Louis Theroux Talks Risk-Taking at Edinburgh

Delivering this year’s MacTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh TV Festival, documentarian Louis Theroux weighed in on the importance of risk-taking and the “atmosphere of anxiety” in the media business.

“We need television that is confrontational, surprising and upsetting,” Theroux said in last night’s MacTaggart, titled The Risk of Not Taking Risks. “We serve social justice best when we aim to make television that reaches people and engages them. Take risks. Sail close to the wind. Do that thoughtfully, and you can do almost anything in television. Expect the highest values from TV as you would from any art form.”

Theroux continued: “More than radio, cinema, podcasts, theatre, more than books—though it pains me slightly to say it—TV powers our thoughts and imaginations, our politics and our culture.”

The emergence of new digital platforms, including Twitch and TikTok, “has enabled a new political and cultural reality,” Theroux said, highlighting in particular the gaming platform’s role in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. “In other words, the most flagrant attempt to overturn a Western democracy in our lifetimes was not just a TV event, but more accurately, at least in part, a made-for-TV event. Produced, directed and acted on television for a paying public of Twitch viewers.

The Capitol rioters, the rise of anti-vaxxers, deranged conspiracy theories about 5G masts—all of these have been fueled by, and would have been impossible without television, in its broadly defined form of video content. And, were all of that not enough, now, we find our beloved industry is on the verge of being besieged by robots in the form of deepfakes and AI. Hollywood writers are striking, among other reasons, because of valid concerns over Large Language Models cannibalizing and regurgitating their plots and their dialogue, which, let’s be honest, sounds a bit like what some in Hollywood have been doing for years. If I’m honest, I find the new world we are in troubling and exciting in roughly equal measure.”

Theroux noted that much of a new content landscape epitomized by the likes of Donald Trump and Andrew Tate “relies on pushing people’s buttons to get our attention. Spreading sexism, racism, homophobia, sometimes dressing it up as irony, or comedy, while promoting a bigoted agenda. They do this both for both fun and profit…. I share the urge to switch off all the negativity. To turn one’s attention elsewhere. To not feed the trolls. To never go anywhere near the trolls. I understand the need to consider people’s wellbeing. To think through all the possible prejudices that may be contained in programs. The impact of jokes and unconscious bias. All of the multiple ways in which a TV show can do harm. But it’s also true that there is a big difference between platforming and doing challenging journalism about controversial subjects. There is a strange new world out there that is growing stranger by the day. It’s our job to understand it, and for people like me, that means going out to make programs about it.”

Theroux referenced the “latitude” he’s been granted by the BBC over the course of his documentary filmmaking career: “Our commissioning process, so far as I could tell, was this: We’d tell the channel what we were doing and then we’d do it. It’s the nature of actuality-led documentaries that you don’t know exactly what you’re going to get. There’s a leap of faith involved. The BBC took that leap with me many times.”

As of late, Theroux noted, “there have been changes in the broader culture. We are, I’m happy to say, more thoughtful about representation, about who gets to tell what story, about power and privilege, about the need not to wantonly give offense. I am fully signed up to that agenda. But I wonder if there is something else going on as well. That the very laudable aims of not giving offense have created an atmosphere of anxiety that sometimes leads to less confident, less morally complex filmmaking. And that the precepts of sensitivity have come into conflict with the words inscribed into the walls of New Broadcasting House, attributed to George Orwell. ‘If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.’ And that as a result programs about extremists and sex workers and pedophiles might be harder to get commissioned.”

He continued, “Looking around at the landscape of TV, where we have legacy channels competing with massive SVODs, I see a hard road ahead. We’re in a time of two parallel realities. The old world with our cherished values of ‘editorial policy’ and balance. And a new digital frontier where anything goes. It’s a little like an Olympics event where half the athletes are allowed to dope. But I don’t despair. Because I believe in the long run, it’s the truthful, sensitive storytelling that will last. It is on us, as program makers, those of us who care about great television to be brave about telling stories that are compelling and that can fight for people’s attention.”

Theroux started his own production outfit, Mindhouse, three years ago with with his wife, Nancy Strang, and colleagues Arron Fellows and Sophie Ardern. “Working, for the first time, on shows which I don’t present has given me the insight that I’m better at television than I thought, and also worse. It’s been a relief realizing that I have something to contribute off-screen. I’d like to think I’ve had some good ideas and given helpful input on some of our shows. I’ve also had my share of misfires, pitching series no one is interested in…. There is risk in taking risks. For program makers. For channels. From working so many years at the BBC, and still making programs for the BBC, I see all-too-well the no-win situation it often finds itself in. Trying to anticipate the latest volleys of criticisms. Stampeded by this or that interest group. Avoiding offense. Often, the criticisms come from its own former employees, writing for privately owned newspapers whose proprietors would be all too happy to see their competition eliminated. And so there is a temptation to lay low, to play it safe, to avoid the difficult subjects. But in avoiding those pinch points, the unresolved areas of culture where our anxieties and our painful dilemmas lie, we aren’t just failing to do our jobs, we are missing our greatest opportunities. For feeling. For figuring things out in benign and thoughtful ways. For expanding our thinking. For creating a union of connected souls. And what after all is the alternative? Playing it safe. Following a formula. That may be a route to success for some. It never worked for me.”

Theroux addressed fears about AI, noting, “in my domain of documentaries at least, I don’t overly worry about a takeover by AI. I say this not as an expert on AI. But as an expert on humans. We’ve all seen the amazing results AI can produce. In a few years it may be able to write a passable sitcom or action movie. Or a MacTaggart. Maybe an excellent one. Maybe one better than this. But what it won’t be able to do is take risks. Because risk involves danger. And there’s no danger for machines. Risk involves real feeling. The possibility of humiliation, embarrassment, failure.”

“The power of TV is godlike. To connect us with each other through daring and unflinching depictions of heroism, kindness, fear, cowardice—the complete gamut of the human experience, most powerfully when it is most true, most beautifully when done with sensitivity and intelligence, aspiring to the quality of art. What an opportunity, if we have the courage to take it.”