Brian Jordan Alvarez isn’t making an attempt to begin a riot, but when he have been, he’d no less than need it to be a humorous one. Don’t get him fallacious, the creator and star of the brand new FX highschool comedy “English Teacher” needs his collection to be a dialog starter, however in taking up powerful subjects, he’s principally involved with making audiences come collectively and snicker. Take the present’s most up-to-date episode, “School Safety,” which offers with the college, situated within the suburbs of Austin, beginning a gun membership on campus. Obviously, weapons in colleges are not any laughing matter, however in a latest interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Alvarez admitted he and his author’s employees knew there was humor to be mined within the different reactions to a membership like this taking root and the way these reactions result in much more outrageous outcomes.
“We had to figure out, how can we really talk about this and how can we be so funny that you’re dying laughing? And really, maybe it’s obvious, but it’s just a matter of finding beats that make sense and story turns that make sense,” stated Alvarez. “Luckily we have these brilliant writers, especially Dave King — he’s one of the first writers that got added to ’English Teacher’ — and you just start figuring out these turns and how to surprise the audience, and how to surprise yourself.”
In making an attempt to tackle as delicate a topic as firearms, not to mention their place in a college setting, Alvarez defined that considered one of his important targets was to analyze “activism as a concept,” in that his character is taking a stance with out actually having a private understanding of weapons.
“Evan is doing something symbolic in this episode, meaning he’s trying to get rid of a gun club for the sake of the concept of guns,” Alvarez stated to THR. “We don’t want to tell you how to interpret that, but what’s interesting about it to me is activism can sometimes feel — let me say this carefully. Sometimes activism has to be on a symbolic level. You have to do something almost as a gesture to show what you mean, even if it doesn’t exactly make perfect sense.”
As far as future points Alvarez wish to cowl, he believes not each episode has to have a political undertone, however as a substitute take care of actual points dealing with academics and college students immediately, nevertheless massive or small.
“One thing — this maybe isn’t as interesting as I wish it were — but there is this thing that I found out from real friends who are teachers, where it’s actually common to make your students put their phones in a cubby thing on the wall,” stated Alvarez. “So I was thinking we could play with that, with this idea of the kids trying to get around that rule. I look at these kids now, and I’m like, of course they’re going to have phones. The world is on your phone, I’m on my phone so much.”
The first 4 episodes of FX’s “English Teacher” are at the moment obtainable to stream on Hulu.
