Leading distribution company Beta Movie has boarded the four-part Norwegian drama “A Higher Man,” created by Thomas Seeberg Torjussen.
The programme, commissioned by Norwegian broadcaster NRK and German broadcaster ZDF’s ZDFneo platform, is produced by Synnøve Hørsdal and Christian Fredrik Martin at Norway’s Maipo Movie.
“A Higher Man” centers on Tom, Norway’s top internet troll. He is an incredible man, but he is outraged and frustrated, with misogynistic tendencies, and an example of everything that is pathetic and fallacious about men who haven’t gotten the memo about the gender equality movement.
When hackers reveal his identity to the public, he is forced to dress as a woman to escape social persecution and discovers that the world opens up to him when he dresses in women’s clothing.
Torjussen says Selection that the idea for the series was planted “when I started investigating the misogyny of men who are left behind in what I consider to be the most progressive and gender-equal region in the world.”
While the show will have sticking points, it will be fun, he says. “I put a series of twists and turns into each episode, which I hope really feels like a rollercoaster experience. And it’s also funny. It’s not a comedy, but there’s a certain sense of irony to it: he’s a misogynist in women’s clothes. We take it seriously, but I think it will be funny.”
Martin adds: “I was intrigued by this rollercoaster story of this misogynist having to cover himself in women’s clothing and being reshaped on the other side, becoming a better man, so to speak. It was the combination of it being a complicated story, in one sense, and in another, a meaningful and accurate reflection of our events that impressed me.
Tom is a nuanced, three-dimensional character, says Torjussen. “He is not a fool, so he is not deceitful about everything. I got the cleanest, most bitter man in the business, and in some ways he’s right.
Tom’s favorite hater is a comedian known as Stay. For Tom, she is the manifestation of what he calls “Norway’s vaginal state.”
“When it comes to the female comic he harasses, he is fatter than her, but she talks about physical problems and body shaming as if it is an exclusively female thing and also something that men impose on women, and this infuriates him.
“Many women who read the script were intrigued by his arguments against them and to some extent agreed with them, but then, of course, you can’t defend his actions.
“He blames everything around him. It’s not the girls, however (in his opinion) it’s the feminist state that made him a coward. And that’s why he doesn’t have friends and because he doesn’t have friends, he can’t win women and that sucks. He became a political scapegoat for all his angst, in a way.”
Stay is used to receiving a lot of hate, and when Tom becomes the target of online harassment and then disappears, she becomes worried for his safety.
“By having experience of receiving a lot of hate and ridicule, she will be able to see that it will kill him in some way, and so she really thinks that when he disappears without any clue, he killed himself, and she or he believes that he would be alive if it weren’t for her. After that, she feels like no one cares, not even his mother, and she feels lonely because she fears for him.”
Another key character is Audun, Tom’s neighbor, who is “exactly like the metrosexual on the poster,” says Torjussen, but has a hidden side to him. “He’s the man who did it. He has a nice girlfriend. He has a kid. He has friends of both sexes. However, he has this incel man inside him. He himself says he is the only incel. Male sexuality is domesticated in him, and he feels very lonely in his frustration, so he recognizes something of himself in Tom. He is a form of mirror. So we don’t tell the story that these men are just lonely, chubby men with their computers. We present another aspect of this.”
“A Higher Man” is being filmed in Lithuania until the end of May and will be delivered to consumers in late December. It will be officially launched on the market in October at Mipcom, where the first trailer will be released.
In a statement, Anaïs de Neergaard, vice president of global sales and acquisitions at Beta Movie, said: “Becoming a member of ‘A Higher Man’ shows our commitment to bringing content that is compelling and interesting to the market. This limited collection presents a fresh take on identity and connection in the digital age, blending humor with critical contemporary themes. Selling empathy and personal progress, ‘A Higher Man’ aligns perfectly with our goal of telling stories that truly matter to our viewers.”