The horror clown in his ring
Photo: sky
What a horror, you say that so quickly. Horror when the train is late again. Horror when summer rain seamlessly transitions into autumn storms. Horror when Thai food sizzles with spiciness. And horror, of course, where horror is written on it. Zombie series like “Walking Dead,” for example, torture porn like “Saw,” and shock fiction. In the end, even that isn’t half as scary as a man who actually needs a “FSK 18+” sticker: Alex Jones.
If you don’t know the right-wing extremist conspiracy theorist, you can spend all night googling real horror stories about him – or rather watch the two-hour HBO documentary “The Truth vs. Alex Jones” on Sky, which outlines the phenomenon in a more compact but no less frightening way. Director Dan Reed, who also examines the coup attempt on January 6, 2021 in “Four Hours at the Capitol,” portrays the moderator in his biggest horror show to date.
Shortly after Sandy Hook Elementary School experienced the most terrible school massacre in the USA, which is so rich in terrible school massacres, almost twelve years ago, Alex Jones almost incessantly claimed that the 27 deaths – including 20 small children – were an invention of liberal elites. This claim is still reservedly described as a “brazen lie”. However, it fits perfectly into the arsenal of the most successful opinion manipulator of our time.
Since his Internet portal “Info Wars” went online in 1999, he has adopted almost every conspiracy ideology. 9/11? An attack by your own government! The climate change? A fairy tale of anti-car hippies! Barack Obama? An African Muslim! Covid? A simple flu virus! The Sandy Hook carnage? An amateur play called a “hoax” to disarm conservative patriots by left-liberal elites!
Each claim is so absurdly unrealistic that one would actually have to ignore it – if Alex Jones weren’t so successful in giving them credibility and adding an innocent victim to the thousands of deaths in all the denied events: the truth. That’s why Dan Reed titled his film “The Truth vs. Alex Jones.” A kind of wrestling match between reality and illusion, facts and fake news, knowledge and opinion with an uncertain outcome.
A kind of wrestling match between reality and illusion, facts and fake news, knowledge and opinion with an uncertain outcome.
His alleged lies have made Jones a multimillionaire. This film biography of the Texas hate preacher, who in 1997 found himself on the right-wing fringes of reality-warping radio populists and gradually moved him towards the middle of society, primarily portrays the resourceful businessman.
In the context of his broadcasts, Alex Jones sells totally overpriced nutritional supplements. After the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, which for once he did not deny, he even had the measurement results of his own reporters falsified so that he could turn the fear of radioactive contamination into sales of useless preparations. A horror, as I said. But not half as horrible as what the parents of the Sandy Hook children suffered.
Their statements, reports, tears, but also strengths make the documentary the most impressive study of the biblical fight between good and evil. Both sides are represented in large numbers, both fight each other dedicatedly, but both remain at a distance. And the way he negates the deaths of children with fake videos and clumsy propaganda so that five out of six films on YouTube deny the shooting spree is one of the most perfidious things of our hateful times.
Fortunately, the profitable campaign against science and logic does not turn the survivors into objects of outside influence, but rather subjects of their own self-empowerment. Half of the broadcast time shows a trial with an unexpected outcome. For those who don’t know him yet, he won’t be revealed here. Because American tort procedures tolerate cameras, “The Truth vs. Alex Jones” becomes a captivating real-crime courtroom drama with frightening authenticity.
Alternating with the fascist agitation on digital platforms such as “InfoWars.com”, Dan Reed also tells a lot about the 28th fatality of the “Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting”, as it is called in the USA. Because the inviolability of the truth has been so permanently damaged by Alex Jones and his disciples that 1+1 can now also be 3 and Donald Trump can be a messenger from God, if the right-wing fringe wants it. What a horror.
Available on Sky
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