Pepe the Frog may not be able to explain everything about these trying times. But Feels Good Man finds the little cartoon amphibian at the crossroads of a whole lot of it.
Directed by Arthur Jones, the documentary opens on an idyllic scene of Pepe creator Matt Furie carefully cupping a tiny frog in his hands, speaking softly about his lifelong affection for the creatures.
But if you've been anywhere near the internet in the past five years, you know the peace won't last. From there, Feels Good Man traces Pepe's transformation from indie comic strip character to hate symbol to protest mascot. It follows Furie's growing dismay at seeing his own creation take on an ugly new meaning, and 4chan's ride from band of outsiders to mainstream political force, and in the process breaks down the mysterious and unpredictable power of memes.
Jones braids together these ideas cleanly and confidently, adding more and more threads until we're left in awe at everything the story of Pepe encompasses. His use of animated interludes featuring Pepe and his pals from Boy's Club (the series where Pepe originated) feels like a small effort to help Furie take back Pepe, recasting him in our minds as the lovable slacker he was always meant to be instead of as the hateful meme he's become.
Pepe is bigger than any one person, or even any one movement.
Depending on how closely you follow news, politics, and web culture, you may not walk away from Feels Good Man with much new information about Pepe the Frog. The biggest developments in the story, like Donald Trump tweeting a photo of himself as Pepe or Furie killing off the character in a comic, have already made headlines, and there are no new bombshells to be discovered here.
You may, however, walk away with some new insights into Pepe the phenomenon. Jones demonstrates an insatiable curiosity about his subject, speaking with everyone from a former Trump campaign insider to a collector of Rare Pepes to an expert on the occult, in addition to the usual friends, pundits, and academics, and chasing the frog's story everywhere from the dark corners of the internet to the streets of Hong Kong.
Gradually, the sense sets in that Pepe is bigger than any one person, or even any one movement. Furie's efforts to save Pepe — by reclaiming him as an icon of love, by issuing statements and filing lawsuits, by pleading with the ADL to take him off their hate symbols list — are framed by Jones as sympathetic but largely futile. Nor does the 4chan crowd have sole control of Pepe's image, as we see when he hops across the pond in the final act of the film.
"It's a tough genie to put back in the bottle," sighs more than one talking head of Pepe's virality. The modest creation Furie described at the beginning of the film has taken on a life of its own, and it'll never go back to its former state again.
But Feels Good Man proves Pepe can still be a force for good — among other things by helping us, through stories like these, to better understand the world we live in.
