Louis Theroux vs Westboro Baptists

[Calva dosser]

Actually, JC, if you moved away from Urban, you'd find lots of people who uncritically adore The Yanks.

Personally, I don't think that's so healthy for The Yanks.

Oh, and cognitive dissonance? I'm sure I've heard this before. Is it like hyper-paradoxical behaviour syndome? You know, when someone tries to politely tell you you're talking bollocks, but you still persist?

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Actually, JC, if you moved away from Urban, you'd find lots of people who uncritically adore The Yanks.

Personally, I don't think that's so healthy for The Yanks.

It doesn't matter: they aren't listening anyway.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

well there's an almost never-ending series of docs about US culture - Soul Deep, ( a history of soul music which looked at the socio-political context) is a notable example. A slew of recent programmes about NY music - disco, punk etc. This stuff is on all the time. In fact, i'd argue that the positive stuff about US culture far outweighs the negative stuff about fundies and neo-cons.

Really; that's good to know. Maybe I'm using U75 as a gauge of british culture, a little bit too much.

 

[Calva dosser]

Nope, I mixed it with 'Buyer Dissonance'_ which is when someone buys a Chrysler PT cruiser, and is so embarassed, they tell their mates it's great, in the hope they will buy one to. So they won't be the only cunt in the carpark.

 

[Cid]

I'd be interested to see a list of documentaries run on the BBC in the past two years, that presented any positive aspect of the US.

Ummm... any number of BBC4 music docus, plenty of nature docus etc. The thing about documentries is that they're about something, and you're unlikely to find a succesful filmaker who's passion is happy families living normal lives. Theroux's ducmentries are actually quite positive sometimes, weird weekends has a few gems.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

precisely, It's certainly not dominant in any way.

The audience for a show like Theroux's - which was in no way critical of broader US society anyway - is far lower than that for the many many hours per week of US soaps, dramas, movies and the like which tend (like ER or Frazier or whatever) to paint Americans in a perfectly fine light

Plus, stuff like Wrong Eyed Jesus gets played in Canada because.......we like it too.

Fuckin' crazy americans....

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Nope, I mixed it with 'Buyer Dissonance'_ which is when someone buys a Chrysler PT cruiser, and is so embarassed, they tell their mates it's great, in the hope they will buy one to. So they won't be the only cunt in the carpark.

Someone who would be embarassed by that, would have bought a Ford Anglia or whatever, in the first place.

 

[Calva dosser]

It doesn't matter: they aren't listening anyway.

Blimey. Rumpole strikes again. Crushed.

 

[Cid]

Oh yeah, Michael Palin did some good stuff on the US in Full Circle.

 

[Calva dosser]

Someone who would be embarassed by that, would have bought a Ford Anglia or whatever, in the first place.

To be fair, the original comment was from a guy called Webster, who with a bloke called Wind- 'tis twoo, wrote a book called 'Industrial Buying Behaviour' back in the good old greed is good eighties. Yes they were Seppoes.

His explanation of why there were 17 million deathtraps on the planet that couldn't go round a corner if a marmoset had pissed on the tarmac in the last 24 hours was, 'buyer dissonance'- and it referred to the VW Beetle.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

I'm sure Britain has a nice balanced view of the US, via its documentaries.




But you know...........when this many people jump down my throat with this much vigour, I'm pretty sure that I've hit a nerve.

 

[Cid]

Well yes, you just implied we were all narrow minded idiots who thought that the antics of the Westboro baptist church applied to the wider culture of the US, then you went on to say that all our documentaries ram some kind of twisted vision of the US down our throats and we lap it up. Of course you hit a nerve.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Well yes, you just implied we were all narrow minded idiots who thought that the antics of the Westboro baptist church applied to the wider culture of the US, then you went on to say that all our documentaries ram some kind of twisted vision of the US down our throats and we lap it up. Of course you hit a nerve.

I'd agree in part with the second half of the sentence. I wouldn't say all, but many. And I do believe that you lap it up.

Look at the first few pages of this thread.

 

[Guineveretoo]

Ask yourself this: when was the last time you saw a british made documentary about the US that involved a positive topic, as opposed to a negative or just plain weird one?

Seriously, Theroux's programmes are not the run of the mill documentary types

 

[Guineveretoo]

My dig really isn't at Theroux. I can't do that, because I don't know his work. I only know that in this instance, he's chosen the god hates fags people as his subject.

My dig was at the endless appetite in britain for documentaries that show the americans to be deranged bible thumping hilbillies.

And, he has previously chosen other strange groups and individuals, not all of whom have been American.

Seriously, people who watch his programmes would certainly not think that he was suggesting that all Americans are like this. In fact, quite the opposite. He goes looking for people who are out of the ordinary. I have read his books, which are intriguing. Don't do what you believe he does, and generalise!

