Louis Theroux...sad specimen...

15 February 2010, 08:40

So here I sit, uncharacteristically watching TV. After a bit of channel surfing, I have come upon the Documentary Channel, which is airing something called "Louis Theroux's African Hunting Holiday". I first thought, as it turns out quite foolishly, that it would be something I might enjoy.

Bearing in mind that I work in downtown Toronto, an absolute hotbed of new-age, touchy-feely, ultra-liberal lunacy. I have discussions/debates with rabid anti-hunters on an almost daily basis. My friends at work delight in setting me up against the newest bunny-hugger that we meet when starting a new job-site...and yet I am now almost speechless.

Who is Louis Theroux? I have no idea. I missed the first ten or so minutes of the show, which may have explained a bit about him, but he is one pathetic sorry specimen of humanity, based upon what I see here. He is for some reason visiting a hunting lodge in South Africa, where he and his wife/girlfriend are hanging around and generally draqging the overall mood of the place as far down as possible. She is actually quite open-minded about the entire hunting idea, but he is so sensitive, so thoughtful, so caring, so pensive, so evolved, so deep-thinking, so obviously superior to those brutish hunters that I feel sorry for the pressure and pain that he must be feeling.

As he interviews various and sundry hunters, game ranchers, PH's and others, I find myself hoping that one of them will stop biting back what they are obviously thinking and paste him right in the chops.

I must go now. His wife has decided to try hunting, going after an impala with a crossbow. He seems...thoughtfully concerned. This should be good.

Check out this show if you get a chance.

15 February 2010, 14:35

Neil-PH

Seen the show. Pathetic, isn't it. I don't believe he actually has the liberal anti-hunter's behind him on this one. As much as I detest these kind of folks, not even they can fall for this - surely !!

15 February 2010, 15:25

shakari

If you watch the series you'll see he visits all kinds of weirdos and then asks a few gently provocative questions and then sits back and waits for the people to hang thrmselves by their own petard.

Let's face it, the hunters, PHs and outfitter on that particular show were not the sharpest tools in the box.

...... but neither are most of his other victims. He's also done the KKK, some oddball God squad set up, prisons and and what he called the most unpopular family in the USA.

Admittedly the hunting one painted hunters badly but that really was their own fault to a large extent.

I've gotta say, I quite enjoy the subtlety of his wit.

FWIW, his father is a well known author.

15 February 2010, 15:28

Goldeneye

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...qkSA&feature=related

15 February 2010, 17:37

R.Jolly

I dont think that he has any particular agenda other than to take the piss out of odd balls who allow him to. Like Steve I quite like his humour. It could be a Brit thing ?

15 February 2010, 19:08

ledvm

quote:
He's also done the KKK,

Did the girlfriend try a lynching or a cross-burning to see if she liked it while doing the KKK?

15 February 2010, 19:14

shakari

quote:
Originally posted by ledvm:
quote:
He's also done the KKK,

Did the girlfriend try a lynching or a cross-burning to see if she liked it while doing the KKK?

It was incredible how he got all the way through the show without having someone deck him, but they had no idea he was taking the piss out of them all the way through.

I get an idea the next one is about people who think they can communicate with extra terrestials.... so that should be good!

15 February 2010, 20:40

kayaker

He is Paul Theroux's son.

Actually some of his documentarys have a glimmer of quality. However I do tire of them.

As you can see from the hunting one he his SOP is to focus on one simple, obtuse and superficial issue that is popular ('is hunting right', 'do bodybuilders all use steroids', 'do you really enjoy doing porn').

...He then hammers away with this one lame question until it becomes infuriating, and it is for this reason that I lost interest in his show and him, which is a shame, as he could be much better.

The hunting one was totally useless and pathetic.

15 February 2010, 22:54

L. David Keith

Now we know what happened to the 4th Stooge

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"Peace is that brief glorious moment in history when everybody stands around reloading" - Thomas Jefferson

Every morning the Zebra wakes up knowing it must outrun the fastest Lion if it wants to stay alive. Every morning the Lion wakes up knowing it must outrun the slowest Zebra or it will starve. It makes no difference if you are a Zebra or a Lion; when the Sun comes up in Africa, you must wake up running......

"If you're being chased by a Lion, you don't have to be faster than the Lion, you just have to be faster than the person next to you."

15 February 2010, 23:11

Wooly ESS

I haven't watched an entire program on TV, but I did watch the YouTube clip. I can't say that I particularily liked it, but I can't say that he was dishonest in his presentation either. But then, I don't particularily enjoy most hunting films. Very few manage to capture what hunting is for me.

I don't see the piecs as being anti-hunting propaganda. Far more effective anti-hunting propaganda is the yahoo, slap em on the back, play the kill shot over and over in slo-mo, type of hunting film.

I didn't like to hear the reference to the hunt area being a fenced game farm, and to watch the hunter take the shot from the truck. But as we all know, that is a big part of hunting Africa today. That's not a value judgement, its just not what I look for in a hunting experience.

