Disappointing for Louis


I found this documentary quite disappointing and surprisingly on the fence for Louis Theroux. He was indeed faced with the insurmountable task of having to deal in a civil manner with humans who have committed unspeakably damaging crimes. Unfortunately I feel his concern in this respect prevented him from asking some interesting questions. Paedophiles are abominable, they ruin lives, and Louis indeed has a responsibility to be his audience's moral representative in this regard, but I do feel this prevented him from saying anything challenging about the institution. For example, consider the fact that the institution has embraced the Orwellian idea of "thought crimes". With any crime other than paedophilia, a prison sentence is administered in order to morally reform the individual, but once the punishment has been served, the state does not have rights to limit the felon's liberty on the basis of what goes on in their head. This is however not the case in the institution for paedophiles... erotic images are shown and the inmates' penises are measured. This is such an interesting and complex moral issue, and Theroux goes nowhere near it. Neither does he tackle the emotional bullying displayed by the doctor who escorts him around the facility... an insufferable woman who takes any sign of emotional expression among the inmates as a sign of rampant mental disorder and intent to re-offend. Perhaps the paedophiles do not indeed deserve to be treated like humans, or perhaps they are afflicted with an illness beyond their control, have shown penance and retain rights for authentic expression... I really don't know... but again Theroux goes nowhere near these issues. Theroux really had his work cut out with this documentary... how to communicate with men who have committed unspeakable crimes whilst being his audience's moral representative... I do not envy him. Ultimately though, i think the documentary was a failure, focussing more on the disgusting details of the inmates' offences and neglecting an opportunity to ask any broader questions.

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[deleted]

[deleted]

Forgive me for showing an interest. Cretin

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You raise a good point.

Personally I was kind of annoyed with Theroux' apparent incapacity to downplay his personal feelings. I disagree with you that his job is to be the audience's "moral representative". I think the audience can think for themselves, and I think anyone that doesn't have similar inclinations as the pedophiles in the film agrees that what they have done is heinous. We don't need Theroux to assure us these men are/were scum.

I feel he could have gotten them to open up more and tell us more about their past, and how they grew to become the men they are today if only he hadn't been so absorbed with reminding each and everyone of them of what horrible acts they had commited. It seemed pointless to me. I doubt the intention of the documentary was to go there to tell pedophiles off, but it still came out a bit that way. I am fairly sure he didn't tell them anything they haven't heard a thousand times in the years they've been incarcerated. I think the reason why he failed to go into depth with a lot of interesting things, such as the penile test that you mention was because he ended up focusing too much on condemning them for their acts. If he did this because he was simply so disgusted by them, or if he felt he needed to do it to satisfy his outraged audience, I don't know. But the documentary suffered for it.

What was the point in delving into the details of Lamb's molestations? Why do we as an audience need to know exactly what he did to his victims? We know he molested them and we know they were 40-50 of them. Shouldn't that be enough to make us loathe what he did? Or did he feel he needed us to have some more 'juicy' details about these atrocities?
And at the slightest sign of annoyance Theroux tried to point that out as some kind of sign that Lamb might not be fully rehabilitated. I found that to be very unfair.

The doctor too made me feel very uncomfortable and she used pretty much the same tactics as Theroux.

All in all this documentary gave me nothing.

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Glad to see I wasn't alone in finding Louis annoying in this episode. I couldn't stand the way he interviewed the 'individuals' - as one of them finally reminded him, they were all in there for the same crimes (yet Louis had to ask each man why he was there). Got the sense that the show was overtly concerned with how its audience might receive it.

Similarly, I would say the producers couldn't decide on a tone; obviously, the nature of these crimes dictate a serious approach, and that was largely the case, but every once in awhile - as when we see a group of men singing the theme from The Addams Family - the inmates' 'oddity' is played for cheap laughs.

I suspect in years to come, the strange behavior and assumptions of both Louis and the female doctor will seem all the more obvious and painful to witness.

