Dads behaving badly
Does it matter that Alex Honnold has kids?
Last weekend, Alex Honnold successfully climbed Taipei 101, previously the world’s tallest building, without ropes.
Known as ‘free soloing’, climbing without ropes is Alex’s forte. You probably saw his National Geographic documentary, Free Solo, back in 2018, which documented him becoming the first person to ever climb Yosemite’s famous El Capitan without ropes.
Alex’s Taipei 101 feat was an exclusive deal with Netflix, which was streamed live on the platform for the world to see. This garnered quite a bit of controversy as millions of people may have been tuning in to see a man plunge to his death.
Obviously, that didn’t happen, and I never really expected it to. This wasn’t a hard club for Alex. It’s a geometric building, compared to the weathered and often unpredictable landscapes of Yosemite.
The Taipei 101 climb was initially postponed due to rain, but went ahead the following day, and he made it to the top in an hour and a half. All despite extremely annoying commentary and hundreds of people inside the building waving at him as he ascended the outside.
All of this is pretty wild, but that’s not what I am here to talk about.
What I am here to explore is the rhetoric around Alex taking part in a dangerous escapade as a husband and father of two young girls.
Before I get into the discourse around the morality of Alex’s decision to climb really high on live TV, we’ve first got to introduce the man himself.
Alex Honnold may be known for his extraordinary physical feats, but he’s certainly not ordinary in the head, either. In fact, Free Solo they documented him undergoing a brain scan, which showed that he doesn’t process fear or danger in the same way as other people.
Now, I’m not here to speculate, but I will say that there is a lot of conversation online about whether Alex is autistic. Not sensing danger is a common trait for autistic people, as is an intense special interest like his.
In the original doc, Alex comes across cold at times and downright heartless at others. His-then-girlfriend-now-wife Sanni is alongside him during the preparation process for his El Cap ascent, and there are several times when he comes across pretty mean.
“My friends are like, Oh, that’d be terrible, but if I kill myself in an accident, they’ll be like, Oh, that was too bad, but like life goes on, you know, like they’ll be fine. I mean, and I’ve had this problem with girls a lot, you know. They’re like, Oh, I really care about you, I’m like, No you don’t. Like if I perish, like, it doesn’t matter, like you’ll find somebody else, like, that’s not, that’s not that big a deal.”
Since Free Solo, Alex and Sanni have gotten married and had two daughters. I’ve followed them both on social media since the film, and I remember vividly that, despite the fun photos of Sanni climbing pregnant, she did not have an easy ride of it. In fact, she had some very serious medical implications following one of her births that resulted in her hospitalisation. It’s clearly been a rough road for both of them.
The thing about Sanni and Alex, and any real couple on our screens, is that only they know their own dynamic. Sure, Alex might be a bit of a jerk (or at least he doesn’t abide by society’s norms), but it seems to me like he’s always been this way.
That brings me to this Instagram reel that popped up on my feed yesterday. I recognise this is a clip from a longer and probably more nuanced conversation, but it aligns with a lot of the discourse I saw around Alex’s planned free solo of Taipei 101.
Essentially, people think he is selfish.
And, as a father, he shouldn’t be doing such dangerous stunts. Logically, I can see how this argument stands up. But it doesn’t sit well with me. Particularly because these hosts are putting the onus on Sanni, saying,
“Let’s leave behind these men who literally don’t care if they live or die long enough to stick around for you, and let’s not have kids with these men.”
Erm, okay. So, you’re saying that Alex doesn’t care enough about what’s right for Sanni… but also Sanni doesn’t know what’s right for her either? Is this a feminist message? Or are we saying she can’t make decisions on her own?
The thing is, Alex has always been this way.
He was like this in Free Solo, and Sanni was just “the girlfriend”. Now she’s his wife and the mother of his children. She knows what she signed up for.
I can’t help but compare this with Australian national hero Steve Irwin. A man who is universally adored.
But… Steve put himself in danger every single day for the sake of A. His own thrills and B. Entertainment. As we all know, Steve died in 2006 at the Great Barrier Reef after being stung in the chest by a stingray. At this time, Steve’s kids were only 8 and 3.
Do we look back on Steve Irwin and think, “What the fuck was he doing? He had kids!” and do we, or did we, ever ask whether Terri Raines was in her right mind to be married to the guy?
