What do Americans think of Louis Theroux? Can you believe he is half-American? Does he seem insincere or endearing, worthwhile or a waste of time? I’ve watched him interview wrestlers from Florida, demolition derby guys from Michigan, porn industry workers from California and militiamen. In every case his intention to take the mickey seemed frustrated by lack of mickey. (I hope that expression is cross-cultural). All the people he interviewed were completely ingenuous and decent - something which probably secretly disappointed him.
Not actually american, but i always assumed that Louis Theroux’s technique was to give 'em enough rope and they’d hang themselves.
I am sure that his subjects, most of them anyway, are expressing their heartfelt beliefs and opinions, and that the reason they do this is precisely because Louis doesn’t overtly take the mickey. The humour or perhaps shock value is that these people will not only hold these opinions but flaunt them. IMO sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
OK, so the humour is cruel, but then most of his targets are bigoted, or have hugely overinflated egos and i personally don’t have a problem with laughing at that sort of person. I wouldn’t call some of the pornographers or racists he interviewed “decent”. Not by a long chalk.
Mickey? The mouse, the baseball player, or the date-rape drugs?
Theroux’s generally pretty interesting, from what I’ve seen. He’s skeptical but inquisitive, and never condescending. The show he did on the Dallas evangelist and his secretary was absolutely great. Sadly, I haven’t seen too many more episodes, since you can never tell when it’s going to be broadcast.
Never heard of Theroux. Is he shown in the U.S.? If so, what network?
What’s his bag? From context, he sounds like a goofier version of American documentary film-maker Michael Moore (Roger & Me).
Also, what is “taking a mickey” in this context? Asking leading questions? Feigning allegiance to lower someone’s guard?
The one with Jimmy Saville was scary beyond words.
To take the Mickey: To tease, to ridicule, extract the Michael, jack around, josh, kid, piss-take, pull one’s leg, stick it to, take the piss, rag, rib, wind up.
Louis Theroux is too in love with his academic qualifications in my opinion and he takes insincerity to new levels. Strangely, though, he remains appealing through it all. Unfortunately, longjohn, the porn workers did, indeed, seem decent and even clinical to me. I don’t think many of them have other employment options. Louis Theroux seemed like a dirty little schoolboy in comparison. The wrestlers and the demolition derby guys made me see machismo in a new light. They were such kind, well mannered men. I don’t understand how racism in the south can come out of the same sort of personalities.
G. Nome - the workers themselves seemed OK from what i recall, but there was at least one producer of porn who was an absolute animal. I can’t find the details after a brief search of the web, but he was the head of a californian production company, and delighted in degrading women. Not a savoury individual at all. I know, i know, what else should you expect, and of course the show was looking for extreme examples of people in the industry, but that guy is ingrained in my memory.
Only episode I saw. I enjoyed it. He did seem overly incredulous to the ‘gay-for-pay’ porn guy. I thought for a second the guy was punch him for it.
Theroux’s good. He’s really open and honest, and he accepts other viewpoints.
If I was interviewing some of those people (KKK anyone?) I’d be tempted to lay into them and tear there arguments apart. Which, in some cases, would not be too tricky to do.
But Louis just lets them get on with it and lets the audience make up their own minds.
And he’s sweet too.
The first time I saw Louis was when he had a regular slot on one of the show M.Moore did over in the U.K. He was over in the States sending back reports. While there is some simularities between the two their shows are quite different. MM usually has a point to make and a agenda to put forward, while Louis is more just taking the piss.
God almighty. Proof read, Proof read … [sub]repeat to fade[/sub]
I really enjoyed the TV Nation shows where Michael Moore and Theroux worked together. That was excellent and indispensable television. Theroux’s Ted Nugent interview was great. However, I sometimes think that Michael Moore himself is too proud of his own “lefty goodness” and becomes unsubtle because of it.
Louis Theroux never really intended to “swing” in his programme on swinging although he made every attempt to pretend he was going to. He never intended to wrestle either. His analysis of what I suppose you’d call white trash culture is totally informed by his “new right” (used to be left) point of view. He didn’t seem to understand that the gay porn guy had no other form of income and didn’t believe him when he said he was straight. His advice to the wrestlers to try not to hurt anyone (he said something like that anyway) was just stupid. There should be an American version of Weird Weekends about English people.
I’d like to add that my comments on porn workers relate to the ones Louie Theroux interviewed and do not relate to any others or any other forms of pornography.
Not trying to pick a fight here, but how do you know that Louis was never intending to swing/wrestle?
I assumed that his comment to the wrestlers to try and not hurt anybody was a faux-naive sly little dig, but that’s MO
Louis in fact has turned his camera on Brits, they have just tended to be “cult” individuals probably not known outside the UK - cf. Mangetout’s comment about Jimmy Saville. Therefore these shows would be meaningless abroad and so haven’t been broadcast. I imagine Paul Daniels is not known overseas, a fact you should be thankful for. You would not like him a lot.
During the lead-up to the last-but-one UK election, Paul Daniels was one of those who said he would leave the country if Labour were elected, after this happened, several national newspapers offered him a one-way ticket to any destination of his choice.
Um…because he didn’t swing or wrestle? Because he acted sort of supercilious? He also wouldn’t drive his demolition car in a final race after he qualified for it. He wouldn’t act in a porn movie either although he insisted his true intentions were to do all of those things.
All this is making me sound unintentionally like a real fan - I seem to have seen all his programs. I don’t know…maybe I just felt like destroying something pretty.
Also: I distanced myself from “other forms of pornography” in my second to last post because of something that happened to my computer this week. I was searching for “pre-teen games” for my niece and the search engine came up with links to kiddie porn. I clicked on one or two out of curiosity and it took me the whole night to get rid of them again. They took out all my settings, replaced the homepage, added to my favorites and made it almost impossible to get into Explorer to delete the temp files. On some kind of level it was like being hit by a virus. I eventually cleaned it up but when I turned the computer on the next day they all came flooding back. I wonder how many people have been falsely accused of pedophilia because someone saw “pre-teen violent” rapes bookmarked? I’d be a hypocrite if I said I disapproved of all pornography at all times everywhere but stuff like that is evil beyond belief.