Papa Bear: Indie furry movie nears funding deadline
by Patch O'Furr
If you like making friends laugh and/or wasting company time, and have been on the net for 10-15 years, then you probably know The Onion, CollegeHumor, Funny or Die – and Cracked. At one point it was the world’s most visited comedy site.
Papa Bear is a movie in development from heads of the Cracked video department at its peak. It’s about a furry in the family, and its climax will be filmed at a furry convention. Papa Bear promises to be dramatic, funny, daring, boldly LGBT-positive, and full of heart.
When I first heard about it, I was skeptical because I’ve seen many attempted indie movies with furries. Some past ones seem bad in a good way, like no-budget slasher-horror flicks or party-worthy science fiction fanservice. One had an A-list actor in a fursuit. One reached arthouse greatness. Many of them are DOA because of superficial writing and weak production values. Lack of inside knowledge always shows. Here’s a test… do the costumes look like post-Halloween discount junk? Or are they cool hand-crafted fandom fursuits? That implies effort to get community support.
Co-director and writer Michael Swaim reassured me that Papa Bear comes from real experience and consulting community members.
Then I read the script and loved it. It dives into furriness without wasting time on setup, but familiarizes it with awkward comedy anyone can relate to. It doesn’t fall into lame campiness, and the characters have personalities. Tense subplots come up right away. The tension comes from being put on the spot about private life, and inside views of “content warning” topics. There’s pleasing aesthetic touches, like calling for music by nervous rock bands of nerd canon (XTC, Talking Heads) and animated montages. It’s full of inside lore in a way that fits the story and makes sense even if you weren’t familiar with it.
The crowdfund incentives start with a private link to watch the movie as soon as it’s ready. That would be an amazing opportunity for a fur meet! Papa Bear would also make strong convention programming.
At time of writing, Papa Bear has over $61,000 pledged. Waiting to see it completed is almost unbearable.
UPDATE: funding reached.
oh shit pic.twitter.com/1A7azVZp7P
— Abe Epperson (@AbeTheMighty) June 13, 2023
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I know the screenwriter/director/producer and have read the script–twice–giving lots of feedback that was ignored. I also know his father, who is “Hank” in the movie and a very good friend of mine. Believe me when I say this movie has little to do with furries. None of the young main characters are furry, and what it is really about is a young man’s coming to terms with his dad being a gay bear. Furries only come into it tangentially, mostly for shock value, and, once again, they are portrayed as all being fursuiters or into furporn. Swaim thinks he knows what furry is because his dad is one and because he went to a couple of cons for research. The script reflects zero understanding of furry, although it does sympathize with them and, ultimately, portrays them as nice people. It’s not a furry hate movie at all, but neither will it help the image of the furry fandom one little bit and might, actually, continue to reinforce stereotypes.
Opinions vary, mine is pretty good!
I don’t think a movie has to serve image, and is likely to be a bad movie if that’s the priority. Mary Sue characters with no dimension make weak storytelling. Exploitation for comedy or horror can also be fun and worthy like 1970’s blacksploitation was, if it’s not purporting to be real (like bad reporting.)
Arturo is a character who is an inspiring furry artist and Sarah becomes a furry artist at the end. I read the story being driven by characters referencing furry forums, and references like to the MFF attack and media about it. There’s animation used for furry origins, and art creation throughout the story (like Arturo’s murals) is key for the story. Anything NSFW can go along with it being a coming of age story that gets very graphically adult for the non-furry characters even more so than the furry ones. It has teens dealing with serious situations and that helps it feel real.
Script here for anyone inclined, https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1LcE7UfvY9HtShxXXoHXO3X67VIxxoEKM
Well, that’s all fine and dandy, but in a fandom already concerned about its image, I’m not a fan of this film. It could be that further revisions were made after I read the second version, and I will keep an open mind and watch it if I can, but I am not optimistic and prepared to cringe.
I think it’s good to discard expectations for fiction to be the same thing as public relations. PR is easily used for evil, like to hide things that need transparency, including by powerful people responsible for abuse. I thought the scripts engagement of serious issues like abuse, family split, etc is admirable. I don’t think the fandom should be concerned about toning down something like that, but rather allow serious stories and report the bad openly, and generate it’s own good things at the same time, neither thing being opposed to the other.
Art is for truth and beauty, but the truth can be ugly and ugly things can be satisfying and cathartic. If the fandom avoids being overly self-conscious out of fear of being looked at, and does that for itself, outsiders won’t have power to hype anything people don’t already know.
There’s always commercial attempts to grab ratings and so forth, but this indie project seems as far as it gets from the giant superhero blockbusters and other formula of big studios.
Hi Kevin! Just wanted to let you know that your feedback was not ignored, but in fact highly valued, as was the feedback of the many furs of all walks of life who have since contributed to the film or become involved in the project directly. I’m sorry you parted not feeling that way, but we very much appreciated you taking the time to give it a read. Hope you will give it a watch when it comes out, but wishing you well regardless. <3
And now its more than fully funded. 🙂
I believe this is the same film as the one originally titled The Furry Movie. I was asked to review the script and I believe it’s just another “dysfunctional family/coming of age” story (and not a very good one) that adds furry content for… I dunno… cringe value? Marketing? (now that more people know about furry). If you enjoy that sort of dramady, then fine. I just believe it could have been much better written.
It’s probably gone through drafts and still might. It’s based on the writer’s experience with his own father being a furry and not just marketing – I think it would be pretty hard to market that way, since there isn’t a big market of furries, and it probably won’t have much marketing budget anyways.
Rather, it’s a very small independent movie (the pitch asks for $800k) which lets it compete with similar budgeted movies on it’s own strengths. If it comes out bad, it will flop and nobody will see it, unlike bigger Hollywood product that pushes bad movies to big audiences anyways. If it comes out well made, then I don’t think there’s anything to worry about because –
I’m not super up on young adult lit, the kind of thing that deals with coming-of-age and serious topics like bullying, sex abuse, family split etc that are in this script, but there is a strong audience for that.
Example: the novel that won the Ursa Major Award – A Furry Faux Paw, by Jessica Kara. It was up against plenty of the standard fandom fantasy fiction but this one was different, a Teen & Young Adult Fiction novel, under a pen name of a fandom author who apparently is publishing non-furry young adult fiction with the name.
This makes me want to ask her about it and if she is making inroads with audiences outside the fandom. I think it’s refreshing to see writing that doesn’t stay locked into a scene.
Hi Mark! This response is more for people reading this page than you personally, but I feel the need to say: on the contrary, the furry content in this film was NOT added for cringe value, as a joke, or for marketing reasons. My dad is a gay furry, I think human sexuality and pop cultural affinities are both beautiful and complex journeys of self-discovery and -identification, and this is my movie about that. I can assure you, dear reader, this one is coming from a place of genuine love. If the movie sucks, that’s a separate issue. I hope you will give the flick a watch when it comes out, but appreciate you (Mark) giving the script a read and your feedback regardless. Be well. <3