Lauren's Documentary Project: Louis Theroux

Louis Theroux is a British - American journalist who creates in depth and engaging documentaries. Some of his most famous and successful documentary series are 'Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends' and 'When Louis Met...', where Theroux travels around the world to experience and report unusual and often very disturbing ways of life. For example, having travelled to South Africa, Theroux interviews a Boer separatist leader; the leader of white South African inhabitants from a Dutch background, who still believes in the South African apartheid and have arguably racist views.

Louis Theroux uses reflexive and expository forms in the majority of his documentaries, as he is always in front of the camera, discussing his topic of choice, and exposing situations as they develop around him. He is well known for his use of 'Gonzo Journalism'; where the reporter has the ability to be so involved in the report that they are almost part of the story through using a first person narrative.This technique is so engaging for the audience, as there is direct communication between the reporter and the audience.Theroux uses this technique as it presents his documentaries to be 'gritty' and hard-hitting. Some features that commonly feature in Gonzo journalistic documentaries are themes such as use of profanity, sarcasm and dry humour.

The Louis Theroux documentaries usually revolve predominantly around human interest with an expository format, aimed at a more educated audience. His documentaries are very controversial, as he reports on mostly 'taboo' subjects; those that aren't commonly discussed. Theroux has developed an almost 'cult' following, where his audience admire him for exposing the truth about multiple cultural aspects of the world. In the past, he has looked at religion, the porn industry, body building and muscle worship, Black nationalists, White supremacists, plastic surgery and many more aspects of culture that is considered to be abnormal and undiscussed.

Some of Theroux's documentaries have experienced a disapproving reception due to their controversial nature. His documentary on paedophiles in a Californian mental hospital called Coalinga State Hospital showed the patients to be having a much too positive a lifestyle considering they had such serious convictions and mental conditions. The patients were allowed soft porn of young adults in the rooms of child molesters, a gymnasium to keep fit and a shopping mall and DVD library for recreational purposes. The exposition of such a sensitive issue was both commended and reprimanded, as for some people they felt that seeing the life of such mentally ill people was disturbing, despite being warned of the content at the beginning of the documentary.