‘From the get go, T was incredibly transparent about the fact that he wants a completely subservient woman he can control. He didn’t even necessarily know that what he was saying was offensive.” Ben Zand is a 35-year-old documentary-maker, right in the eye of the millennial cohort that sees the contours of the manosphere, takes it seriously, but understands its logic for what it is: misogynistic neofascist swill. Through his independent production company, Zandland, he has made films about “incels”, QAnon and looksmaxxing – along with tangential matters, such as: what does a Mexican drug overlord have for breakfast (in the Bafta-nominated film he made for Channel 4, Kingpin Cribs).
Inside the Incels Who Rent Girlfriends is an intense one-to-one with T, a British 27-year-old with a good job, who over the past eight years has spent £50,000 renting girlfriends. In the film, his voice is disguised and he is wearing an Anonymous-style mask, which does nothing to offset the menace of the whole picture. He is, as Zand says, completely open about what he wants: a girlfriend who always says yes. I speak to him with his camera off but he’s using his regular voice, so he sounds – well, obviously – much more human and more vulnerable.
