Louis Theroux, a British American documentarian, took to Netflix to release his newest documentary “Louis Theroux: Inside The Manosphere,” which released on Wednesday.
In his first collaboration with Netflix, Theroux ventures into the “manosphere,” a right-wing content space filled with social media personalities who push misogyny online.
Theroux is best known for his hands-off interviewing style and delicate questioning, which lets his radical subjects “shine,” for better or worse — whether it be white supremacists, doomsday preppers or Israeli settlers. The same approach is taken in this documentary as well, as Theroux spends time with some of the more extreme figures in the manosphere, documenting their day-to-day activities and digging deeper into the motivations behind their toxic masculinity, their views on feminism and how they ended up in this situation.
The first thing that’s blaringly obvious about these men is how each statement they make is immediately contradicted by the next. A fair amount of screentime is spent with Harrison Sullivan, whom Theroux calls HS, in Marbella. While working out, Sullivan talks about how he’d disown his son if he was gay. Yet in the next sentence, he told Theroux his mom would hate it if he said anything homophobic. The examples are endless.
Another interesting facet of this documentary is that Theroux isn’t the only person with a film crew here; the influencers also know how to point and shoot. This can provide two battling viewpoints on how these influencers are covered — you have Theroux’s documentary team and Theroux peppering Nicolas Balinthazy (aka Sneako), one of the more popular content creators within the manosphere, with questions on what messages he thinks his content sends to people. The documentary then cuts to Balinthazy laughing off this interaction on a livestream to his followers.
This calls to mind another motivation behind all these content creators: They’re all doing it for money and fame. These men saw they could get rich and internet-famous by telling young, vulnerable men lies about how to improve their quality of living. In turn, they’ve created young men who parrot their toxic views in public and potentially create future influencers like them.
Sullivan posted clips online saying he’s alright with Theroux calling him a “pimp, scammer, racist, homophobic d***head,” because he’s only doing it for the money. He doesn’t care about the morality of it all.
Truth be told, the content creators aren’t the most interesting part of the documentary; Theroux thrives on getting people who live in closed-off, marginal groups to spew hateful rhetoric they wouldn’t dare say to mainstream media outlets. But for these influencers, the stuff they tell Theroux is the same thing they say in whatever podcast or livestream they’re on that day. He isn’t breaking new ground by asking Balinthazy who he thinks controls the world.
One interesting piece about the manosphere is the people who aren’t rich and famous. While these men have found community and friendship, it’s disheartening to hear someone tell Theroux his brother committed suicide,yet depression isn’t real. The audience is left perplexed seeing the logical hoops and hurdles he jumps through to justify his point while not trying to sound rude about his brother’s passing.
The people who idolize these content creators are arguably much more interesting subjects to make a documentary on. They’re sold the allure of endless wealth and pleasure despite the fact it’s a goal attainable to only a few. In fact, it’s a subject that’s been explored in the BBC documentary “Men of the Manosphere” and the Netflix miniseries “Adolescence.”
One aspect that could have led to groundbreaking insights is highlighting more of the women who deal with these content creators, although it is possible that this is something Theroux wanted to do but was shot down by his documentary subjects.
Theroux pressed Amrou Fudl, who goes by Myron Gaines online, and his girlfriend Angie on the nature of their relationship — what Fudl describes as “one-sided monogamy” — until Fudl shuts down the interview and the audience never sees his girlfriend again until the epilogue when it is revealed that Angie and Fudl have broken up.
Despite the 90-minute runtime, Theroux pays lip service to the people not in the manosphere but are affected by its acolytes, save for a short news montage at the end. It’s something that deserves more research, to see how the hate speech these content creators shout affects their victims.
Overall, this is one of Theroux’s poorer works. Since these content creators are already a well-treaded topic, Theroux didn’t need to give them a platform to reveal their true beliefs. You can already find them online.
Rating: 2.25/5