Racism so revolting that even faux-naive Louis lost his cool
Louis Theroux’s Forbidden America BBC2, Sunday HHHHH Extraordinary Escapes With Sandi Toksvig
Anumber of years ago the same arguments that some are having about Louis Theroux interviewing out-and-out racists were had at newspapers about the National Front and then the British National Party. Is interest legitimate, because we should know what they’re up to, or are they just being awarded the oxygen of publicity? Will it do more harm than good?
Either way, I was once dispatched to spend a day with the BNP, who were canvassing in Barking and Dagenham, and the first to introduce himself was their security person, who said: ‘I can’t give you my real name, love, for security reasons, but it’s Terry.’ The deal is, I suppose: give them enough rope to hang themselves. But even so, is that of value? Still not sure. It can make good (if uncomfortable) television, though.
In the first of three Louis Theroux’s Forbidden America episodes we met Nicholas J. Fuentes, the 23-year-old ‘rising star of the farRight’ who founded America First, an organisation that wants no more immigration. We initially saw him at an America First convention, where the badges for attendees should have read ‘America First, B**ch’ but instead read ‘America First B**ch’ as the comma had been mistakenly omitted. As Louis pointed out, bemusedly, this changed the meaning entirely. ‘It sounds as if you’re America’s first b**ch?’ I like to think it’s a mistake Terry would have made, almost certainly.
Fuentes is, alas, articulate, confident and, while you or I may find him ridiculous, it was frighteningly easy to see why others might consider him charismatic. His views are exactly as you would expect, and Theroux was generous with the rope. ‘White people founded this country. This country wouldn’t exist without white people. And white people are done being bullied,’ said Fuentes.
Later, he told us that women shouldn’t be allowed to work or vote, mixed-race couples are ‘degenerates’, as are gays, black women are ‘obnoxious’, and the Jews are in control of the media. (I’m Jewish and actually wish someone else would take control; it’s exhausting.) But whenever Theroux directly charged him with being a ‘white nationalist’, say, he smirked and said it was all ‘irony’. This is a classic from the playbook: use claims of ‘just joking’ to deflect criticism while spreading the message. Total charmers, this lot.
Theroux met some of Fuentes’s acolytes, such as ‘Baked Alaska’, a self-described internet troll who walks the streets of Florida playing German marching music as online fans pay him to insult people. It’s good to have a hobby, I suppose. Or there was ‘Beardson Beardley’ who, when questioned about his fondness for Nazi salutes, threw Theroux off his property. ‘What was most striking,’ said Theroux, ‘is that someone who gives Nazi salutes is offended at being asked about them.’ I admire Theroux, even when he’s at his most fauxnaive, but he did lose his cool here, and that’s excellent too. For once he did not hide his revulsion, and that was of value, I think.
This is four stars because it was grippingly terrifying. However, I’m not sure any information was especially new. Theroux wanted to make a point about the reach of the internet. Most of the men (and it’s mostly men) had met through online gaming because, as one says, ‘it’s the new golf course’.
Fuentes has a nightly show that is streamed to thousands. It’s broadcast with skyscrapers twinkling in the background but that’s computer wizardry because, as it turns out, he’s in his mum’s basement. But we’d guessed that because we already know how this works. You did get the sense that what we are dealing with here are unsuccessful people who have never thrived socially and need somewhere to put all their anger. I would have wished for more of an exploration of that. Meanwhile, I did wonder what Fuentes and his fans made of Theroux’s show, so had a poke about Twitter and similar and discovered they’re fine with it because Theroux is just ‘a dumb Jewish homosexual’.
Wrong on all counts, predictably.
The first series of Extraordinary Escapes With Sandi Toksvig was rather underwhelming, but I happened to catch the first episode of the second series and it was a delight and a hoot. Toksvig was joined by comedian Sarah Millican and the pair laughed and laughed and laughed, and so did I.
They visited Devon, staying in some amazing houses, one in the woods, one almost in the sea. They tried a ‘Japanese toilet’ and a ‘gong bath’ and happened across a book on hypnobirthing in one of the properties and Millican was hooked. ‘I need to finish it. I’m on the third trimester and it’s really good.’ She also put to bed the age-old debate about scones with jam first or cream first. ‘I eat all the jam, and then all the cream, and then the scone, dry. That’s the Millican way.’
Last, the pair went rockpooling with an expert, who told them that barnacles have a male appendage that is so big, proportionally, that if it were scaled up to a human man, he’d be going about with something the size of the actual Nelson’s Column. Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is new information…