The Most Hated Family in America (Geoffrey O’Connor, 2007) is a performative documentary written and presented by Louis Theroux. During the film, Theroux visits the Westbrook Baptist Church in Kansas. Led by Fred Phelps, the church members vehemently believe that America is immoral due to the tolerance of homosexuality present throughout the country,
Throughout the film, Louis accompanies the church to a number of pickets at the funerals of military soldiers who were killed in action. Throughout the protest, each member of the church – including the radicalised young children proudly displays a multitude of extremely derogatory signs pictured below.
Alongside attending the pickets, Louis takes time to interview each member of the church in order to fully understand their extremely controversial way of life. He exerts an extremely polite and almost naive demeanour towards the church members, cleverly making them more eager and willing to converse with him. He strikes the perfect balance between getting up-close and personal with the interviewees and keeping enough distance between to remain impartial towards the situation.
This film could be categorised under the performative documentary mode, due to Louis Theroux’s heavy involvement upon the events depicted within the film. Revolving around Louis’ interactions with the church members, Theroux holds the film together and the viewer can easily place themselves in his shoes.
The film aired on 1 April 2007 on BBC Two and received 4.3 million viewers. Later the film was awarded overwhelmingly positive acclaim for exposing this controversial family to the public eye in an extremely professional manner.
Personally, I thoroughly enjoyed The Most Hated Family in America from start to finish. Being a fan of Theroux’s style of documentary, I was engaged within the interactions between Louis and the church members.
Overall, I would rate The Most Hated Family in America ★★★★.
Otis Morley’s A-Level Film Studies Blog 