Why Uncool Is Cool: An Interview with Paul Feig

Popshifter: I find that sometimes the funniest stuff to me, is not when it’s played for laughs, but it’s just a real thing. Like I think The Kids In The Hall did that really well. I’ve never been able to put my finger on what it is about their characters that makes them so different from regular people you know, but it’s just a hundred times funnier.

Bruce McCullough as Gavin
from The Kids In The Hall

Paul Feig: They really, really commit to it. If you watch those sketches, there’s just a belief in it. A lot of the SNL stuff in the 90s—it used to drive me crazy that characters would be called “The Something Guy.”

And what is that? Now you’re twice removed from being a real person. As long as there’s honesty. . .

I have a huge problem with the Internet that’s been growing over the years. It’s just gotten to be this repository for everybody to be a critic. You know, I’m sure you put up with it all the time, with the comments that you get [on the website].

Popshifter: Yeah, people will hide behind these horrible names and personas—

Paul Feig: Yeah!

Popshifter: They can’t just be themselves. I’m the same way in my writing and emails as I am in real life, but so many people are not. There’s a real distance.

Paul Feig: People would never say that stuff to your face. Suddenly everyone is super snarky and hates everything and they gang up on you. I’ve gotten burned a few times.

I love the comedy of making fun of stuff and I was an enormous Mystery Science Theater 3000 fan because of that. But there’s something about faceless attacks, really.

And here’s my other problem (laughs), so now I’m going to talk about all my problems with the Internet—

Popshifter: (laughs)

Paul Feig: The good and the bad of it is that. . . in the old days it was like, one person can’t make a difference. But on the Internet actually one person can make a difference.

We kept a very big Internet presence on Freaks and Geeks and that went well; our fans were great. They were very supportive. But I know on other shows, show runners and actors, they pore over those boards. They really take it to heart.

I’ve been in meetings and stuff where they’ll say, “Oh, we gotta change this because it’s not going over; people are posting on the Internet.” And it’ s like, here’s the thing: clearly, you want feedback from fans, that’s a good thing.

Panel from Qwantz.com
© 2005 Ryan North, Text by Vincent Johnson

But to have a successful show on network TV, you need to have six or seven million viewers at least. Well, what we have posting on the Internet, is a group of twenty people. In the old days, it would be like, “Well, we had all these letters come in.”

I mean, who writes letters? It’s like, the crazy people!

Popshifter: (laughs)

Paul Feig: Your grandpa or somebody. And those people were always so fringe, but now they have all this power. I like that people have a voice now, but. . . I’m a big Richard Dawkins fan. And in The Blind Watchmaker he said that the human brain is not hardwired to take in large numbers. I think the Internet proves that.

I’ve made that speech in meetings before. “I got deluged with emails wanting to see this.” Or, “Our message board is deluged with all these people.” But a hundred emails is a “deluge.” A thousand emails, even ten thousand, is enormous. But if you compare that to the numbers you need to do something on a big scale. . . you lose perspective on things. It’s taking us in a weird direction.

Click to read more from Paul Feig on. . .

Directing Freaks and Geeks
Directing Arrested Development
His obsessive knowledge of laugh tracks
More on laugh tracks, plus the “comedy of innocence”
Dealing with Internet jerks
The outsider, plus embarrassing fanboy encounters
“If it’s fun, it’s fun.”
Music of today vs. music of yesterday
The Hollywood version of funny
What’s cool and uncool
Listening to “the notes”
Where television is today
The fallout from Unaccompanied Minors
His new show Kath and Kim and his upcoming book

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