hey everyone this is jared creator of
all things wisecrack
and today we've got another special
episode for you guys many people have
called grand theft auto 5 a satire some
have called it social commentary
and some have called it sarcasm world
doesn't need any more sarcasm
it's the blight of the age but which is
it people tend to get sarcasm irony and
satire mixed up
it's kind of like squares and rectangles
you know that thing how
all squares are rectangles but not all
recognizer squares
or is it vice versa we need a math
channel
welcome to this special episode on
social commentary satire and parody
in grand theft auto 5.
it's perhaps no coincidence that the
opening scene in the game takes place in
a therapist's office
the argument can be made that the main
characters michael franklin and trevor
are all incarnations of freud's model of
the unconscious if the constantly
whining michael is the punishing
superego
and the cool-headed fast driving
franklin is the ego then trevor's desire
to blow [ __ ] up hump and kill
everything make him an ideal fit for the
id desire run amok
he died a noble death bringing great joy
to a
lonely man right so let's focus on
trevor phillips
the depraved psychopathic tweaker
residing in sandy shores
he could easily foster a discussion on
mental health and the war on drugs but
the more pertinent and less
mentioned element of trevor is his
relationship to violence torture
and the current state of gaming i
appreciate your honesty
trevor has no qualm smashing a biker in
the face with a bottle and then stomping
his head until it's mush
he has no issues with eliminating an
entire biker gang or kidnapping and
seducing someone's wife you're a good
man
i can see that basically trevor has zero
[ __ ] to give
trevor is in a sense the personification
of the average gta player
the shit-talking crazy person people
become in sandbox
worlds trevor reflects the sociopathic
behavior that most players exhibit when
they play a gta game in this way the
game forces the viewer to confront the
actual personification of their actions
while most people might argue that the
function of this franchise is catharsis
to act out in the virtual world and then
go back to their peaceful existence
having fulfilled their impulse it can be
argued that the very deliberate
psychotic nature of trevor suggests
something else
when presented with a choice to indulge
in debauchery to satiate their most
violent urges
people tend to be pretty messed up
trevor presents us with the more radical
possibility that deep down inside we're
all
violent sickos the terror and macabre
pleasure we derive from trevor's actions
force us to confront this trevor
essentially presents a meta-fictional
element to the game
traditionally defined as fiction about
fiction we would have to adjust our
definition in wording to say something
like
grand theft auto presents us with meta
gaming games about games
it's not only killing robbing and
prostituting that this sandbox game
allows you to do
it also enables you to do inane things
like yoga
somebody say yoga which is the most
boring pointless minigame
ever tennis bike riding golf
darts hunting skydiving etc but it would
be a mistake to consider the ability to
have these choices as arbitrary if doing
the yoga mini game is boring
then why is mastering troves of people
fun the game has received so much flack
over the years for supposedly empowering
the gamer to random acts of violence but
in gta 5 the player is presented with
viable peaceful alternatives playing the
yoga mini game is just as viable as
random drive-bys
yet people usually choose to bask in
destruction and chaos
in that way the game developers make a
statement about how we project
our own psyche and desire onto the game
and not the developers empowering us
nowhere is this clearer than the most
controversial scene in gta 5 where
trevor tortures an informant for the
f.i.b
not only does he torture someone without
batting an eye he seems to take some
sick pleasure in it
this'll put hair on your chest at one
point ferdinand karamov the tortured
azerbaijani screams
the real question is who's the sadist
trevor or the gamer who enjoys acting
out their psychopathic urges on
fictional characters far from being a
passive acceptance of torture this scene
serves to over-identify with the
sadistic desire to inflict harm
on the threatening terrorists
over-identification is a loaded term
that is best described as a sort of
radical reproduction of what is deemed
taboo
it's a tactic of performance that
undermines power through mimicry
the government knows what's best for you
by forcing the player to violently play
out the very tactics of
quote advanced interrogation techniques
it creates the possibility of provoking
a strong reaction from the gamer
whether it be discussed thereby
subverting the ideology of the war on
terror
or even sadistic enjoyment this is a
form of satire
according to the bedford glossary of