 

[Cid]

I'd agree in part with the second half of the sentence. I wouldn't say all, but many. And I do believe that you lap it up.

Look at the first few pages of this thread.

Nope, still don't agree with you... Sure there're a couple of posts from the usual 'oh my god I can't believe there are people like this, the whole world is ending... The humanity... THE HUMANITY' types, but they'll do that with anything here. I think if you took the first few pages in the context of having watched the documentary you'd realise that most people are just echoing the sentiment that there are some very weird people out there, the fact they're American doesn't have nearly as much bearing on it as you seem to think it does.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Nope, still don't agree with you... Sure there're a couple of posts from the usual 'oh my god I can't believe there are people like this, the whole world is ending... The humanity... THE HUMANITY' types, but they'll do that with anything here. I think if you took the first few pages in the context of having watched the documentary you'd realise that most people are just echoing the sentiment that there are some very weird people out there, the fact they're American doesn't have nearly as much bearing on it as you seem to think it does.

The first three or four pages are like a crowd gathered in dread fascination at the scene of a car wreck, and the crowd ain't budging.

 

[Guineveretoo]

I'm talking about documentaries. This one documentary generated pages of excited babble about those weird americans.

How many docus that show positive aspects of the US have aired recently on BBC?

Indeed. About THOSE weird Americans. No-one thought they were in a majority, ffs! In fact, it seems that it is all one family, and that they are despised by most of the population of the States, judging from the documentary.

I just find it weird that you are getting so exercised, and so argumentative, about a programme by a film maker whose work you have never seen!

 

[Guineveretoo]

very well. he was keen to explain that as a family - views aside - they were warm, friendly, close, loving..

Indeed he did. He showed himself playing with the younger members of the family, and laughing with them, and them playing with each other. That was part of what made the programme so powerful - that we saw them as calm, intelligent people, but were unable to understand why they were so very obsessed with one small aspect of the bible and how they think this means that they are "saved" and that the rest of the Western world is not.

It was bewildering, it was sad, and it was gripping.

 

[Guineveretoo]

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.

Oh, what rot!

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Indeed. About THOSE weird Americans. No-one thought they were in a majority, ffs! In fact, it seems that it is all one family, and that they are despised by most of the population of the States, judging from the documentary.

I just find it weird that you are getting so exercised, and so argumentative, about a programme by a film maker whose work you have never seen!

I'm not exercised at all, and as for argumentative, I'm responding to the dozen or so posters who have vociferously told me how wrong I am.

 

[Cid]

The first three or four pages are like a crowd gathered in dread fascination at the scene of a car wreck, and the crowd ain't budging.

That's because that's what you get from a Theroux documentary. It's like watching the Office. You expect some frankly bizarre people and you expect Theroux to mix with them in his slightly bumbling middle-class way. It's that dynamic that makes them great... However if you came away from watching one of his pieces with the idea that it applied to anything wider than a tiny niche (particularly tiny in this case) then you would have missed the point completely.

 

[Guineveretoo]

I'm sure Britain has a nice balanced view of the US, via its documentaries.




But you know...........when this many people jump down my throat with this much vigour, I'm pretty sure that I've hit a nerve.

Speaking for myself, I am jumping down your throat because you are constantly demonstrating your ignorance about Louis Theroux, his television programmes and his books!

 

[Cid]

For my part it seems bizzarre that you are making such a scathing criticism of something that you have never watched or know anything about. Equally you seem to think you know everything about which documentaries are broadcast in the UK and what they're about, which is presumably bollocks unless you avidly follow our TV programming.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Speaking for myself, I am jumping down your throat because you are constantly demonstrating your ignorance about Louis Theroux, his television programmes and his books!

I'm not constantly anything about Louis Theroux. I don't know his work. My comment was about the penchant for british documentarians to make documentaries about US crazies, and the apparent appetite of the british public for such documentaries.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

For my part it seems bizzarre that you are making such a scathing criticism of something that you have never watched or know anything about..

I have watched british documentaries about US crazies.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Equally you seem to think you know everything about which documentaries are broadcast in the UK and what they're about, which is presumably bollocks unless you avidly follow our TV programming.

I don't know everything about anything; I made a comment, my opinion, based upon my observations of british documentaries.

I admit that I haven't seen all british documentaries.

 

[Balbi]

I don't know everything about anything; I made a comment, my opinion, based upon my observations of british documentaries.

I admit that I haven't seen all british documentaries.

And you've been repeatedly told that this is not your average documentary

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

And you've been repeatedly told that this is not your average documentary

Shit: I better start listening more closely.

 

[Balbi]

Shit: I better start listening more closely.

Or possibly watching the documentaries on which threads are based perhaps.

I recommend the Jimmy Savile one highly, truly wierd televison