Q&A with Director Eddie Huang
Q : The most fiercely independent documentary I’ve seen in a long time. Okay. I was wondering if you could talk us through that click in your brain where you just knew that you needed to do this. There’s such a propulsive energy to this film. I just sensed like there was something in you that made you say, this is what I’m doing and you went for it and you never looked back. Could you just talk us through that decision and when that moment came for you?
Eddie Huang: To be honest, I have to keep it real that Shane (Smith=Co-founder of Vice Magazine) did some shit to a friend of my wife’s and it really pissed me off. I was like, I’m not going to make the movie about that, but I’m going to get you, it’s like not on my watch, doggie!!
Q : Okay, when that happened, how did you start putting it together and reaching out to people who surprised you along the way?
Eddie Huang: I think you can see my style in the doc, too. If I can tell you a bad dude, like Gavin (Mclnnes=Co-Founder of Vice Magazine), my first instinct I’m like, you know you are bad, you know what you’re doing. I don’t need to tell you. And so dudes like him(Gavin), and dudes like Shane, I will just fall back and watch what they do, because if they start to feel safe with you, that’s when they’re really going to show you who they are.
After everything with Shane, I started to ask questions, oh, what’s going on with this, what’s going on with that…then I caught wind they were going bankrupt. I talked to my attorney and I told him what I wanted to do. And he was like basically you gotta get out of your NDA(Non-disclosure agreement) if you’re going to do something.
And I was like ok, let’s hold the debt over their head, wait for them to go to bankruptcy, avoid Vice. I went to Fortress(Investment Group) to acquire a Vice. And I’m just like, yo, I know y’all don’t got bread like that. You owe me 3. 80, give me the show, wipe my NDA.
Love you guys, and you know these private equity people, they think with their money brain. So they’re just like, yo, he better cancel out 3. 80! And I turned around and shouted out to Edward H. Hamm Jr. and the audience who made this possible. I went to Edwrad H. Hamm Jr. and QC Entertainment and was like, Yo, I’m free. I can say whatever I want.
Check out these photos. I got Saroosh with a Nazi shirt on. Let’s get him. And it’s just how my brain works. I’ve heard people talk like there isn’t a structure. The thing with structure is…the way people watch films and read novels in western culture is like the hero’s journey.
There’s not a hero here. The structure is just a dark, cringe retelling of how whack it was to work with these people. And there’s funny moments, and there’s bummer moments, but I just let you see people for who they are. Either they redeem themselves in their portraits, which I think a lot of the early Vice writers do.
And then some don’t, like Gavin, Shane and even like very beloved Spike Jonze, There’s no saving dudes like this man, That’s why they don’t get the structured hero’s journey. They don’t deserve it.
Q : So your team in LA was great to work with, they sent me the film as a link.
Eddie Huang: Thank you. Luke Geissbühler is here, our cinematographer. Leo is here. Max. Amy Cutler, I believe, was in the building. Samuel Ostrowski. They spoke a lot of truth. My wife’s favorite interview is Amy’s when we weren’t sure what to do with this doc, like we would watch Amy’s interview over and over just cause I, I felt like it was the most vulnerable.
And I felt the closest to Amy’s emotions advice.
Cause I was like, we still were friends. Are we friends? What is going on? Like you give me an opportunity, but then you stab me in the back. It’s just it’s hard to figure out when you’re in it. And through the film, you have to sit with a lot of uncomfortable emotions and uncomfortable situations, but in the end you get like this pastiche of this company that was consistently screwing people over.
Q : Was there a point where VICE could have stopped making mistakes by over inflating their value, making connections just to get money, and could have kept integrity while still making money and paying people properly?
Eddie Huang: This is a good question about my feelings on diversity Journalism and woke culture when David Carr from the New York Times straight up tells Shane you’re not a journalist, you’re looking at shit on the beach, right?
That was the first time Shane took it seriously. then Vice went on a crazy run because it started to respect journalistic ethics. It realized that if they wanted to take money on that, they had to take care of employees. And they started to re-examine some of the things going on at the company.
But once they took on money, they couldn’t keep up because the changes they were making were not genuine. Their intentions the entire time were like, yo, they keep an eye on us. I just give them one good season of HBO with some real journalists like Simon and then sell those Budweiser ads. Just put wack dudes next to Budweiser and, whatever. Go see Alligator. I don’t know. They were never intending to create consistently good content. They made good shit when they needed to take on money. And once they got the money, they just boom, boom..
Q : Was it always your intention to approach the way you did, a sort of Huang’s world, Anthony Bourdain style? Does that have to do with your own perception of how you create media? Do you have a conception of yourself as a brand? I don’t mean this in a bad way, I mean this in a more philosophical way. Was that always your approach for this film?
Eddie Huang: I just don’t really like shark biting, right? So, to me..Vice’s entire business plan was what Spike(Jones), Shane(Smith concocted with Vice Guide to Travel was they were just like, yo, let’s be the dirtbag Anthony Bourdain. And there were always conversations there. Yeah, we’re going to be better than Tony. I’m like, how are you going to be better than Tony who invented this shit, and it’s not about being better than Tony, it’s about being who you are and being true to your own voice.
