-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
Jezebel's "astute film critic" complains that Chun-Li is not featured in the Mortal Kombat trailer
- Thread starter Syriel
- Start date
Mentioning "street fight" in the paragraph she brings up Chun-Li suggests to me she knows what she's doing. Joke article for rage clicks?
Oh look, it's the "What Trolls Want You To Believe/What Is Actually Happening" meme in earnest!
So there's a bunch of comments saying that this is unfunny or bad satire, and I don't get it. For a satirical article it's perfectly fine. At worst you might say the joke is too blunt, but not every joke has to be super clever or eloquent. This article would fit right in on The Onion, which can be a pretty damn blunt too, like this jab at the Star Wars fandom.
https://entertainment.theonion.com/middling-rise-of-skywalker-review-leaves-fan-on-fence-1840529899
The joke is assuming people on the internet actually read the articles.
Do something silly like that and you might not be the first one with the really funny take that gets you attention.
I never noticed that was Patrick Stewart. But is that Patrick Stewart head photoshopped on Terry O'Quinn` Locke from lost body lol.
My bad.
I forgot all about this. Thank you for a much needed laugh.
To be fair, the Onion doesn't pretend to be a legitimate news outlet. It's always been upfront about the fact it's satirical. Jezebel seems to actually be trying to be a somewhat serious news site that talks about politics and current events, and posting an article like this that goes viral just makes the site look bad.
tbh it doesn't really make the site look bad because anyone who read to, like, the end of the second paragraph would be like "oh i get it, they're doing An Funny"
Based on Twitter most people don't seem to get it. Even if they do, they'll now see Jezebel as a satirical site if they're not familiar with it. IMO it's a terrible move that probably should've been killed by the editing team.
To be fair, the internet and social media are terrible communication mediums.
The problem is that its just bad satire. Satire is supposed to have a point. You can read any Onion article headline and immediately get the joke without even reading the full article. Here, the headline article is a troll about Chun-Li? But, that's not really satire. It doesn't say anything or criticize anyone, it can only be an attempt to rile up nerds to correct it.
Then you read the article itself and again its not clear where the satire is. The voice is that of a "nerd gamer," not even a "male" nerd gamer as it has no sexist or misogonystic language. Instead, its just a generic gamer nerd that thinks video game films are the epitome of fine cinema.
But then, it switches voices in the second paragraph as our insanely interested nerd gamer gets basic details wrong about the video game film they are so hyped to watch as the pinnacle of cinema:
Then at the end it changes voices again as if a boomer, not a nerd filled, internet warrior, is writing the piece as they talk about learning new lingo off the TV.
Like, who is it satirizing? What is the aim? I legit do not get it.
A satire of the male gamer would have a headline like, "Mortal Kombat Director says film character's breasts will be faithful to game."
or
"Mortal Kombat will feature cameos from Hillary Clinton and Joe Liberman."
Mansplaining is bad.
Correcting a factual mistake is not mansplaining.
Not getting a joke and correcting a mistake is not mansplaining, it's just being dense.
Purposely acting dumb in an environment where you are ostensibly paid to be an authority... to get someone to correct you isn't really proving the other person is an asshole unless they are correcting you like an asshole. Then they are being an asshole for being an asshole, not for correcting you.
Putting everything together, when paid writers get things wrong all the time, it's pretty common for audiences to expect ostensible authorities can be mistaken. If the idea is to purposely act dumb in hopes of showing how much people are assholes because you clearly are an authority and they should know it because you are a professional, is a little dicey.
This article is clearly a joke. People are dense.
Strikes me as the writer trying to be 'witty' and 'funny' but failed spectacularly at both.
Edit: apparently I'm in the minority, haha. Well this kind of thing is not my type of humor so yeah.
Edit: apparently I'm in the minority, haha. Well this kind of thing is not my type of humor so yeah.
Last edited:
This.
This doesn't make the site look bad, it makes the people getting bent out of shape by it look bad for proving the entire point of what the article was trying to do. Again, something that couldn't of been done if this was posted on The Onion, Hard Drive, The Shovel etc.
