Satirist Carlos Greaves’ First Book Spoils Iconic Films in the Best Way

Carlos Greaves loves movies and, as a satire writer, shows that love by annihilating them.

In his new book Spoilers: Essays That Might Ruin Your Favorite Hollywood Movies, Greaves skewers politics and pop culture by using the plot points of America’s favorite blockbusters.

Superman tries to apply for a Green Card but doesn’t have the proper documentation from his home planet. The Little Mermaid writes a tell-all book about her struggle to fit in with her new siren-skeptical royal family. And an increasingly unhinged J. Edgar Hoover opens an FBI investigation into a counter-cultural rabble-rouser by the name of Forrest Gump. 

The collection started with a piece he wrote for the humor site McSweeney’s in 2020, comparing Trump loosening Covid restrictions during the pandemic to Jurassic Park re-opening despite the velociraptors still being on the loose. That essay spawned several sequels that were read and shared by millions, including Roxane Gay, Neil Gaiman, Stephen Fry, and N.K. Jemisin. 

After receiving such a positive response, he decided to expand these pieces into his first book.

Greaves sat down with me via Zoom to discuss how he went from an electrical engineer to  McSweeney’s “Mount Rushmore of Satirists” (that’s a quote from Chris Monks, the editor) and why he opted for crowdsource funding via Kickstarter instead of traditional publishing.

Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Paste Magazine: What made you decide you wanted to make a career change from engineering to comedy writing?

Carlos Greaves: I love engineering, but throughout college, there was always something in the back of my mind telling me that, even though I enjoyed it, it maybe wasn’t the thing I was most passionate about. During my senior year, I took a filmmaking class, and that was a real “aha” moment where I fell in love with the creative process of writing and directing film, which wasn’t something I’d ever explored or even occurred to me that I might enjoy. That experience eventually led to writing and directing short films and comedy sketches, performing sketch comedy, and writing short form humor. Through writing short form humor, my work started getting noticed, which led to a few paid writing gigs and teaching opportunities. Suddenly it started to look like writing might, maybe-possibly-someday-hopefully be something I could do full time for a living, and I’m slowly getting there (maybe).

Paste: What are your feelings about spoilers in general? Are there certain rules you believe all viewers should live by?

Greaves: I do find it incredibly annoying when an episode of a popular TV show airs, and thirty seconds after the episode ends there are already memes flooding the Internet that absolutely ruin the episode for anyone who didn’t watch it live. I understand that getting there first is 99% of going viral on social media as a writer and comedian, but there are so many other ways to go viral without ruining a show for people. Paint a wall, pop a pimple, eat something weird—people will watch literally anything on TikTok! 

Paste: What is the spoiler that haunts you the most?

Greaves: I saw a meme that completely ruined the ending of Game of Thrones for me. Which was THE WORST, because then I had to sit through a terrible ending of a show KNOWING how terrible it was going to be. One of the worst hours of television viewing of my life.

Paste: How would you describe your first book to strangers? 

Greaves: To strangers: the book is a collection of essays that use popular movies as a way to satirize pop culture, politics, and J. Edgar Hoover (fuck him!). 

Paste: How would you describe your first book to your best friends?

Greaves: The book is a way for me to rant about all of the things and people I find annoying so that I can finally stop being “that guy” at parties. 

Paste: What about your parents?

Greaves: The book is about…wait a minute, how did the word “fellatio” end up in my book? I didn’t write that, I swear! What’s going on here? Who did this?! (I am the oldest child in a first-generation Afro-Latino household.)

Paste: Understandable. Which essays hold a special place in your sarcastic heart?

Greaves: I’d say “A Message From Soylent Green Farms To Our Customers” is at the top, purely for the line: “Because here at Soylent Farms, we believe food should be made by people, for people, of people.” My second-favorite essay would be “Recently Declassified COINTELPRO File on Mr. Forrest Gump” because people don’t make fun of J. Edgar Hoover nearly enough given all the terrible things he did. Third would be “Revised Rules after the First Summer of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” because this one turned out better than it had any right to. Then it’s, “A Joint Letter From the Member States of the African Union to Wakanda” because The African Union in this one is as PISSED as they should be! Finally, in fifth place is “Excerpts from the Upcoming Memoir Part of that World: My Life on Land” because I have a gift for making fun of royal families.

Paste: How has your journey to publishing been different from others?

Greaves: After speaking with a few literary agents who said the idea might be a tough sell to publishers, it sort of felt like the writing was on the wall. Around the same time, I reached out to Mike Sacks, since I knew he’d written several great books in the humor space, to ask for advice on how to pitch to agents. He suggested the idea of self-publishing the book, which was something that hadn’t been remotely on my radar. But the idea appealed to me because I felt it would give me the creative freedom to shape the book the way I wanted to. I set up a Kickstarter campaign to try to finance the upfront costs of self-publishing the book, and fortunately was able to raise the funds I needed in order to hire my own editors, illustrators, and designers to make the book look and feel like a traditionally published book. 

