In 2019, an old producer friend named James called to say he was working on a MAGA-themed comedy series to pitch to a streaming network. We hadn’t spoken in years but he’d seen one of my articles online about Starbucks baristas wearing pronoun nametags. The story made him laugh and convinced him I’d become an anti-woke writer. I’d previously worked with James as a script consultant and he wanted to pay me for feedback on his new project. He believed audiences were finally ready for Pro-MAGA content.
James emailed me the pilot script. It was called Fossil Feuds and was about a petroleum company executive named Doug trying to dig an oil well in the Florida Everglades. His nemesis was a female environmental activist named Lily who opposed the dredging in order to save an endangered frog. The two characters were polar opposites with divergent goals. But they were attracted to each other and the comedy derived from their futile efforts to prove each other wrong.
The script wasn’t bad. The characters were original and their mutual animosity felt authentic. On their first date, Doug takes Lily to a steak house only to learn she’s vegan. He orders a ribeye while she reaches into her purse for a container of quinoa. While he eats, she lectures Doug on the carbon footprint of meat. He waits until she’s finished then informs her that her plastic container is made of petroleum, her purse is made from cowhide, her shoes come from rubber plantations on deforested Amazonian lands and the metal in her hybrid vehicle is mined from carcinogenic minerals.
“So maybe my carbon footprint is toxic,” Doug says, “but at least my steak tastes great. How’s your quinoa?”
Doug comes across as a self-assured pragmatist who understands his place in a complicated world. Lily, in contrast, is a Berkeley-educated liberal who believes corporations are the cause of America’s ills. She’s a whiner who grouses about injustice and the hypocrisy of the ruling class. As I read the script something nagged at me. All the jokes were at Lily’s expense. For example, when Lily says her favorite travel location is Paris, Doug tells her the French kill more frogs eating frog legs then he could possibly kill in the Everglades.
I told James I found Doug to be charming and honest. Lily, on the other hand, was annoying.
“Good,” James said. “That’s what I intended.”
“It’s not good,” I replied. “Lily should be likable otherwise you’ll turn people off, especially women.”
“But the show is intended for right-wing audiences,” James said.
“You’re writing a comedy, not a polemic. Maybe Doug can be a little self-deprecating.”
“He is,” James said. “Remember the scene when Doug says, ‘I need to have my head examined. I’m always dating crazy women.’”
“That’s a joke at Lily’s expense. He’s calling her crazy.”
“He’s calling himself crazy for dating her.”
“He’s being sarcastic,” I said. “He’s not serious about having his head examined. Otherwise he’d enter therapy and explore his attraction to women. This might be a great device, you know, like Tony Soprano in therapy. Only this time it’s a right-wing misogynist.”
“Doug doesn’t hate women,” James said. “He hates Lily.”
“Then why is he dating her?”
“This is where the comedy comes from.”
“But it’s not funny,” I said.
James grimaced. He didn’t like my comments. But he was paying me. He asked if I had ideas how to make Lily more likable.
“You could go against type. You know, make the petroleum executive a woman and the EPA activist a man.”
“I can’t do that,” James said.
“Why?”
“Because the petroleum executive is strong and the EPA rep is weak. This is the basis of the story.”
“Can’t a woman be strong,” I asked.
“You know what I’m saying,” James said.
“I’m not sure I do.”
James was growing upset but he tried to explain.
“The petroleum executive understands the world’s main energy source is oil and we’re running out of oil. He’s rational and wants to help our country remain independent from foreign energy. Lily’s entitled. She comes from a wealthy family, was educated at a woke college and has never dealt with the real world. Instead of focusing on the true needs of people, she wants to save a stupid frog.”
“Maybe she’s trying to save people from environmental pollution.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it,” James said.
I’d clearly hit a nerve.
“The ecological perspective is absurd,” James said. “Global warming, carbon footprint, rewilding. The Chinese and Russians don’t worry about it. I’m trying to reveal the absurdity at the heart of liberal thinking.”
“So we’re meant to laugh at Lily the liberal,” I asked.
“Exactly.”
“This diminishes her character and doesn’t speak well of Doug either. Why would he fall in love with someone he doesn’t respect? Shouldn’t there be some sort of equality between them?”
“But they’re not equal,” James said.
“I don’t understand.”
“You know, Men are from Mars, women are from Venus. Doug’s logical, Lily’s irrational.”
“So women can’t be logical and men can’t be irrational?”
“All drama is conflict, right?”
“We need to care about Lily. The way she’s written is annoying even though I agree with her politics.”
This was the moment James realized I wasn’t a MAGA enthusiast. He sat back in his chair and crossed his arms.
“Fine,” James said. “I appreciate your feedback.” He checked his watch as if he needed to be somewhere.
“I’m just giving you my honest take,” I said. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“Any joke ideas to spice up the script,” James asked.
“The jokes are insults. If you were to change the characters…”
“…I’m not changing the fucking characters,” James said with a bite.
He opened his briefcase and pulled out his checkbook. He wrote a check for $750 and handed it to me. On the memo line he wrote, “liberal outrage.” I understood his fury. He’d put his heart and soul into the script and I’d ripped it apart. I also inferred he was a bigot and misogynist.
I thanked him for the gig and we parted. A year later he told me he had interest from Rumble, a right-wing streaming platform. Then Covid hit and the concept died on the vine like so many other tv and film projects.
I last spoke with James in 2024. He’d abandoned Fossil Feuds and was working on a reality wife-swapping show about MAGA wives moving into liberal households (and vice-versa). He’d completed two episodes and was talking with Netflix and Hulu. He didn’t ask my opinion this time.