Review of “Undercover in the Alt-Right: My Year in Kekistan” (2018)
Seen in 2018.
Seen in its Swedish version on Dokument utifrån.
Patrik Hermansson infiltrates British and American right-wing extremists for Hope Not Hate.
A K special documentary. Hermansson’s handler seems to argue that doxing is acceptable against fascists because the expansion of fascism is a result of the anonymity possible on the Internet, as well as Trump’s election. A few anonymous extremists, who would not want to be recognized, push the Overton window online whereas 50 years earlier they would have had to show their faces “handing out flyers”, risking their jobs and more. Compare Smålands mörker (2012), whose protagonist is just a little too old for this movement, but undeterred by exposure and criminal prosecution; his example shows very different driving forces.
So doxing is a major purpose of the project and of this film. This is distinct from Wallraff-style journalism and less sympathetic. Compare Merchants of Doubt (2014) which focuses on exposing a technique as such. Certainly, the right-wing ideologues shown here are horrible as people go, and recognition might deter some, but their methods are more interesting to me than their names and faces.