There’s more to Alex Cooper than the ‘Call Her Daddy’ docuseries suggests

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Eyebrows raised last October when Vice President Kamala Harris sat for an interview with “Call Her Daddy” host Alex Cooper. The podcast, while immensely popular, is also known for its raunchy conversations about sex and relationships. Skeptics wondered whether it was a suitable media appearance for a serious presidential candidate on the verge of a pivotal election.

Even those who take Cooper seriously – namely the “Daddy Gang,” as she cheekily refers to her fan base – were surprised by the episode: Cooper had long avoided politics on her podcast, which reaches listeners across the political spectrum. But the host defended the interview after it aired, and doubles down in a new two-part docuseries, “Call Her Alex,” now on Hulu. “I’m not CNN, I’m not Fox News,” she says. “This is ‘Call Her Daddy,’ and we talk about women’s rights.”

Directed by Ry Russo-Young (“Nuclear Family”), “Call Her Alex” paints Cooper, 30, as a trailblazer for young women unafraid of their own sexuality. Since launching in 2018, the podcast has evolved from oral sex tutorials to substantial conversations with trending celebrities such as Hailey Bieber and Chappell Roan; it was one of Spotify’s most popular titles of 2024, second only to “The Joe Rogan Experience.” Cooper and her guests still talk about sex, but she also steers them toward discussions of female empowerment – probably the main draw for the Harris campaign.

“Call Her Alex” does a decent job of exploring Cooper’s business savvy – it is mostly set in 2023 as she prepares for a seven-city tour – but it stops short of truly examining what makes her such a compelling media personality. Sex sells, but it doesn’t automatically bump you to the top of the charts. It certainly doesn’t legitimize you enough to interview a presidential candidate. What is it about Cooper and her life experience that has for years broadcast an authentic persona to the passionate Daddy Gang? What shaped her into – as fans often put it – such a “girl’s girl?”

While listeners repeatedly tell Russo-Young that “Call Her Daddy” feels like hanging out with your best friend, watching “Call Her Alex” feels more like meeting someone at a networking conference. It glosses over the messier details in favor of telling a more inspiring, marketable story.

That tale begins with Cooper’s youth in Newtown, Pennsylvania, when she says she was bullied for having red hair. She hated going to school and instead found community in organized sports, playing alongside supportive female teammates. Her strongest friendships were with a few girls who joined her in writing silly skits, videotaping their performances and editing the footage.

Cooper has long been comfortable in front of an audience and helps her guests – generally women – feel that way, too. By sharing a few details about her own personal life, she creates a space of vulnerability that allows other people to open up. Bieber, the model and beauty entrepreneur frequently criticized by fans of her husband’s ex-girlfriend, warms up enough to share her favorite sex position. Roan, the pop star known to shield her dating life from the public, admits to being in a new relationship. Model-actress Hunter Schafer divulges that she was recently cheated on.

But when the roles are reversed, Cooper, who produced “Call Her Alex” under her Unwell company banner, is more guarded than she allows her guests to be. She made headlines this week for alleging toward the end of the first episode that she was sexually harassed by her soccer coach at Boston University – but the storyline is swiftly abandoned after a brief moment of reflection, when Cooper says she vowed after graduating to never be silenced again. The series skirts any discussion of how the alleged harassment might have impacted Cooper’s sense of sexual agency, and carefully sidesteps the gender politics of her coach being a woman as well.

On a less serious level, “Call Her Alex” also avoids delving too deeply into what happened between Cooper and her former co-host, Sofia Franklyn. They started “Call Her Daddy” together and co-hosted until 2020, when Franklyn allegedly left over a business dispute with Cooper and distributor Barstool Sports. The show was successful from the get-go, but Cooper on her own transformed it into a media empire. She eventually struck a $60 million deal with Spotify, and last year signed a $125 million deal with SiriusXM instead. Did she feel Franklyn was standing in her way?

If she did, the docuseries doesn’t get into it. Part of the controversy over the Harris interview came down to the lack of hardball questioning; but for Cooper, who hadn’t previously touched politics, the conversation about expanding access to reproductive health care was a step toward something newer, bolder and more meaningful. If only “Call Her Alex” were as well.