An unpleasant trip to the manosphere

Louis Theroux is a British journalist and documentary filmmaker known for his seemingly innocuous interviews that have allowed him access to controversial figures or extreme and hostile environments: Nazis and supremacists, cults, fundamentalist and homophobic communities, sexual exploiters... He has spent a good part of his career at the BBC, with an approachable style that avoids confrontation and lets the protagonists expose themselves. But this ambiguity between observation and complicity has also caused him to slip up at times. The most emblematic case is his interview with presenter Jimmy Savile. Theroux was forced to critically review his own work, and his blindness, after the hundreds of cases of abuse and pedophilia committed by Savile were discovered. This tension between proximity and journalistic responsibility re-emerges in his new Netflix documentary. In Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere, he delves into the ecosystem of major misogynistic influencers who capitalize on discourses of extreme masculinity. The production is difficult to bear because it transports us to an aggressive and ignorant underworld. Theroux visits the main figures of this toxic digital current, interviews them, and accompanies them in their daily lives: he enters their homes, meets their families, and tests the solvency of their advice on investments, discovering fraud and deception. Theroux is brave and is an uncomfortable presence that brings out contradictions and reveals the fragility of these characters. The format and the inherent manipulation of this manosphere, however, also ends up instrumentalizing the journalist's presence to create spectacle. Theroux is aware of this and, in fact, incorporates it to expose their strategies.Diving into the ideology of the red pill – the one that, according to the manosphere, consists of “seeing things as they truly are” as a counterpoint to feminism – is disgusting because it becomes clear how they turn resentment and prejudice into doctrine. But Theroux's presence makes the insecurities of these individuals appreciable on screen. The journalist recovers video footage from the protagonists' childhoods and delves into their family history to uncover their emotional traumas. The documentary struggles greatly – too much – to reach a conclusion that goes beyond the mere exhibition of all this human garbage. But, in any case, it summarizes well the thread that connects this manosphere, the testosterone-fueled podcasts, and the political discourse that supports Trump and the far-right. It also highlights how they create conspiracy theories with antisemitic narratives and about the fall of the West. It shows how their discourses on confidence, wealth, and the supposed relationships they claim to have are artificial and that aggressiveness is the only resource they have to conceal it and appear convincing. But it's an unstoppable spiral, because they monetize all this hate.