I think there are two basic rules for satirical work, though they can be left open to interpretation. These are:
- Satire should be used by the weak to mock the strong.
- However it’s achieved, the intent of the author has to be evident in the work itself.
This isn’t a controversial definition. Some might take issue with the former, and there certainly is something to the claim that the flaws of the weak still deserve scrutiny; after all, while most people would agree that a lot of radical feminists belong to groups that are marginalised and lacking privilege, there is still an ideology being espoused that’s problematic at best (not least certain attitudes regarding transgender women).
That’s a sidebar, though - ideology belongs in its own strange camp, and there are aspects of satire that wouldn’t apply in that sort of space. I feel comfortable attacking Republican representatives by calling them senile, decrepit old men as part of making a wider point about their horrible values; by contrast, calling veterans of the Second World War the same would be spiteful and lacking in any wider context.
This first rule is forgotten by patently unfunny people when they try and justify so-called “offensive” humour. Jokes about women being bitches or whores, quips about black people and ironic appropriation of marginalised cultures are excused as “just a joke”, but don’t seem all that funny when you work out who the butt of those jokes really are. (Interestingly, I think this is why comedians like Louis CK complicate this dynamic - he jokes about truly horrific stuff, but often in a way that makes him the butt of his jokes, rather than the victims and downtrodden people he references. But that’s another story.)
What’s infuriating me more lately, though, is the ignorance of that second rule by both sides. There are those who try and state that their work is satire without any clues whatsoever in the work. They tend to be in the same camp as the people above, though not exclusively. But on the other side, there are people who claim that because a piece of work isn’t overblown or belabouring a point - effectively sticking up a banner with giant red text proclaiming the work’s message - it can’t be seen as satirical.
To take an example that’s presumably faded a little from popular outrage to the point where it can be discussed rationally (so, not Grand Theft Auto V), Far Cry 3 was a perfect example of both of those outlooks being touted every five minutes at the time of the game’s release.
Jeffrey Yohalem, the game’s creative director, was very clear in interviews that the portrayal of racial stereotypes in Far Cry 3 was done with greater authorial oversight, and that the idea of the protagonist as a “white messiah” was executed with tongue firmly in cheek.
The wider reaction differed from this outlook, though in what respect is what deserves some recognition. There were plenty who thought that Far Cry 3 delivered its satire perfectly, for better or worse - quite a lot glossed over the more problematic aspects, and a select few made an earnest attempt to pick apart those areas and justify them in the context of the whole game. On the flip side, there were plenty of people who were outraged, calling Yohalem an out-and-out racist and worse, who refused to even acknowledge Far Cry 3 as a satirical enterprise, flawed or otherwise.
(I should add, at this point, that the issue of race isn’t the only thing that Far Cry 3 tries to explore, and on the topic of sexual violence it delivers extremely poorly, though not in the way games tend to. Rather than sensationalising or, worse, titillating the player, it instead refuses to engage with the issue at all, which is almost okay until you argue - as Yohalem did - that there was a disappointingly facile point to it all.)
One of the best examples of satire that I’ve ever heard is Peter Cook’s portrayal of the late prime minister Harold MacMillan, where he delivers a pitch-perfect impression filled with MacMillan’s signature xenophobia and casual idiocy. There is very little that explicitly condemns MacMillan, and hardly anything that the man couldn’t plausibly end up saying - it’s an eerily on-point impersonation as condemnation, rather than a pointed comment from the outside. There is a reason why politicians are so open to satire - all it takes is for someone more eloquent to stand on a stage and repeat their words verbatim for it to be cast in a different light, because by that point the only thing that needs to change is the context. Jon Stewart can just play clips of Republican party members talking about the government shutdown, and the comedic work is done for him.
Racism is a harder one to tackle, because outside the core of deliberate bigots, there are plenty of people who might slide into racism accidentally or “ironically” (and, again - talking about “ironic” racism is a discussion for another day, but we’ll move on and just call it for what it is - racism). Miley Cyrus twerking is not as awful as Arizona requiring everyone to carry their identity papers, ready for aggressive racial profiling, but it’s still part of the same culture.
Again, politicians are easy to satirise because the divide between us and them sometimes feels like a gulf. Racism does not afford the same opportunity. We might have family members who are racist, or friends who make racist jokes, and usually we find enough in their characters to redeem them to justify keeping the connection there.
And that’s not to say you can’t satirise racism. Of course you can. But it’s a harder thing to achieve, and - here’s the key - when you’re dealing with something that requires shades of subtlety, unless you’re disarmingly proficient, you will probably paint some of those shades wrong. In Far Cry 3, those shades come up in the NPCs who continue their archaic tribal dancing even when you aren’t looking in their direction (implying, contrary to Yohalem’s assertion, that it’s not just an elaborate performance intended to deceive the protagonist), or the fact that all of the island’s inhabitants tend to look the same (despite the massive diversity among the largely-white principal cast). Or the fact that the main antagonist is considerably whiter than the people to which he belongs. Or the fact that one of the most deplorable characters you encounter also happens to be one of the most charismatic, even likeable at points.
Far Cry 3 is a satirical work with gaping flaws - flaws that often render the project of satire altogether unsuccessful. But it still feels like an attempt at satire.
There is very little in the game that doesn’t feel like it has an authorial stamp on it. Everything has a purpose beyond the fact of the events themselves, whether it’s the liberal borrowing from Heart of Darkness and Alice in Wonderland, or the action-movie tropes it sometimes borrows and subverts, down to the aspects where the directorial vision has failed. There is a point to everything, but it’s muddled.
What’s hard to figure out, for me, is whether failed attempts are okay. There are very few big-budget games that actively satirise their subjects. Most play relatively uncontroversial stories straight. Some play controversial stories straight (by “controversial”, here, I mean of the hopelessly boring variety - casual references to sex and violence for the sake of marketing pull, rather than any real intelligence). Some opt for out-and-out parody. I’d argue that the Saints Row franchise is a stellar example of a parody of Grand Theft Auto-style games, but it lacks the wit or pointedness to really be called satire.
Spec Ops: The Line was an interesting, if humourless satire of military shooters, though that comes with its own issues and dissonance. There are aspects of Gone Home, particularly early on, that satirise tropes in horror games by repeating and then subverting them. These are fairly easy things to satirise, though.
I’m reluctant to play this card, because I don’t think that a lack of first-hand experience denies people from eloquent expression of fictionalised marginalisation, but there has to be something in the fact that the games industry is dominated by white men. And I mean that in the plural, here, because what often comes across isn’t an individual perspective, but the atmosphere in which those men communicate - one that doesn’t have to deal with racism, or sexism, by virtue of their privilege. These are things they can certainly learn about, and perhaps some writers in the big-budget games industry have even had to deal with this sort of thing first-hand. Jennifer Hepler faced a lot of bile as a writer on the Mass Effect franchise, for one, escalating to threats against her family; all that said, BioWare’s work of late has generally been more sophisticated regarding gender issues than most other studios.
Personally, I think that denying the possibility of a successful satire of racism or sexism to a particular demographic is a bad idea. I’ve experienced this sort of thing myself, incidentally: in the book I’m currently editing, I’ve written three female protagonists, and as a fairly well-studied feminist who’s borne witness to plenty of real-world prejudice I still feel abject terror that I’m doing something wrong. But even allowing for that, writers who want to get their teeth into issues that are outside their own lived experience need to research this sort of thing thoroughly, especially when there’s a chance of trivialising the lives of minorities for the sake of a cheap point. When you play with the lives of the weak, even if you’re using them to make a point about the strong, it makes sense to take extra care.