Paste: Would you recommend self-publishing to other humor/satire writers? 

Greaves: I don’t think there’s a one-size-fits-all approach, since I think it depends on the book, the author’s appetite for risk, and their willingness to put up with B.S. Or, rather, different kinds of B.S. depending on the route you choose. Maybe it’s because I’m an engineer, but figuring out how to do the entire thing myself felt like a fun problem to try to solve. It was also heartwarming to see the reaction to my Kickstarter campaign and that there was, in fact, a market for the book. That said, both crowdfunding and self-publishing are a ton of work, and require handling a lot of logistical and organizational tasks that you might not have to deal with as a traditionally published author. Because you’re doing everything yourself, that takes up hours of the day that you could be spending doing the thing you actually love doing, which is writing. Plus, a publisher often provides resources and has established relationships that you as an individual may not have. So it comes down to weighing those tradeoffs and choosing what makes sense for you. Personally, I’m happy I went the self-published route for this book, and I do think more authors should at least understand that it’s an option available to them.

Paste: If you could write the script for the next Jurassic Park movie, what would definitely be included?

Greaves: In a world where, despite things going horribly wrong over and over again, a corporation continues to build theme parks with shoddily designed enclosures for thirty-foot-tall genetically engineered predators with an insatiable thirst for human flesh, one man has the courage to ask “Again? Are you fucking kidding me?” Oh, wait, this is the plot of every single Jurassic Park movie, isn’t it?

Paste: You preface the book with a *very REAL, super authentic* forward from one or your favorite actors of all time, Jeff Goldblum. If you could write a movie for the REAL Jeff what would you write? 

Greaves: Baby otter zoologist / volunteer firefighter Geoffrey Blumgold has a problem — everywhere he goes, no matter how hard he tries to prevent it, his shirt just keeps flying right off! It keeps happening again and again, and he’s completely powerless to stop it! He’s in the middle of bottle feeding baby otters? Whoops! His shirt just blew clean off his body and into the trash, so now he’s just gonna have to bottle feed those otters without a shirt on. Oh, now the zoo’s on fire and he’s going to have to rescue ALL of the baby animals? Not with a shirt on he isn’t. Because, you guessed it, his shirt whizzed off his body and burst into flames. Now he’s running back and forth saving the animals while totally bare chested. The fire is so hot. He’s getting sweaty. His muscles are flexing from carrying all of those baby animals to safety. Someone get this man a shirt! What’s that? It flew off again? Oh no! Jeff Goldblum stars in The Man Who Was Shirtless All The Time Because His Shirt Kept Flying Off, Oh No!   

Paste: Who are your comedy heroes?

Greaves: Maybe this isn’t that surprising, but as someone who’s into satire and parody, I’ve always loved Mel Brooks. I also really like Armando Ianucci, Boots Riley, and, of course, Jordan Peele. I came of age during the Tina Fey / Amy Poehler / Maya Rudolph / Kristen Wiig / Leslie Jones / Kate McKinnon eras of SNL so that had a big impact on me as well. I think there were some guys involved with that show too, but for the life of me I can’t remember a single one of their names, poor bastards.  

Paste: What’s next from THE Carlos Greaves?

Greaves: I’ll be in NYC October 23 celebrating the launch of my book at Caveat! It’s at 9:30pm, featuring comedic performances by Bobbie Armstrong (McSweeney’s), Taylor Kay Phillips (Last Week Tonight with John Oliver), Felipe Torres Medina (The Late Show with Stephen Colbert), Milly Tamarez (Betches), Jennie E. Egerdie (McSweeney’s), and Johnathan Appel (Last Week Tonight with John Oliver) with host Chandler Dean (West Wing Writers). There will also be a prize for best movie character costume!

Paste: Ok, but you also have a sequel to Spoilers in the works, right?!  

Greaves: I can make no promises, but the short answer is yes, I would LOVE to write a sequel to Spoilers. There’s plenty of movie earth I didn’t have a chance to scorch in the first book, and I have ambitious plans to someday torch Indiana Jones, Batman, Titanic, and more. Apologies in advance.

Spoilers: Essays That Might Ruin Your Favorite Hollywood Movies is available for pre-order now.

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Megan Broussard is a writer and producer in New York City with work in The New Yorker, Marie Claire, New York Magazine’s The Cut, Slate, McSweeney’s, Reductress, and more. Follow her on Instagram and TikTok @megsbroussard.