Maybe it’s because of the hard work he did for animal conservation that he got a free pass for taking stupid risks? Like that time he fed a crocodile while holding one-month-old Robert:
I mean, Alex is a philanthropist too. Since 2012, he’s given one-third of his income to solar energy projects and has his own foundation for climate action. Whether this discounts the risks he takes isn’t for me to decide, but I do think it’s comparable to the risks Steve took.
And yet Steve is still heralded as a hero, even though he did some stupid things. Don’t get me wrong, I love Steve Irwin. Jesus, imagine if I were outing myself as a Steve Irwin hater. Good lord, no.
But I also admire Alex.
The difference here is two things.
The first being that Alex isn’t the person that people want him to be. He’s not really a personality. He said himself he was more excited about the climb than the money, and Netflix likely took advantage of this as he was paid an ‘embarrassingly small’ amount to do it (mid-six figures, people think). But he said he’d do it for free.
Even if Alex isn’t autistic, he isn’t ‘typical’. He doesn’t say typical things. He’s only ever entertaining when he’s either doing something really incredible, like free soloing El Cap, or when he says something unintentionally hilarious.
Steve Irwin, on the other hand, was a charismatic guy. He was so bloody funny. You couldn’t help but smile when Steve was on the TV.
Is the entertainment factor part of why Alex is so disliked? Maybe…
But I think the real reason Steve never got the hate Alex does is that we live in an era of discourse. Yes, I can see the irony of me discoursing about the discourse. I am who I am.
Alex’s Taipei free solo was always bound to spark discussion, but I’m not sure if Sanni ever expected her marriage to be dominating all of the headlines.
What this really comes down to, for me, is this:
Alex Honnold is a free solo climber. In his documentary, fellow climber Tommy Caldwell says, “I think everybody who has made free soloing a big part of their life is dead now.”
Free soloing is dangerous.
But Taipei 101 was clearly little more than a stunt. This was not much of an achievement for Alex. Sure, us normies watched it in awe, but for a man who free solo’d El Cap and holds numerous speed records along with other titles… a geometric skyscraper is not that hard.
Famous urban climber and world record holder Alain Robert estimated that Taipei 101 is probably a “6-7 out of ten” on his difficulty scale. Maybe not a risk I personally would take, but one he’s entitled to. And probably comparable to the risk many people face in dangerous jobs every day.
While many expected Alex to give up free soloing after becoming a father, in an interview with Page Six, he said parenthood changed his perspective on the danger “less than you might think.”
We can all sit here and say it’s stupid. It’s dangerous.
But it doesn’t give us the gall to question whether they (especially Sanni) should have had kids. Sanni and Alex are their own people. And they can make their own decisions. It’s particularly galling to see so many people commenting on this couple’s choices after they went through so, so much to bring their girls into the world.
Sure, Alex says some dumb shit (like “they wouldn’t necessarily be traumatised for their whole lives [if I died]”), but that’s how he is. Sanni knows that.
This is just another week in the parasocial nightmare that is the internet. Need I remind readers that we don’t actually know any of these people IRL?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
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And I’m listening to loads of music, including:
Ellen x
💌 About this email
I’m Ellen, and I write about mental health for the chronically online. I am a freelance copywriter, strategist and web designer, and I work from home with my husband, Craig, at Content By The Sea. We have two rescue greyhounds, Potter and Harmony, and a toddler.
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I've enjoyed this post, as the toxic pursuits of possibly insane men is one of my special interests, enjoyed entirely from the safety of our family home!
I think I agree with you - the main positive argument I have for it is that this isn't just him doing something risky because he fancies it. It's something he is extremely good at, and is how he earns his living - the same goes for racing drivers, test pilots, astronauts, whatever.
I've got a lot less sympathy for the rich blokes who pay to climb Everest, for example (1% death rate which doubles if you summit as coming down is tough too), than the professional climbers who work the mountains, and who might chase the feats and the records as well.
There is definitely a gender element to it too though, because men are enabled to do these things by society in a way women aren't - that's a far bigger question for me than women marrying and having children with men who are usually completely clear about who they are and what they do.
Oh completely agree on everything you've said. As always, you write something quite complex and nuanced so succinctly.