
Adrian Choa directs Louis Theroux, Harrison Sullivan and Justin Waller in this documentary film exploring “red pill” influencers.
Theroux seems a little out of step here. He is exploited as much as his subjects. They turns the tables on him a few times for instant clout in a way cosseted egocentric celeb monsters and sex workers never could. It actually plays out as a revealing heat check into a world of post truth, where mainstream media’s trust and power has been eroded. This is what is creating and filling the vacuum. I have been on a fair bit of training around working on this subject with young men recently. It was very well researched and academically sound. But both this doc and that learning skip over the fact that muscle bound men posing as billionaires and lotharios taps into adolescent fantasies and older men’s frustrations very, very easily. It clearly is a scam, a pyramid scheme and a hustle to those of us content and secure. But a kick back against the gentrification of traditional male culture, plus the in vogue demonisation of men in general, was inevitable. The last decade of #metoo and #butalwaysaman was essential but its commodification would always lead to some such reactive extremity. I find these men ridiculous and abhorrent but equally a lot of current feminist social media and culture has the similar tang of self serving echo nastiness. I find grifter feminists with no grace or diplomacy equally ridiculous if a little less distasteful. Take it from a soy boy cuck nerd wokey brokie: “Only a Sith deals in absolutes”. We are only becoming more fractured and I feel Theroux knows he is out of his depth here on his (our) side of the schism. It is fascinating he is happy to unvarnish that truth, that he no longer has the tools to deal with the new misogyny and its cutting edge delivery system.
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Perfect Double Bill: Feels Good Man (2020)
I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/ and my own Substack https://substack.com/@edinburghlaughterbulletin