Louis’ walk on AMERICA’S wild side
With deadpan British reserve, Louis Theroux explores the US’s toxic subcultures
Louis Theroux (above) has been bringing us brilliantly revealing reports from the front line of the culture wars for more than 20 years. But when once you might have been able to dismiss the bizarre characters he caught on camera as no more than oddballs, in recent years his shows have proved to be all too prophetic. The extremists that he first spotted have become increasingly part of the mainstream in America – which is so often a prime indicator of where we might eventually be headed on this side of the Atlantic too. All of which makes Theroux’s latest series essential viewing.
Once again he’s in the US, deploying his courageous and deadpan style along with his polite, British reserve to open the doors on some of the country’s murkiest areas.
Over three episodes, he guides us through the chaotic and increasingly destructive effects of social media on politics, culture and sexuality, showing how taboos are being shattered while the lines between the virtual and real worlds grow all too blurred.
In the first part he meets the youthful far-Right figures who are using the internet to reach an increasingly large following with a message of open, noxious racism. Shock jock turned white supremacist leader Nick Fuentes, 23, exclaims ‘White people are done being bullied!’ before his supporters respond with the frenzied chant: ‘America first!’
As Theroux delves into a toxic subculture mired in antisemitism and misogyny, we can only pray that the movement’s members never achieve the power they evidently crave.
Then, Theroux braves the badlands of Florida’s rap scene, where the biggest stars can reap vast riches – but all too many are losing their lives to drugs or gangster gunmen long before they can make their millions.
Finally, he takes an eye-opening look at what has become of the porn industry as it attempts to recover from claims of sexual misconduct thanks to the #MeToo movement. Theroux asks if the OnlyFans website has really empowered performers, or whether it’s just a new way to conceal the exploitation of vulnerable young people.
These are the troubling but compelling stories that only Theroux can tell.