Louis Theroux: Forbidden America

The people in this getting offended about having their quotes and reflected back to them makes for one of the best LT documentary for a while. I'd have more respect for them if they just admitted what they believe. Louis' indignation is clear.

In the end the online donations roll and and we discover, it was about the money after all.

Good to see their fans have been able to follow a link to leave back reviews here.

'Forbidden America' follows Louis Theroux's familliar template, travelling to meet strange, often troubling people and letting them tell their own stories, for good or ill. One problem with the model is that his interviewees are often very aware of the context within which they operate; which makes the documentaries less exploitative, but also more perfomatative; the subjects all have their own reason for appearing. In this series, he meets violent rappers, white supremacists, and workers in the porn industry. At least two of these are familliar subjects for Theroux, and he's arguably more directly judgemental here than he has been hitherto. In places, the series is insightful, but as human beings, his protagonists aren't always that interesting, even though their societal role may be: they often come across as narcissitic and opportunistic grifters, whose personalities don't take that long to dissect. There are always moments of interest in Theroux's work; but also limitations to the personal approach.

The white supremacy thing is pretty dull. Weak men with weaker minds. This story is pretty cringy and probably doesn't need any more noise around it.

Episode two focuses on how rappers deal with their content glamourising the issues that have caused them personal pain and is very real. This episode provides great insight into why this medium of story telling is so important.

Episode three is also good but has elements of baiting interviewees for the answers Louis wants. Nonetheless it contains some important messages and is worth a watch.

All in all Louis has made something which make you consider different perspectives and that's not nothing.

This is a very controversial documentary, but one that does not deserve a low rating like this. Given what we have seen of many people in the first episode alone, it's unsurprising that people have given this a low rating either out of spite or because of their refusal to see things from another perspective. Louis shows things exactly how they are, but people with similar beliefs to those in the docuseries will naturally dislike the light that is put onto certain individuals and subjects. I also wouldn't be surprised if this was review-bombed by followers of some individuals in the series. I just find it very suspicious that a docuseries that raises very important points about American modern culture and the impact of social media in the US has gotten such a mixed response on iMDB.

Episode 1: Nothing very new here. There are some racist right wing people in the US... The sky is also blue. The BBC wouldn't let him, but maybe he needs to balance it out and look at some far left violent nutjobs like Antifa.