To be clear, I don't think the people didn't see the satire are bad or anything - not everyone understands things the same way, especially when it comes to the written word, but if your reaction was anything but "Huh, that's a funny ass goof that probably should've gotten caught before publishing, oh well" and got on with your day then you're part of the punchline. Though really the very absurdity of this being published and not instantly retracted, even without all the winks and nods in the actual article, should give most people a cause to pause and give the author the benefit of the doubt.
I'll say it again but the entire reason that this post works and makes its point is that people don't automatically go in knowing it's a joke like it would be on a purely humour based site. Not to mention a part of the point is the specific place it was posted, and it's leanings in what it covers - Jezabel isn't just another pop culture blog. The article isn't only trying to be funny (I would argue that it isn't even the main point of it, but I don't know the author), it makes a point of how few people actually read, let alone critically, articles before at best shooting hot takes into the dog pile and at worst getting their gatekeepery manplaining hat on to condescended to the "poor woman writer", or in a couple of cases I've seen just mocking women in journalism and writing fields in general a la 2014.
Last edited:
It's actually the opposite of what you're saying. It's so clearly sarcastic in its takedown of the movie (no thinking person or even fan-person would ever think that an MK movie would deserve any Oscars) that its initial tone is of sneering derision.
Which is why the Chun Li slide has people in a tizzy.
It's more like if someone wrote something like:
"The new Call of Duty is showcasing a clearly apolitical piece of pure fun and entertainment. Shooting a bunch of people in the middle east is as apolitical and heartwarming as it gets. Uncle Sam salutes your patronage when you buy this game. Unfortunately, it's the first Call of Duty game to not feature 64-player maps."
The opening is so clearly derisive of the content that the latter part about 64player maps just seems like a factual error/confusion with Battlefield. One gets tricked by thinking that it's just a snide takedown of the content, but the latter portion is bait to get people to correct them on something that is complete immaterial. The number of players is irrelevant when talking about some work's place in the entertainment landscape.
Basically lmao, the salt in here could keep Morton in business for years
Ehhhh, while they tackle serious issues, it's pretty normal for Jezebel articles to be snarky or saucy. I mean just look at their most popular stories right now. They've always been a blog rather than a news site. I'm sure the people who like Jezebel will continue liking them, and the people who hate Jezebel will continue hating them. This Mortal Kombat articles isn't going to change that.
This shit about to be like 16 pages because people can't be lighthearted about a joke article.
Kills me every time
Kills me every time
Because she is still busy filming Tekken movie reboot.
OP you don't even link to the article
jezebel.com
Art like this must be shared.
Who Forgot to Invite Chun-Li to the Mortal Kombat?
Since 2007, Jezebel has been the Internet's most treasured source for everything celebrities, sex, and politics...with teeth.
jezebel.com
I mean...
This, basically. I have no qualms with the target of the joke, but not liking the target doesn't suddenly make the joke funny to me.
Because she's an EA character and they are too stand off-ish with their IPs to give her to FromSoft to put in Smash
Pretty good troll article. I thought it was some solid bait, then I saw the editor's note and thought it was a real correction, but I've settled on the whole thing being bait from top to bottom lol
Here I just assumed the writer fused MKA and The Legend of Chun Li in their minds since both are awful movies.
oh my god people in this thread mansplaining why 'it's satire, but it's bad satire'. full circle
Yup. Quite the thing to see how effective it is and so many people giving the article validity through their responses.
OP
OP
OP has not been edited. I don't have the power to do stealth edits.
I can't see the link anymore (nor can I see it saying it's been edited to be fair to you)
Speaking for kotaku and deadspin most of their staff was replaced and the vast majority went on Twitter to say how shitty it was the last year or so to work there. Our boy press sneak fuck left with Maddy to form triple click. If you can't see the obvious clean housing then I don't know what to say.
Plus jezebel wasn't exactly known for satire/humor. The author attempted satire but opened themselves up to critics with poor execution and then the page got updated to say they were informed Chun li isn't in mortal kombat. Is that another wink to satire or an admission to a mistake? It's needlessly confusing