T w e n t y S i d e d
And so this series comes to an end. Not with a bang, but with a shrug. Eh. It’s pretty okay I guess. I mean, I had fun sometimes.
For as crazy as this world is, Grand Theft Auto V is surprisingly short on laughs. The main story often occupies this strange space where absurd things are happening and everyone is expressing intense emotions, and yet there are almost no jokes. The dialog constantly feels like it’s in the setup phase for a punchline that never comes. While this franchise has been pretty hit-and-miss with regards to comedy, I think the humor has gone downhill over the last decade or so. A lot of different factors contributed to this.
First and most obviously, as the games grew closer to Hollywood they drifted away from the wacky brand of adolescent humor they were built around. Toilet humor and dick jokes work in a world of outrageous cartoon absurdity. They don’t fit so well within a Scorsese movie. On top of that, the games have intensified their attempts at satire and social commentary, which has made them increasingly heavy-handed and mean-spirited. As I said at the start, a lot of the attempted satire is so far off-base that the jokes don’t land. But here in GTA V there is yet another force working against the humor: The writer has stopped trusting the audience and so they keep stopping to explain the joke.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Grand Theft Auto V: Explaining the Joke to Death”