critical and literary terms satire's
goal
is not to abuse so much as to provoke a
response
ideally with some kind of reform it's
easy to lampoon a character that wakes
up in his underwear under a bridge
covered in puke and blood and has no
problem murdering an entire gang to take
over their turf but the more difficult
thing
is to see how trevor's explosion of the
fourth wall creates a reflection for
the gamer that forces a confrontation
with our true psychic selves
and our actual feelings about gruesome
violence i'm sorry
i showed my thingy okay continuing on to
part two
in which we interrogate michael de
santos the california lifestyle
parody and the media like mel brooks
movies the world of los santos is a
somewhat askew representation of reality
in many ways grand theft auto is a
parody
or as is defined a form of high
burlesque that imitates a specific
literary work or style of an author
for comic effect usually to ridicule or
criticize that work author or style
parody is often used to make a satiric
or even political point
android phones are badger phones apple
is replaced by ifroot
fox news is weasel news even complete
with a fictional news ticker
american idol is famous shame the mark
zuckerberg bill gates and steve jobs the
world are all combined to make
jay norris google maps is i find and
facebook is life invader
michael de santos a retired bank robber
in witness protection provides a
conduit to discuss the cliche california
lifestyle
concerned with the economy capitalism
personal fitness
paparazzi celebrity and all forms of
media
michael is the only character that
routinely watches tv and is enamored
with old movies
a parody of the stereotypical los
angelino likewise michael's wife
is enamored with her tennis coach and
her yoga instructor
back into my palace michael one straps
his backpack listens to horrible music
his son has identity issues come on dude
i get real crazy
his psychologist is utterly inept
cynical and greedy
family work is a little more expensive
what double
squared and his daughter messes around
with porno dudes michael like most
snowbirds that navigate to california on
permanent vacation
has hollywood problems even his
criticism is decidedly californian
go to college and you can rip people off
and get paid for it
it's called capitalism michael rails
against capitalism but doesn't risk
anything
he's still chasing that san andreas
dream i was just lost in an 80s movie
fantasy
michael is smug in his criticism of
capitalism but he still owns a yacht
a fancy house tricked out cars several
giant televisions
a tennis court pool and a decent
collection of snazzy cargo short with
sandal ensembles
michael doesn't really challenge the
underlying logic of consumption
he just sort of complains like most
people in hollywood hypocrisy franklin
civilization's greatest virtue the
setting of the game world itself is a
tongue-in-cheek play on real california
locations
vespucci beach is venice beach vinewood
is hollywood del pero pier is the santa
monica pier
the famous watts towers are renamed the
jefferson towers
compton is reimagined as davis long
beach is cypress flats
the pacific palisades are renamed the
pacific bluffs bel air becomes richmond
or rich man and the salton sea is
renamed the alamo sea where the
surrounding desert in gta is the sandy
shores where in reality
that area is the hipster sands of the
coachella valley
grand theft auto 5 goes to ridiculous
lengths to ensure verisimilitude the
amount of
hours and labor spent to create such an
enormous living breathing environment is
outstanding
the attempt to create a world that seems
real to the player is commendable
but perhaps at times a little bit too
real to the point that lindsay
lohan has sued rockstar over the use of
her likeness
for the creation of the character lacey
jonas a former child star who has exiled
her parents and is constantly mobbed by
the paparazzi
oh [ __ ] here they come go go go lose
them
sound familiar gta 5 presents an all-out
criticism of our media driven world
all forms of radio television film and
social media are fair game
some of the most stinging criticisms
come when you're driving from place to
place
listening to talk radio
the gaming and tech industries aren't
exempt either jimmy plays a strange game
where you slaughter pigs
michael infiltrates the life invader
campus to find coders unable to close
copious not safe for work pop-ups and
run
simple anti-virus software and lester is
constantly shouting while he undoubtedly
teabags the people he domes in his first
person shooter
if trevor serves as a way to criticize
the ever-encroaching onslaught of drugs
and violence in the media
michael is perhaps the most cynical
character michael's storyline
digs at the feeling of emptiness
inherent in the shallow upper-class
california lifestyle
of a lifestyle built around appearance a
world of plastic surgery
self-help leisure and misery
our third section in which we discuss
franklin the commodification and
