Review of Jihad Jane (2019)
Seen in 2020.
On the intersection of personal misfortune, Internet rabbit holes, extremism and, crucially, narcissism. Having gotten out of prison, Colleen LaRose explains that she would have voted for Trump, had she not been a disenfranchised felon for planning to murder artist Lars Vilks for a delusional Algerian-Irish ex-auctioneer. She says she prefers Trump because he doesn’t apologize, and neither does she.
It is a good observation, made by a lawyer in this film, that LaRose was briefly famous because of the alliteration in her nickname and for her appearance. It’s a classic case of an outlier boosted by sensational media reports as a significant new threat.