Niklas's thoughts

I've recently seen 'Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere', the first documentary that Theroux has made for Netflix.

I wish the documentary were in-depth; even though it focused on Theroux's usual way of interviewing people—calmly asking questions, simply pointing out inconsistencies in people's stories—there's a lot of show-and-tell of manosphere influencers but little to show how and why they're wrong.

Don't get me wrong: these influencers are often wrong, always in how their xenophobia (real or manufactured for money) shows, for example, through sexism, islamophobia, antisemitism, and ludicrous conspiracy theories.

I mean, I think the documentary would have been better made if more time were spent on not just following the influencers or asking them slight questions but rather speaking with people who research and know how the manosphere influences not only their target audiences (young boys who become older boys with money and are allowed to vote) but the results of their behaviour on others.

This documentary scantily passed victims. I'd like to have heard interviews with women, especially those who did make it into the documentary.

Unfortunately, even though Theroux hits some good points, I think it's a mistake for this documentary to mostly just pass influencer content through the Netflix funnel rather than to analyse, question, research the field, and ultimately present a better documentary.

#video #sexism #islamophobia #homophobia #xenophobia #documentary