In the three-part HBO docuseries Ren Faire, George Coulam has a goal: to die before he turns 95 and to do so on his own terms. “The goddam government doesn’t have any right telling me when I’m going to die,” he declares, setting the tone for a documentary as bizarre as it is captivating.
Fifty years ago, Coulam founded the Texas Renaissance Festival, a reimagining of a 16th-century village, complete with vaguely period-appropriate activities. Drawing over half a million guests annually, it is now the largest festival of its kind. But Coulam didn’t just create a festival; he built a utopia and crowned himself king. He bought 885 acres, incorporated the city of Todd Mission, and made himself its mayor. “Without a dictatorship of counties and states,” you have “the freedom to do what you want to do,” he boasts.
As Coulam contemplates retirement, he seeks an heir to his multimillion-dollar throne. The series dives into a power struggle among his most loyal employees, each vying to inherit his eccentric empire. There’s the steadfast general manager, who endures Coulam’s whims with a kind of masochistic loyalty, and there’s the flamboyant “Lord of Corn,” a vendor with grand visions for the festival’s future. But at 86, Coulam is drunk on power, ruling his real-life fiefdom with an iron fist. Employees are abruptly fired and deals are shut down at his whims, casting a shadow over the future of the festival.
Ren Faire is more than just a documentary about a festival—it’s a sharp look at an empire in transition, revealing how Coulam’s own tyrannical grip on power is the greatest threat to the future of the legacy he thinks he’s trying to protect.
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