»The perfect film for posers.«

Abstract

The article deals with the aesthetics and critical fan reception of the Black Metal biopic lords of chaos (GB/SE 2018, Jonas Åkerlund) along the dimension of its ›authenticity‹. In the film itself and in paratextual discourses in the form of exemplary YouTube comments, divergent concepts of authenticity are demonstrated and the difficulty (up to the point of impossibility) discussed to satisfy a normative and identity-creating idea of ›trueness‹ for Black Metal fans cinematically. The aim is to demonstrate the importance of reception for the film, which challenges the notion of an ideal-typical reader.