Louis Theroux: America proibita

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.

Finding extreme individuals in America is not so hard and Louis Theroux has done a good job of this in the last. But no effort is made to understand the backstories of these dreadful people, whether they had formative experiences that led to their views. Many seemed to be conflicted - were they White Supremicists or just motivated by narcissistic desire to get a reaction from the mainstream media? They seemed less sure of their ideology than the neo-nazis Theroux has profiled before. Yet none of this was explored. So we are left none the wiser. Maybe all Louis wanted was to say they are dreadful and social media is feeding them, but I thought there was a better story and investigation to be had.

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.

Negative reviews brought to you by AF. Basically Louis asks the American Manlet Association basic questions about there beliefs and the levels of cope is unreal. It's funny to watch supposed irony trolls sweat profusely... "No you can't just quote me I was being ironic" LMAO what a bunch of cowards.