Analysis Of The Legend Of Zelda

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2013 was, to lift a phrase from Queen Elizabeth, a year I shall not look back on with undiluted pleasure. It was an annus mirabilis for the hideous (Putin, Assad, Cyrus), an annus horribilis for just about everyone else. Indeed, if the year didn’t imbue you with a deep and abiding dislike of politicians, pundits, and pop stars, then you weren’t paying attention, had long ago determined that they were all loathsome anyway, or just might consider lowering your Klonopin dosage.
You see, the problem with the 24-hour news cycle is that one must fill it with news, a word with ever more definitional elasticity. So when tallying the worst writing of 2013, let us declare off-limits all that outraged scribbling about Paula Deen’s downfall, the god- …show more content…

At a loss for what to write about? How about undergraduate analyses of popular culture through the prism of race, class, and gender? Is Breaking Bad sending coded messages of white supremacism? Is liberal comedian Patton Oswalt a racist? How about a helpful analysis of The Legend of Zelda, a video game celebrating its 15th anniversary, which concludes that “the ways it deals with class, race, gender and animal rights are all deeply problematic.” (The same writer followed up with an apparently serious column on the best “video game for …show more content…

On the environmentalist website Grist.com, he offered an effusive apology, which no one demanded because no one noticed the initial offense: “Looking back on it with a few hours’ perspective, this is a classic outbreak of White Dude Privilege Syndrome. Let’s walk through it and see what we can learn from it.” How about we don’t. This is, somehow, a perfect distillation of online commentary at the close of 2013: a writer being an asshole—possibly a sexist asshole—on Twitter, followed by the same writer coming to his senses and deciding instead to be reflective and insufferable in column form.
If I can be allowed an award for the most clueless and obvious commentary of 2013, the prize would surely go to this impossibly stupid column on CNN.com opposing the legalization of marijuana: “Why are some of the people who petition for legalizing marijuana so passionate about it? Because when you smoke pot, you get loaded. You fry your brain. That’s why the patients I see in my treatment center call it ‘getting baked.’ Pot is all about getting really

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