And so I just knew from the moment that Ted greenlighted this, I met Luke Geissbühler(Cinematographer)and told him, I don’t want to chop up the interviews, like those documentaries on Hulu and stuff, it almost feels like the writer’s hands are way too on it.
And I also felt the most poetic way to get back to Vice was to do it in the Tony style, they jacked and made money on. Tony didn’t get to break bread like that. It’s deeply personal. I have these deeply personal things that I don’t think even made sense to my producers. But it’s just gotta happen like this.
Q : What did Spike do to be a villain?
Eddie Huang: You’ve seen the film, right?
Q : I didn’t see anything, a focus on him.
Eddie Huang: Santiago Stelley was trying to convey in the scene about Spike Jones was that he was used as like a marketing ploy like he’s the creative director, he sits over top of everything and it’s if you worked at Vice you just knew like you may be contacted Spike once a year and there were a lot of people not getting credit for their creative direction and like I said, no one ever got a director’s credit here, bro. That’s crazy…you know like people directed this shit And then one guy was just like, I’m gonna take the umbrella credit, yeah.
Q : Hey I feel like we’re living in a post COVID media event. That’s how it feels right now. Your documentary feels like what has happened. In one section, I think of complex plus eating all these places kind of led us where we are now. I want to ask not pessimistic questions, which is what authentic media are you excited about? I feel like that’s what people are looking for. Because it’s still bad.
Eddie Huang: Yeah, I would agree, dude. This is a bummer time for the media, sometimes I go on the New York Times, which I still root for, and I’m like, this feels like a Walmart..by the cooking sections, by these sections..Am I on the different aisle? I’m just trying to see if we’re gonna lose this election, I don’t even know how to read that paper online anymore. And it’s just a bummer because I do think so much of this stuff is ad sales driven.
It used to be subscription driven, and you buy in the newspaper because you want to read what’s in it. And not enough of us bought the newspapers, so now the newspapers are selling ads.
And like when the person that needs the information is not the customer anymore, but the brand that sits next to the article, I think there’s a fundamental problem with journalism. And, there’s certain people like Ezra Klein that I think are very sharp and like listening to Ezra Klein podcasts.
Unfortunately, I think it’s him. And then I read substacks, right? And, I talk to my wife and as long as we’re on the same page, it’s cool. I really think this is an era where I don’t think we should be looking for heroes or a newspaper to save us. I think we got to think for ourselves. And I think we saw it in the pandemic, right? No one had the information. We all thought we had information, but it was bum ass information. Okay, right here. My bad if I’m a bum or two, I don’t know.
Q : Now, the documentary is out in the world, what do you want from it(Vice Media)?
Eddie Huang: I really always make whatever I make for 17 years old me..I’m trying to talk to 16, 17, 18 years old kids that are at the all crossroads of life. In those years, the truth really matters to you. You believe in things and you believe people and I just want kids to be like, watch for the hook, dog. Watch for the hook, and especially if there’s something you love, you probably shouldn’t put it up for sale. You make the money you’re supposed to make, and that’s a beautiful thing. But when you start to reach the universe will teach you, and Shane reached crazy.
Q : How do you get to be so cool?
Eddie Huang: I really think what it is generally like I come from the East Asian culture, right? So like you go into somebody’s house, if it’s like an insane white supremacist house, like you take your shoes off you respect them until they disrespect you.
And he disrespected me pretty quickly being like, Does he speak English? I’m like, I don’t mother fucker. But that’s what’s going through my head. But in my body and everything, I’m here representing people that care about the truth and care about kindness and care about being good people. So even though I want to flash my son, I do have to hold water and I think I’m naturally a people pleaser.
Like I want people to be happy. I want my family to be good. I want my friends to be good. But I do have a very strong moral compass. I just don’t feel the need to tell people all the time. But when I snapped, I snapped. And like in the Gavin thing, when he started talking about women at home, like my wife had just given birth and like in my mind, I like snap. And I was like, I gotta do something physical. And I was like, I can’t punch you, but yo, how about we arm wrestle dog? Let’s arm wrestle. Cause I got to touch you right now. I needed to physically wrestle with my son because his ideas are not worth engaging like his ideas are straight up trash.
And I also do believe deep down there’s still like this good Gavin person that like everybody from the early years I spoke to was like dude, he had the worst ideas, but when my father passed or when like Me and my mom beefed or when my boyfriend broke up people were like he was the only one that called and i’m like you It is hurting my brain because this dude is the wildest contradiction of a person I’ve ever met.
And I just wanted to like, honor how conflicted and contradicting he is in this film. I really don’t agree with anything he says but it’s just I hope one day he just takes off the mask because honestly I think he’s, it’s a, it’s an act. Like he’s too smart to believe this stuff, is my feeling.
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