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Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere review and star rating: ★★★★
There was a time when Louis Theroux could have done a documentary about paint drying and no one would have dared say anything bad about it. But then over the past few years some of his BBC films have felt like weaker rehashes of topics he’s been over before, in particular some of his stories about America, which felt meandering and lacked focus. It might have looked like the beginning of a slow fall from relevance, but Theroux finds the biting point again in his first outing on Netflix in Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere, a shocking exploration of toxic masculinity in which the 55-year-old shows he’s lost none of his grit and determination to follow a story: on multiple occasions his interviews (should that be stand-offs) get so tense you fear he’s about to get lamped.
You might have heard that there are some fairly inflammatory public male figures knocking about at the moment. The likes of Tommy Robinson and Andrew Tate, with their heady messages which spread sexism and homophobia, have in part influenced a generation of Gen Z men to become radicalised. In Inside the Manosphere, Theroux meets a number of male influencers who spew all sorts of horrendous, shocking rhetoric, like that guys should be able to have sex with their female partners whenever they want. It is often classic Theroux: he rarely has to say anything, just offer a weirdly intense stare, to reveal these men at their worst.
Louis Theroux back at his best
They might express ghastly values, but Inside the Manosphere cleverly, softly platforms the idea that trauma may have caused these men to have become broken, many having experienced their own hardships, loneliness or sense of outsider status. When one of the men interviewed says that “life as a man, you’re born without value,” even the most ardent hater of the manosphere must empathise in some way with how clearly broken these men are, how they are sadly passing their trauma on.
There are some shocking examples of how the internet is breeding violence. One influencer known as HS Tikky Tokky is embroiled within a ‘Predator Sting’ in which groups of men online organise to have individuals they believe might be predators of some kind beaten up in the streets. Theroux witnesses one middle aged man being brutally attacked, with the violence live streamed on social media. Even though HS condemns the action, the scenes show how quickly and effectively illegal violence can be mobilised online (pre-internet extremist and far-right groups had to rely on flyering and meeting up in pubs). Not only that, but how, if you aren’t careful, all it takes is one or two clicks in the wrong direction to land somewhere very, very dark.
In technological terms at least, there hasn’t ever been such a clear example of how documentaries – and traditional media – are old hat. While Theroux and his team take months to film and cut this documentary, perhaps one of the strongest arguments platformed by one of the content creators is that his content is more authentic: live streamed and shown in its entirety, viewers on social media simply don’t need four-people-strong camera crews anymore to put out content. But that is just logistics, what they’re spewing is vile and Theroux is still absolutely the journalist to take these men to task.
Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere is released on Netflix on 11 March
