Louis Theroux vs Westboro Baptists

[Johnny Canuck3]

One of the really strange things about Theroux is that he genuinely does make friends with a lot of the people about whom he makes programmes, and keeps in touch with them. He wrote a book about that, too, and revisited some of them.

Like I said, he sounds like an interesting documentarian, and I'll have to watch out for his work.

I certainly think that his father is highly talented; I've read lots of his stuff.

 

[Balbi]

The fact is, the Westboro Baptists are crazies. They're also a minority, albeit a very noisy one.

If you didn't like our understanding of those facts, well, you shouldn't have bothered posting in the first place.

 

[Guineveretoo]

I was responding to the poster who said that these UK groups didn't figure in documentaries, because unlike US groups, they didn't want the publicity.

The documentaries made about the BNP are mostly hidden camera programmes, actually, rather than interviews and chats with a bumbling nerd type middle class chap.

 

[Guineveretoo]

Like I said, he sounds like an interesting documentarian, and I'll have to watch out for his work.

I certainly think that his father is highly talented; I've read lots of his stuff.

Did you look at that link I posted?

 

[Cid]

I was responding to the poster who said that these UK groups didn't figure in documentaries, because unlike US groups, they didn't want the publicity.

You miss the point; you might see a collection of clips of chelsea fans kicking off or you might see people doing NF salutes in the stands of a game (less so now thank fuck) but it's a very rare thing to see them actually interviewed except when the reporter is being very careful.

 

[Guineveretoo]

Here is another one, again, out of date (doesn't the man have any fans who can keep websites up to date?)

http://internettrash.com/users/louis_theroux/

 

[Balbi]

Yeah. The BNP don't want to be documented, to be on record as being racist fascist cunts.

Crazies however, looooooooove the camera. Savile, Hamiltons, Eubank - etc.

 

[Guineveretoo]

Eubank. That's the name of the lisping chap who lives near Brighton and got done for nicking a lorry or something strange. He is a weirdo but, like the weirdoes in the OP, he thinks he is perfectly normal and that the rest of us are weird.

 

[Cid]

Eubank. That's the name of the lisping chap who lives near Brighton and got done for nicking a lorry or something strange. He is a weirdo but, like the weirdoes in the OP, he thinks he is perfectly normal and that the rest of us are weird.

Nah he got done for driving a lorry with "Blair, don't send our young prince to your catastrophic illegal war to make it look plausible" written on it through Whitehall...

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

That's what you are trying to make it into. Some of us are trying to stop you from doing so, and are resisting your attempts to hijack the thread

Doing quite well, too. Shame I have to sleep soon - I could do this all night

There's no restriction on people carrying on other discussions apart from the posts that I make, and the ones responding.

Personally, I think that the 'look at the crazies!' posts, had about run their course.

 

[Balbi]

Champion boxer. Owns a massive lorry which he drives everywhere. Crazy as a box of spray painted badgers.

 

[Balbi]

Personally, I think that the 'look at the crazies!' posts, had about run their course.

The repeat is on tonight, I expect further 'CRAZIES!' posts to increase your ire.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

The repeat is on tonight, I expect further 'CRAZIES!' posts to increase your ire.

I'm just amused. It's you brits full of ire.

 

[Balbi]

I'm just amused. It's you brits full of ire.

No. That would be irony

 

[Guineveretoo]

Nah he got done for driving a lorry with "Blair, don't send our young prince to your catastrophic illegal war to make it look plausible" written on it through Whitehall...

Oh yeah, I forgot about that. That was weird, because I had never thought of him as being a political weirdo

But I am sure he was prosecuted a couple of years for twocing an hgv which had blocked his drive or something, so he just got in and drove it away?

I may have fantasised this, or just got it completely wrong, but I will google and see if I can find anything.

But I do remember him making me squirm in the Theroux programme, with his arrogance and the way he treated his family, as well as the fact that he just didn't seem to "get" Theroux, and seemed to imagine that Louis was his number one fan

 

[Cid]

I'm just amused. It's you brits full of ire.

Lying bastard canuck!

 

[Guineveretoo]

I'm just amused. It's you brits full of ire.

I am not full of ire.

Can't speak for anyone else, but most of the earlier contributors to this thread seem to have gone to bed.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

I am not full of ire.

Can't speak for anyone else, but most of the earlier contributors to this thread seem to have gone to bed.

It's 6:30 here: I'll be up for another seven hours.

