The darkest corner of humanity have found a new platform to express their views in recent years, not only with social media channels failing to block hate speech, but with a President who actively encourages such discussion. Sometimes, a fairly innocent image or idea can be twisted to represent something sinister as a new documentary explores.
Arthur Jones’s Feels Good Man, which won the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Emerging Filmmaker at Sundance earlier this year, explores how Matt Furie’s 2005 comic Pepe the Frog became a symbol of white supremacy for the alt-right movement. Now set for a release this September, the first trailer has landed, which shows how the creator is attempting to change the appalling legacy of his creation.
See the trailer below.
In November 2016, a nasty election cycle had exposed a seismic cultural rift, and the country suddenly felt like a much different place. For underground cartoonist Matt Furie, that sensation was even more surreal. Furie’s comic creation Pepe the Frog, conceived more than a decade earlier as a laid-back humanoid amphibian, had unwittingly become a grotesque political pawn.
FEELS GOOD MAN is a Frankenstein-meets-Alice in Wonderland journey of an artist battling to regain control of his creation, while confronting a disturbing cast of characters who have their own peculiar attachments to Pepe. Now, as Pepe continues to morph around the world––FEELS GOOD MAN offers a vivid, moving portrait of one man, one frog, and the very strange reality we’ve all found ourselves living in.
Feels Good Man arrives on September 4.