Loaded: Lads, Mags and Mayhem

Having been around when Loaded and other so called lads mags were more popular with young men than newspapers, this was an obvious watch. However being the BBC it was always going to be coming from a very weird angle. Instead of being a celebration of the magazine and the fun times of the 90's, it ends up being a rather snooty documentary made by feminists who at the time were likely calling themselves "ladettes" in order to fit in with the men, but are now too old to have jumped onto the Only Fans bandwagon, which is the current version of "female empowerment".

Despite this, there are enough interesting and fun stories which are a great reminder of what it was like to be a man in the 90's in the UK, and how Loaded was a driver for this culture. Its only the shoehorning of feminists calling Jordan Peterson a misogynist into a documentary about a 90's magazine that shows up the agenda of the obviously female production team. There is also an odd glee in covering the addiction issues of some of the magazine team, seemingly to make the producers happy that men who published magazines with scantily clad women should be seen to suffer. The most ironic images of the documentary are women protesting that other women are exercising their right to make money from their bodies. They thought they had won when Loaded and the others eventually shut shop. Its as if they didn't understand the internet was happening and if anything adult content has never been so accessible. The spirit of loaded lives, and so do feminists who want to complain about it. I will give this a six because there is enough to interest someone who remembers the magazine, you may wish to skip through the feminist complaining sections however which drag down the rating.