 

[Guineveretoo]

I am really glad I was, seemingly, right about Eubank:

On September 1, 2005, Eubank was found guilty of taking and driving a vehicle without permission. This related to an incident in Brighton in which Eubank had climbed into a lorry making a delivery of beer and moved it from its position blocking the road. Eubank was trying to take his children to school at the time. He received a £450 fine and received six endorsement points on his driving licence. He was cleared of the stiffer charge of aggravated vehicle-taking.

The same article, however, tells me that, a month before that happened, his wife sued him for divorce, which I didn't know, and which might explain his lack of patience on that occasion?

 

[Guineveretoo]

It's 6:30 here: I'll be up for another seven hours.

But I won't!

Although, in 7 hours time, I shall be at work!

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

But I won't!

Although, in 7 hours time, I shall be at work!

I'll probably be watching a rerun of Adam 12, while lying in bed.

 

[Guineveretoo]

No idea what "Adam 12" is - am I expected to?

 

[Structaural]

Wrong-Eyed wasn't a US export: it was a british-made documentary.

Yes, you get an endless diet of the 'dark side' of America, but little about any other side. This sort of thing has an insidious effect on your perception of how and why the US does things. It feeds your paranoid belief that the country is run by a bunch of snake handling baptist crazies bent on bringing fundamentalism and mcdonalds to every corner of the world.

Sounds about right

My point actually was that this dark heart is not shown by mainstream American media particularly so we need to see this other side, which is actually a lot more persuasive and actual than you think. After all the idiot son was voted in twice. And docs like this that show the exaggerated side are pretty rare to be fair, the 'other' side you think we miss is a never ending torrent that invades almost every channel.

 

[Structaural]

I don't care if you're unfair. I'm just pointing out that when it comes to the consumption of documentaries about the US, you're no better than Daily Mail readers.

Nobody really expects the Daily Mail to be fair.

The Daily Mail is famous for complaining about things they've never seen, hmm, who's doing that at the moment?

 

[Structaural]

Yes, and Hitler's propaganda image used to denigrate the US, was that it was a land of mafia style italian gangsters.

You guys are just buying into the modern version of that propaganda.

Goodwin's so soon? The only generalisations in this thread are coming from you Johnny: Urban are a bunch who represent all British people, all British docs are negative lowest common denominator freakshows, Americans are actually all lovely people, etc...

 

[Structaural]

I was responding to the poster who said that these UK groups didn't figure in documentaries, because unlike US groups, they didn't want the publicity.

It's more the case that people don't want to give them the oxygen of publicity.

 

[spanglechick]

I have a question for JC2:

Do you think the reaction to the documentary would have been any different - that we would have "lapped it up" any less, had it been about a group of British religious extremists?

 

[rhod]

Firstly, he is not a documentarian as such, secondly, he doesn't make documentaries as such

Exactly! The programmes are never portrayed as serious documentaries (in the mould of Panorama, for instance). In fact, most of the the trails beforehand are pretty wacky with some quirky showtune used as a backing track.

The TV audience is so fragmented now anyway in the UK, JC - whilst you imagine hordes of US-bashers lapping up Theroux's programme on the BBC - the reality is that (given many people don't like documentaries -period) there were probably just as many watching episodes of various documentaries on satellite channels on Nature, Engineering, Cookery, Travel etc showing the US in quite a good light.

But as has been mentioned already on this thread, the "good news" documentaries don't generally get a high profile (but they are there).

 

[May Kasahara]

I have a question for JC2:

Do you think the reaction to the documentary would have been any different - that we would have "lapped it up" any less, had it been about a group of British religious extremists?

Well, quite. The 'look at the crazies' posts that Johnny seems so unhappy about appear more to be saying 'these people are deeply disturbed and deeply disturbing'. I don't recall anyone making specific reference to their nationality being a part of that, although it's a long thread and I might have forgotten by now.

Didn't see the doc, but what little I read about the Phelps' 'outcast' sons and their upbringing was disturbing enough to make me glad about that. I'm a docu-wuss

 

[laptop]

would ["we"] have "lapped it up" any less, had it been about a group of British religious extremists?

The point does remain that we'd be more surprised to find such a bunch of weirdoes in the UK.

I've met some of the most extreme religious nuts in the UK - and they seemed tame by comparison.

So possibly we'd have lapped up revelations about them more avidly, 'cos they'd have been news to us.

It's very unlikely, though, that people in the UK (or even apologists for the UK presenting themselves as living in neighbouring countries) would react to such a documentary on a bunch of weirdos in the UK as if it were an attack on the whole country and everyone in it. Very few here are that pathetically insecure.