This is just my opinion, nothing more.

15 February 2010, 23:30

ledvm

quote:
He's also done the KKK,

Really and truly...I have family in Mississippi that are card carrying members of the KKK.

16 February 2010, 03:34

surestrike

The sensitive, painful, grimace when he is watching the client shoot. the look of utter horror in the blind as the girl is lining up on the hog. The utter lack of testosterone or backbone of any kind.

He needs to get in touch with his masculine side. People like him make me want to puke.

16 February 2010, 04:13

crane

If that was his father, Paul ,who authored "Dark Star Safari", he is an apple who fell really far from the tree. Paul has remarkable insight into the complexities of Africa on both sides of the Sahara, especially in regard to what "aid" has done to the continent. I hate to suggest reading to perhaps the most well read gang around, but "Dark Star Safari" is a good one.

16 February 2010, 04:47

kayaker

quote:
If that was his father, Paul ,who authored "Dark Star Safari", he is an apple who fell really far from the tree. Paul has remarkable insight into the complexities of Africa on both sides of the Sahara, especially in regard to what "aid" has done to the continent. I hate to suggest reading to perhaps the most well read gang around, but "Dark Star Safari" is a good one.

That is an excellent book.
However - Paul at times makes grand proclaimations and absolute statements that I feel he was ill-informed to make. Some are true indeed but some are also his embittered opinion, based on cursory observations at best.
I did note that he was impressed by 'average' Zimbabweans of all races.

I do like his opinion of what he calls 'evasive, conceited and unforthcoming aid workers'.

He writes extremely well!

Louis is nothing like his father ITO quality!

I have recently began reading 'Africa. Altered atates, ordinary miracles' by Richard Dowden (2009) and after only 70 pages, can highly recommend it.

16 February 2010, 10:27

jetdrvr

quote:
I do like his opinion of what he calls 'evasive, conceited and unforthcoming aid workers'.

I'd wager he didn't include ICRC volunteers or Doctors Without Borders folks. They're first rate.

16 February 2010, 10:37

shakari

The Shackled Continent by Robert Guest is also worth a read.

The vast majority of aid and aid agencies in Africa are a complete waste of time money and space.

Still I guess it must be nice to get a job as advisor to one of them... talk about money for old rope!

16 February 2010, 17:26

375 fanatic

the guys that did the hunt at the blind was idiots because they damage a good sport with shooting the animals on tv where they are feeding.

its like giving the teacher a bigger cane when you are inline for a hiding

16 February 2010, 17:38

Acer

Dark Star Safari was such a bunch of self indulgent drivel. There were a few glimmers of value in discussions on foreign aid and its impacts to the culture and infrastructure of the continent, but it would have been a much more interesting book had the main focus been the continent instead of the author.

16 February 2010, 18:47

ledvm

quote:
I did note that he was impressed by 'average' Zimbabweans of all races.

I hunted Chewore South in 2006. We had a very nice, good natured, and hard working Game Scout named Kalimanjeta (He was Shona and I have no idea if the spelling I used is even close to right).

He could read English well, speak English fairly well, had beautiful hand-writing, and could do math competently.

I asked him about his education after we got to be friends and this is what he had to say: "When I was a child (he was 42 then) Smith's government educated everybody. There were good schools for all Blacks as well as good hospitals in the bush. Now my kids are illiterate. Some of them have died of disease because we have no medicine. I cannot teach my kids myself because I have to be gone to the bush most of the time to make enough money to buy even buy minimum amounts of food. Life in Zimbabwe is no good now. It was much better before."

Sorry for the "Jack"!

16 February 2010, 20:16

kayaker

quote:
'd wager he didn't include ICRC volunteers or Doctors Without Borders folks. They're first rate.

I aggree, I just have issue with many of dirty footed, braided hair uber-PC 'volunteers' who swan around the continent being great altruists for their 6 week volunteer resume-padding holidays.
There are many that 'get it' and do great work but there are many many more who dont....

Acer, I think you a right - self indulgent is accurate!

16 February 2010, 23:13

Stephen Palos

Probably the "kindest" bit of journalism from an "anti" in a while.

I'd really like to see what happens if this guy ever goes hunting with a truly polished outfit. I always believe someone is redeemable if they have an enquiring mind.....

I think Shakari has summed up things very well here

17 February 2010, 00:26

Schauckis

I saw this particular show not long ago.

Indeed, he pushes the same question ad nauseam, but then he sets out to get an answer from the beginning.

Frankly, the best part was where he was unable to shoot the boar. I cannot understand why; but you could see his pulse going up as tried to push it through, not succeeding. He simply was unable to kill something. (The expression on the PH's face was pretty priceless, too!)
This illustrated to me the difference of people. When I shoot an animal, I do not think of killing it (apart from thinking that I need to get a good shot to kill the animal swiftly so as not to make it suffer), and I feel no pity. The things going through my mind are quite different. After killing, I feel some remorse (pity?) for the animal, that it had to die; but such is life.

