Relive the Rise and Fall of Pepe the Frog in “Feels Good Man” Trailer

Imagine you're a hard-working artist. You've created a character beloved by a small but enthusiastic fanbase. And then it gets co-opted by white supremacists. That's exactly what happened to Matt Furie, who created the underground comic Boys Club and its breakout character Pepe the Frog. Known mostly by stoners and indie comics fans, Pepe's image exploded in the mid-2010s, when racists on 4chan and other message boards started using the symbol for their own hateful messaging.

Feels Good Man charts Pepe's journey from lovable amphibian to icon of hate to image of hope. It also covers Furie's career and his legal battle against the awful people who have twisted his work into something, well, deplorable. It's not hyperbole when an interview subject declares Pepe had an impact on the 2016 election, which will go down as one of the most consequential events of the 21st Century. The film won numerous awards from the festival circuit (at least from those festivals that weren't canceled because of the pandemic) and got great reviews.

Check out the trailer below.

Feels Good Man will be available in some form on Friday, September 4.

About Kip Mooney

Like many film critics born during and after the 1980s, my hero is Roger Ebert. The man was already the best critic in the nation when he won the Pulitzer in 1975, but his indomitable spirit during and after his recent battle with cancer keeps me coming back to read not only his reviews but his insightful commentary on the everyday. But enough about a guy you know a lot about. I knew I was going to be a film critic—some would say a snob—in middle school, when I had to voraciously defend my position that The Royal Tenenbaums was only a million times better than Adam Sandler’s remake of Mr. Deeds. From then on, I would seek out Wes Anderson’s films and avoid Sandler’s like the plague. Still, I like to think of myself as a populist, and I’ll be just as likely to see the next superhero movie as the next Sundance sensation. The thing I most deplore in a movie is laziness. I’d much rather see movies with big ambitions try and fail than movies with no ambitions succeed at simply existing. I’m also a big advocate of fun-bad movies like The Room and most of Nicolas Cage’s work. In the past, I’ve written for The Dallas Morning News and the North Texas Daily, which I edited for a semester. I also contributed to Dallas-based Pegasus News, which in the circle of life, is now part of The Dallas Morning News, where I got my big break in 2007. Eventually, I’d love to write and talk about film full-time, but until that’s a viable career option, I work as an auditor for Wells Fargo. I hope to one day meet my hero, go to the Toronto International Film Festival, and compete on Jeopardy. Until then, I’m excited to share my love of film with you.