appropriation of black culture
and white-collar crime franklin clinton
an ambitious youth from south los santos
serves as a sort of catalyst for the
game franklin's repossession of jimmy's
vehicle is the precipitating event that
brings michael out of retirement but it
is franklin's role in the market that
serves as a critical starting point for
our discussion when lester asks franklin
to make
moves to ensure the manipulation of the
stock market an interesting contrast is
made
no matter how many people disappear no
matter how suspicious the deaths may be
no matter how much money is made betting
on the stock market
no one is ever sent to jail you
literally
cannot get caught for insider trading in
gta 5 which is pretty funny given
franklin's hatred of pyramid schemes
that's some [ __ ] pyramid scheme
[ __ ]
if gta is a satire on our contemporary
condition is it any wonder that the
people that make millions and billions
of dollars dubiously
rarely ever see the inside of a jail
cell some of the government
some of it is pretty corrupt not uh
not your bit right yes but we're corrupt
in a good way while economic corruption
may be something that goes unpunished it
doesn't mean the police aren't out in
force
the lack of effort to capture
white-collar criminals is contrasted
with the very real violence that people
deal with in the inner city
whether it be criminal nature or the
violence from the police the lspd's
motto is literally
obey and survive the lspd are a
caricature of the lapd
whose history of race relations is well
stellar see what i did there that's
sarcasm
complicated relations with race are
explored with franklin
each character that isn't a person of
color adapts their own version of street
vernacular when they interact with him
let's trick this whip homie we're
shooting [ __ ] up spraying some
[ __ ] i can drive by with the
best of them what it is holmes
trevor jimmy and devin all change the
way they speak when they see franklin
jimmy in particular serves as a sort of
foil to franklin
brother from another mother a sort of
way to prove his authentic
blackness jimmy merely wears blackness
like a mask
the game does its best to assure us that
franklin is real whenever he smokes weed
from the marijuana lobbyist he doesn't
see
aliens like michael does he just shrugs
it off man this seems a little dry
because the lobbyist has weak [ __ ]
compared to the chronic that franklin
smokes on the reg
appropriation of black culture is an
important discussion in the end jimmy
can act black whenever he wants but he
doesn't have to deal with any of the
daily realities of being a person of
color in america
not unlike the player who gets to pick
up the controller and play a quote
original gangsta whenever they flip over
to franklin
this is much deeper than it seems the
player is allowed distance from the
racial politics of gta
they believe themselves to be part of
the solution and not part of the problem
they aren't acting like jizzle it's hot
out there on the streets like a pimp
ain't it what gta 5 confronts is the
desire for a guilt-free solution to
racism
by asking the player to laugh at white
people awkwardly attempting to pass as
black
while they literally control a
stereotypical shadow of a black male
which is pretty ironic given the number
of white kids in the suburbs feeling
smug because they know they
aren't jizzle at least they think they
aren't they may not have the poser swag
and stupid name
but they do get to participate in
drive-bys getting gang wars and smoke
weed all while believing franklin to be
an accurate depiction of an authentic
black male
just as jizzle lives vicariously through
franklin and the vitality of black
culture you're the black brother
i never have gta 5 self reflexively
makes the audience experience
the very same gratification it makes a
more interesting statement on racial
politics than just
shaming old people and pointing fingers
to say that gta 5 can be reduced to just
a game about stealing cars and blowing
stuff
up is perhaps a mistake i mean it's
about so much more like strip clubs drug
deals and turf wars
sure it's possible to focus on the
sensational aspects of the game but to
just see it as something that glorifies
sex violence and drug use is to choose
to be on the outside
of a long string of inside jokes to
paraphrase a popular song about missing
the point you'd be the type of person
who likes to sing along and shoot their
gun but you wouldn't know what it means
michael trevor and franklin all served
to destabilize the player's ability to
believe
in the validity and seriousness of the
world that they play in
grand theft auto is less an opportunity
to indulge in debauchery and is more
like a mirror that shows america its
true nature
perhaps the writers aren't vindictive
sadists that profit off suffering
but rather are craftsmen that use the
supposed glorification of sex
violence and torture to create a
masterful criticism
of american culture