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Call Her Alex follows Call Her Daddy creator Alex Cooper as she puts together her first live tour. This two-part documentary is half a behind-the-scenes look at where she currently is and part of an exploration into how she became the most successful woman in the history of podcasting.
Call Her Alex presumes you already know the basics of Alex Cooper and her Daddy Gang. It dives straight into Cooper putting together her first live tour, bringing her hugely successful podcast to the masses.
Started in 2018 by Alex and her friend Sofia Franklyn, Call Her Daddy soon became the most popular podcast for women under 30. It was celebrated for being a frank conversation between women, addressing sex, dating, and women’s mental health. The documentary is less refreshing in its frankness, very much playing into Cooper’s well-curated brand.
Fans of Cooper will enjoy watching the mechanics of her decision-making process. A chunk of the first part of the documentary follows how she chooses the topics, why she decided to take the podcast out of the studio, and what keeps her motivated all these years later. It’s a pretty standard affair and may only be interesting if you attended this live show. But it’s a good starting point to meet Cooper where she is now: at the top of her game.
The first part of the documentary also explores Cooper’s childhood in Pennsylvania and how her father’s job as a sports TV producer influenced her career. Cooper’s past is always kept an arm’s width away from the audience, too scared to really go deeper than necessary.
It’s only towards the end of the first episode that Call Her Alex starts to scratch under the surface. The documentary explores Alex’s youth as a talented soccer player and the scandal that forced her to turn her back on the game. Stories like this show Cooper’s determination and strength, far more so than the scenes of her girl bossing around an empty theatre.
While the first episode is a shallow look at who Cooper is now, the second part is a much more engaging look at the woman behind the microphone. It runs through the early episodes of Call Her Daddy, how it was inspired, and how it became the phenomenon it is now. It’s impossible not to have immense respect for the presenter, who truly made it on her own terms.
To an outsider unaware of her lore, the documentary skirts over many of the big questions. For example, the jump from making podcasts in their New York flat to landing a huge deal with Barstool Sports is only briefly discussed. It also really fails to explain precisely what Alex did to catch the zeitgeist of American women. If you’re not part of her Daddy Gang and have only heard the hype, this doc won’t enlighten you further.
Another hugely ignored part of the story is how Sofia Franklyn and Cooper parted ways. The two built their empire together until she disagreed with the direction and left the Call Her Daddy family. The whole thing is glossed over, and the audience will be picking up their phones to Google exactly what went down.
Call Her Alex is afraid to show Cooper in any negative light. Any criticism she has faced over the years, whether it’s her relationship with Barstool Media’s controversial head, her overly sexual podcast being called problematic, or her brand deals not being deemed appropriate, is ignored. This could have been a great chance for Alex to get her side of the story across, address some of the issues, and defend herself, but the documentary is scared of showing her breaking character.
Cooper is a contentious figure in modern-day feminism. She sells her podcast as a revolutionary place where women can freely speak about their sex lives and engage in the same locker room talk as male broadcasters. Although she has pivoted to more celebrity interviews and mental health chats, feminists still wonder if she’s as good a female role model as she likes to portray. You wouldn’t think these conversations existed if you just watched this documentary. It’s all slanted a little bit too positively, one-sided to be a truly rounded view of the world of Alex Cooper.
Call Her Alex ends with Cooper’s career-defining interview with Kamala Harris. It was hugely controversial at the time, with many political commentators feeling it was the wrong move for the then-vice president to make. Alex fails to defend herself and her podcast against these naysayers despite feeling like the perfect platform.
This documentary, while slanted to show the best of Alex, is an incredibly uplifting watch for any woman wanting to make it in the media industry. It’s an inspiring tale of one woman with no prior connections in the industry getting to the top of their game through hard work, sheer determination, and understanding of her audience. It’s hard not to be charmed by Cooper and her commitment to building her brand. With just two hours of runtime, it’s a shame that this documentary couldn’t go further into exactly how she became Spotify’s highest-earning female podcaster.
It’s impossible to have the highs without the lows. This documentary obviously wants to inspire the next generation of female creators, but fails to address the lows. Surely, the rise to the top was not this smooth sailing, even for a woman as strong as Alex. Director Ry Russo-Young (Nuclear Family) almost does her fans a disservice by not highlighting the obstacles as well as the triumphs.
This two-part documentary only touches the surface of Alex Cooper. For a woman who wears her commitment to being open and honest as a badge of honor, Call Her Alex feels strangely cagey. Despite how much the documentary sanitizes her rise to fame and fortune, it’s hard not to feel inspired by Cooper. She really did fight her way to the top, doing things her way, rightly or wrongly, and that has to be applauded.
Grade: B
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Call Her Alex
"Call Her Daddy" creator, host and executive producer Alex Cooper is at the top of her game, signing one of the biggest deals in podcast history. This revealing two-part series gives audiences a behind-the-scenes, intimate look at her journey and the defining moments that shaped her influential voice.