Another good one was where the game rancher lost his temper w/ Tibideaux (or whatever).
He then made very clear his points about game ranching, and his despise of the Western armchair theorists and conservationists: how he hates the bloody elephant who eat his bushes; not the shitty bushes, but the good ones; but he cannot shoot them for the people who see that those poor endangered animals should not be killed. His point about the people in Africa being close to the animals was very valuable.
Also, he made the point about the hunting business, emphasizing that if it wasn't for commercial sport hunting, the animals would all be extinct as they'd only be shot for food w/o any regard to the survival of any species at all. I'm not entirely sure if Thibodeaux got the points the rancher was making.

As a side note - he had also been able to find the worst buch of idiot rednecks I've ever seen.
He should have made his way to some country where there is real safari hunting, not ranch hunting, and get an idea about other type of hunting than just shooting the animals in broad daylight from a blind where they come to feed. To my mind, the real hunting is on foot where you actually may spend days w/o success, as you hunt the animals on their turf and their terms.

- Lars/Finland

17 February 2010, 21:19

umshiniwam

"The hunter's horn sounds early for some, later for others. For some unfortunates, poisoned by city sidewalks and sentenced to a cement jungle more horrifying than anything to be found in Tanganyika, the horn of the hunter never winds at all. But deep in the guts of most men is buried the involuntary response to the hunter's horn, a prickle of the nape hairs, an acceleration of the pulse, an atavistic memory of his fathers, who killed first with stone, and then with club, and then with spear, and then with bow, and then with gun, and finally with formulae." Robert Ruark, The Horn of The Hunter

I have yet to find a better interpretation of man's instinct to hunt than this one offered by Ruark.

17 February 2010, 21:50

RobinOLocksley

quote:
Originally posted by Schauckis:
I saw this particular show not long ago.

Indeed, he pushes the same question ad nauseam, but then he sets out to get an answer from the beginning.

Frankly, the best part was where he was unable to shoot the boar. I cannot understand why; but you could see his pulse going up as tried to push it through, not succeeding. He simply was unable to kill something. (The expression on the PH's face was pretty priceless, too!)
This illustrated to me the difference of people. When I shoot an animal, I do not think of killing it (apart from thinking that I need to get a good shot to kill the animal swiftly so as not to make it suffer), and I feel no pity. The things going through my mind are quite different. After killing, I feel some remorse (pity?) for the animal, that it had to die; but such is life.

Another good one was where the game rancher lost his temper w/ Tibideaux (or whatever).
He then made very clear his points about game ranching, and his despise of the Western armchair theorists and conservationists: how he hates the bloody elephant who eat his bushes; not the shitty bushes, but the good ones; but he cannot shoot them for the people who see that those poor endangered animals should not be killed. His point about the people in Africa being close to the animals was very valuable.
Also, he made the point about the hunting business, emphasizing that if it wasn't for commercial sport hunting, the animals would all be extinct as they'd only be shot for food w/o any regard to the survival of any species at all. I'm not entirely sure if Thibodeaux got the points the rancher was making.

As a side note - he had also been able to find the worst buch of idiot rednecks I've ever seen.
He should have made his way to some country where there is real safari hunting, not ranch hunting, and get an idea about other type of hunting than just shooting the animals in broad daylight from a blind where they come to feed. To my mind, the real hunting is on foot where you actually may spend days w/o success, as you hunt the animals on their turf and their terms.

- Lars/Finland

I watched this show a few times.While Theroux is not a hunter, I think he did make an honest effort to understand what this type of hunting means to people.I really liked Piete,the game rancher.A crusty geezer. I do not think that he was being deliberately anti-hunting.

Best-
Locksley,R

18 February 2010, 00:59

kayaker

quote:
I do not think that he was being deliberately anti-hunting

I aggree, but in most of his shows he tries to be deliberatly annoying, I assume so that folks will give him the answer he seeks so they can have peace of mind.

His docs are interesting but get tiresome

18 February 2010, 11:33

375 fanatic

quote:
Originally posted by RobinOLocksley:

.I really liked Piete,the game rancher.A crusty geezer. I do not think that he was being deliberately anti-hunting.

Best-
Locksley,R

the best was when Piet said to him how many f$%^&ng times are you gonna ask me that question

18 February 2010, 20:05

RobinOLocksley

quote:
Originally posted by 375 fanatic:
quote:
Originally posted by RobinOLocksley:

.I really liked Piete,the game rancher.A crusty geezer. I do not think that he was being deliberately anti-hunting.

Best-
Locksley,R

the best was when Piet said to him how many f$%^&ng times are you gonna ask me that question

I also liked when Pite asks Theroux if he wants to pet the Sables.When Theorux nods in affirmation,Piete says, "They will kill you.You see those horns.They will drive them through you.They kill each other".Priceless.

Best-
Locksley,R