde and her partners on the project got their portrayal of him and his work “cataclysmically wrong,” which is “indicative of the shallowness of [their] analysis.”

Why the Film Failed

He was actually somewhat sympathetic to the conundrum they faced. “I can see why people who think they are my enemy are set back on their heels by… [the fact that] young men will come and listen to lectures about the Bible… or that they are happy to be lectured to about responsibility,” Peterson noted. “It really is a mystery, and it is not surprising that artistic types on the left would try to figure out what the hell is going on.”

Where Wilde and co. failed, however, was in the premise. “These are hard things to sort out, but the way they were sorted out wasn’t helpful and her movie wasn’t successful because it was wrong. She didn’t get the story right,” he explained. “The real story is a lot more interesting because one of the mysteries she could have dealt into is: Why the hell are young men letting me tell them stories about the Old Testament? How the hell did that happen? And why is there a religious revival sweeping across the West in partial consequence?”

While Peterson said it might be easy to dismiss him as “a power hungry misogynist,” that critique doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. “I’m actually not power hungry and I’m not a misogynist, so that is a stupid story… Anybody who listens to me – who actually listens for more than like 10 minutes – figures that out immediately,” he concluded. “She wasn’t guided by curiosity. She was guided by ideological pre-commitment… and that doesn’t work when you are telling stories.”

You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Peterson by tuning in to episode 1,035 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.