1999 Baltimore City Paper
By Adele Marley
Louis Theroux Rediscovers America
Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends
Bravo, Fridays, 8 P.M.
Louis Theroux is discussing episodes planned for the upcoming BBC season of the documentary series he hosts, Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends. The 29-year-old, Oxford-educated Brit's show, which began production at the end of 1996, recently debuted on U.S. television, on the cable channel Bravo. Up until now, Weekends has primarily examined subcultural America-pro wrestling, porno, infomercials (all industries Theroux suggests are the result of a whacked-out, overstimulated capitalist economy). But Theroux (son of author Paul Theroux) wants the series to expand into international topics; currently his director is in South Africa researching the feasibility of shooting an episode about white secessionists and Afrikaner patriots.
But Theroux can't completely resist the cheap, cracklike allure of the American fringe. He starts throwing around other ideas-a show on cheerleaders, perhaps? Or maybe one on spring-break debauchery as a rite of passage? Usually the epitome of succinct tactfulness (a characteristic Theroux chalks up to his tendency to be "naturally quite cowardly" and his feeling "keen that people should like me"), he lets a flash of brazenness slip while trying to scope out possible leads for his story:
"We're researching the world of pimps-do you know anything about that?-because I'm trying to locate one at the moment. Do you know any?"
You'd think it'd be annoying to be mistaken for dial-a-mack, but it's hard to not to feel regret at being unable to help Theroux out. That's his on-air MO as well-he charms his subjects with congeniality and wit, then unveils startling candor.
Theroux says that what he learned as a journalist-working on polemicist Michael Moore's short-lived NBC and Fox show TV Nation and spinning satire for now-defunct Spy magazine in the early to mid-90s-was that the United States is teeming with screwballs. Weird Weekends caters to this idea, a perception of Yanks he says has been widely held among the British since Revolutionary times:
"The founding idea of America was these white European guys coming over from Western Europe trying to forge these new communities," he says, "I mean, the pilgrims were weirdos, even in their own times. They were religious nutters, religious freaks!"
Part of Weird Weekends' appeal is that the viewer is encouraged to rediscover Britain's now-expansive former colony through Theroux's agenda-free, inquisitive narrative presence. Take an episode in which the intrepid host rooms with an armed, tax-evading survivalist ("Taxes are a new-world-order thing," the separatist maintains) in a cabin in Montana's snow-covered landscape:
Theroux: I can't believe there's a gun rack over there! That's not very typical.
Separatist: No, maybe not where you're from. They don't use gun racks over there, do they?
Theroux: No, they don't.
Separatist: How can you live like that? For an American, living without a gun is like you guys trying to live without tea!
Sure, you cringe a little when isolated radicals are foisted off as emblems of a population-particularly when a roller-skating Holocaust skeptic notifies a nonplussed Theroux that he's from "Limeyville," or when a born-again hippie (whose house is constructed from tarp-covered hay bales) tells the host he quit working for Greenpeace because "some of those environmentalists worship the earth." ("Oh, they do not worship the earth!" counters Theroux, at once incredulous and amused.) Overall, though, it's good fun-and, to some degree, it is taken quite seriously by the host. Theroux suggests that the iconoclastic fervor that's apparently so endemic among some Americans is not without precedent. (His take on anti-government separatists is that "they see themselves as working within the American tradition.") The success of the show stems from his refreshing willingness to entertain any point of view, and his apparent empathy for individuals, be they black nationalists, drag racers, or UFO-conspiracy theorists.
"I'm someone who finds people on the fringe genuinely interesting," Theroux says. "I respect people who are willing to make a sacrifice for their commitment, whatever they believe. The more "out there' people are, the more poignantly you feel it if you make a connection with them. Suddenly, you realize what the stakes are when you make an extreme life choice."
Theroux is also a big fan of what he calls the "openness and candor" of Americans, and their willingness to share their lives with him, on camera and off.
"It's so nice when you meet people and they treat you like a long-lost relation just because you're from Britain!" he exclaims. "I was arrested once in Washington Square Park, and the police treated me like I was a visiting dignitary." When asked what charge landed him in jail, he answers-albeit off the record-without missing a beat. Watch out, Mr. Theroux. A little too much of that tell-all Yankee exhibitionism is rubbing off on you.
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