Alex Honnold’s climbing career has always raised eyebrows. The 40-year-old is known widely for his free solo attempts, done without any ropes or protective equipment, and particularly his ascent of Yosemite’s El Capitan in 2017.
The climb, which Honnold completed in less than four hours, was a groundbreaking first in the sport and was the subject of the Academy Award-winning documentary Free Solo. Now, nearly ten years on, Honnold has just achieved another first — free soloing the Taipei 101 tower live on Netflix.
Honnold’s fame has also come with a fair amount of criticism, mostly given the high risk of free soloing and the distress it has caused to those around him. Free Solo addresses this to an extent, interviewing the filmmakers about the possibility of watching Alex die on camera, as well as his girlfriend, Sanni McCandless. Honnold, however, is alarmingly nonchalant. It was even found that his amygdala – which primarily recognises emotions like fear – hardly activated under stimulation. That, and his mastery of each route, might explain his coolness when consistently risking his life.
Some would argue, though, that the brilliance of his El Capitan ascent makes up for the emotional distress others experienced — at 914m tall, the granite monolith is taller than any building in the world and is considered the gold standard for big wall climbing. Skyscraper Live simply doesn’t have the same gravitas. The 508m tower is the eleventh tallest building in the world but is technically repetitive and far simpler than many of Honnold’s big wall climbs.
In 2026, is the risk really worth it for Honnold? He and McCandless are now married with two young daughters, so the stakes are far higher than when he was 30 and living in a van. So why free solo the building at all? Honnold has stated that it has been a long-term goal of his, but that’s arguably not enough reason to sign onto the grand display of a Netflix special.
As Honnold climbed the tower, seemingly unfazed, a team of commentators, led by former ESPN anchor Elle Duncan, hosted the event. Despite the inclusion of experienced climbers like Emily Harrington, the broadcast added very little to the broadcast. Admittedly, it was intended for a wider audience, but the need to explain the term ‘overhang’ seemed to detract from the gravity of the climb Honnold was undertaking. In making a light-hearted spectacle of such a dangerous ordeal, Netflix managed only to commodify Honnold’s risk-taking to draw an audience.
Marketed as a ‘no safety nets’ attempt, Netflix implemented a ten second delay in case Honnold fell on camera, the only safeguard at the event. The company was not ready to take the same risks in their broadcasting that Honnold took on his climb. There were also several moments of awkwardness as the team interviewed McCandless, who understandably struggled to watch at times, reinforcing the seriousness of Honnold’s risk for the audience.
Honnold has said he was paid somewhere in the mid-six figures for the climb — this is a huge sum, but Duncan’s Netflix salary, for example, could well dwarf that. Then again, Honnold says he’d have done it for free, so how do you quantify a life-or-death situation? The fact is, you shouldn’t.
To do something as dangerous as free soloing is one thing, but to be paid to do so on live television in front of thousands of onlookers is another. This isn’t to say that Honnold’s intentions weren’t real, but that the notion of choice obscures the fact that others profit from his risk-taking. We, the audience, are drawn in by the life-or-death situation and become an active component of Honnold’s commercialisation.
It was an impressive feat, yes, and Honnold seemed mostly unconcerned with the whole Netflix palaver, but the livestream wholly undermined the risk he was taking. If he had fallen to his death, so many questions would have been asked: Did he feel pressured to climb? Should Netflix have made it safer? The reality that he managed without any hiccups does not make such concerns any less pertinent. The larger priority seems to be audience engagement — the livestream’s appeal lies in contingency, and viewership depends on the possibility of catastrophic risk.
Unfortunately, Honnold’s area of expertise means that, within professional climbing, he is more likely to die than most. It’s reflective, then, of such a consumer economy that in broadcasting Skyscraper Live, Netflix have capitalised on the death-defying climbing for which he has become so highly regarded. They have facilitated the daredevil father’s risk-taking, and have made us into paying onlookers to a car crash, unable to avert our gaze.
“Alex Honnold El Capitan Free Solo 1” by Fox Sports is licensed under CC BY 3.0.