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I think you stated very well why and how this documentary failed to present a valuable point to the topic. I felt really unease by the way the interviews were ran. What am I suppose to be getting from it? What is the value of learning the details of the crimes with with no emphasis whatsoever on what lead up to this behavior? It just felt dishonest and cowardly... Like, why are you showing us how horrible those guys are?.. Don't we already know that by association? I felt like there wasn't any vital documentation or critical research done in attempt to challenge or add to the way we understand and treat people of such mental issues. It made me feel really horrible and left me with a sense of unfairness. It doesn't take a lot to see that why that is, so I guess the main thing that the documentary does is work against itself...

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This episode was on in Australia a week or so ago, and I saw it for the first time pretty much agree. Louis Theroux is widely respected so I feel a little weird saying this, particularly regarding this episode, but I basically find his shows and manner exploitative.

LT does the hard work to get a lot of fringe groups and social outliers, be they gamblers or junkies or klansmen or criminals. He relies on a mixture of using the persona of a buffoonish Englishman abroad and current affairs "hard talk" style of questioning get people to open up to him. Quite often it seems that he aims have his subjects reveal themselves as hypocrites by admitting logical fallacies. When this doesn't work, he ends up with a documentary like "A Place for Paedophiles".

The key parts regarded Mr Price (the guy who quit his polygraph and was waylaid by Louis and a female clinician, who starting analysing him in the corridor) and Mr Lamb (the man who was castrated and whom at the end Louis wanted intimate details about his rap sheet), because neither of them cared to present themselves to him in an ingratiating way yet neither of them were overtly hostile in response to him. After Mr Price was basically forced to apologise on camera for asking the female clinician (not his own) "Why are you here?" and her recommendation was that this indicated a setback in his treatment. It is interesting that when Mr Lamb said he was tired of reciting his crimes over and over again, Louis' reaction was that his unwillingness to respond also indicated something clinical.

Viewers have a natural curiosity about his subjects and their lifestyles, but he failed to do anything with this show other than seem like a voyeur. It doesn't matter if "everyone agreed to appear and their words aren't twisted" when ultimately, his shows present people from the very edges of society as horrible freaks. And frankly, everyone knows that already. There was nothing critical beyond, "Gosh, these men are paedophiles! And this warehouse they're in is an expensive waste of time". It's Barnum and Bailey dressed up as documentaries.

I found LT's manner like a tabloid journalist. It was like he was indulging his own interest in the horrible and macabre inmates and dressing it up as serious investigation of whether the rehabilitation worked, but he couldn't get beyond his need to get them to rehash their crimes and their sexual pathology for him in detail.




Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents and everyone is writing a book - Cicero

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I agree with you but I can also understand their choices for this documentary. It was the first time the center had actually allowed anyone to go inside, for starters, so I can imagine there were some legal issues and contracts were signed that restricted this documentary. Lets not forget this is in the US, and I can imagine looking like a pedo-sympathizer would NOT do you any favors with the police/government/whoever else. I thought the documentary was neutral enough, and it made me think a lot about this choice of a solution, and what - if any - changes could and should be made to help them.

But that's just my opinion though, there's really no need to go spreading it around

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I have to disagree.

Paedophiles are abominable, they ruin lives


This is certainly true.

and Louis indeed has a responsibility to be his audience's moral representative in this regard


This however I disagree with. It's not LT's responsibility to tell the audience what to think or to entice it into hatred. He is merely presenting a view of reality and is trying to explain what this institution does and what the results of its efforts are. At least that's the way I'm interpreting it.

consider the fact that the institution has embraced the Orwellian idea of "thought crimes". With any crime other than paedophilia, a prison sentence is administered in order to morally reform the individual, but once the punishment has been served, the state does not have rights to limit the felon's liberty on the basis of what goes on in their head


It is my impression that this facility is an alternative to prison, that the inmates get to trade a part of their prison sentence to instead try to get help to get rid of this unwanted behaviour. Granted, it's probably very difficult to do that and that may explain why so few gets to leave the facility.

Like one of the social workers said, "no one woke up and said 'I'm going to be a paedophile'. [...] No one chooses it.". This is (or might be, I don't know for sure) a mental disease that requires treatment, not just prison. If this is a disease no prison in the world will stop these people to commit these crimes again as soon as they get out. Maybe treatment can make a better job, then society would be better off.

I think Louis Theroux treated the subject with more care, sensitivity and objectivity than many others would have.

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