People often ask me, \u201cHey, what are you doing in my back yard?\u201d, and \u201cHey, is that thing loaded?\u201d, and \u201cHey, are you buying Duke Nukem Forever?\u201d. I\u2019ll leave my lawyer to sort out some kind of deal with the first two, but I\u2019m here today (pending further litigation) to talk about the last one.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the thing \u2013 I just don\u2019t much like Duke Nukem Forever\u2019s rather blatant sexism. I know, I know, I\u2019m supposed to be all, like, \u201cOh, whatever, I\u2019m totally too postmodern and cool to care about such petty, bourgeois abstractions\u201d and \u201cOh, whatever, it\u2019s actually really just a totally clever parody of disaffected 21st century consumerism in the context of post-deconstructivist situationism as a metaphor for masculine sexuality and the cultural paradigm of dialectic consensus\u201d and \u201cOh, whatever, I\u2019M MAKIN\u2019 SAMMICHES\u201d.<\/p>\n
But I\u2019m not like that. In spite of my sincerest efforts to laugh it off, I\u2019m actually a bit offended by Duke Nukem Forever instead.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s satire<\/em>. I get it. Wait no, I don\u2019t. Isn\u2019t satire supposed to make a point or something? So what point, exactly, is Duke Nukem Forever trying to make? If anything, it\u2019s just an uncomfortable reminder that I\u2019m actually related to one or two people who think it\u2019s okay to treat women like a conveniently-arranged assembly of meat and orifices, and nothing much else.<\/p>\n Can satire really be considered successful \u2013 or anything even remotely worth doing, for that matter – when a substantial percentage of its target market demographic doesn\u2019t even realise it\u2019s supposed to be satire?* Is sexist satire even funny?<\/p>\n It\u2019s kinda like somebody who thinks poop jokes are funny. Is it because the concept of a poop joke is so base, so absurd, so consummately inane <\/em>that it\u2019s funny, or is it because poop jokes are about as sophisticated as jokes get? If there\u2019s any preponderating parity among those people I\u2019ve seen promoting the Duke\u2019s more prurient predilections, it\u2019s overbearing ****ing stupidity. Basically, the kind of knuckle-lugging troglodyte who can\u2019t see more than two or three centimetres ahead of himself, because his hirsute, precariously protruding brow keeps getting in the way. That\u2019s also a metaphor.<\/p>\n Besides, isn\u2019t it possible that calling it satire is an easy free pass to intellectual credibility, when it\u2019s maybe just a sly excuse to push otherwise objectionable content without objection?<\/p>\n