On The Only Good Bug is a Dead Bug (AKA Helldivers 2, Starship Troopers, and Satire)

For the last week or so, I’ve been playing a new game called Helldivers 2. It’s a futuristic shooter where the brave citizens of Super Earth venture out into space to push back the masses of bloodthirsty Terminid bugs and villainous Automaton threats to keep humans everywhere safe. Thematically, it is an incredible satire of fascism, the military-industrial complex, and xenophobia. It’s also a dead ringer for an unlicensed Starship Troopers game and it got me thinking about works of satire that are so committed to the bit, so unapologetically satirical that they’re misunderstood for decades. So, let’s think about it together.

Let me know in the comments below how many of you have seen Starship Troopers. For those of you who haven’t…Starship Troopers is the 1997 film directed by Paul Verhoeven, based on the book of the same name. This movie absolutely kicks ass IF (and it’s a big if) you know what you’re watching. At first glance, (and apparently, to many of the critics who watched it in 1997) it’s a film about glorifying the military, endorsing fascism, showcasing dizzying amounts of violence, and sympathizing with Nazi-adjacent ideologies. What it REALLY is, is a scathing takedown of jingoism, nationalism, and totalitarian fascism.

During the film, the world is ruled by the United Citizen Federation (UCF) under which, there are two classes of people: civilians and citizens. One can only become a citizen by serving in the military and becoming a citizen is the only way to gain the right to vote, allows poor kids to go to college (if they survive their service), and gives you a leg up in applying to have children…pretty grim stuff! The logo of the UCF is a direct rip-off of the Nazi coat of arms and the officers’ uniforms are almost exact copies of Nazi officer uniforms, right down to the hats and boots!

The thing about all of the above is EVERY CHARACTER IS AN ABSOLUTE MORON! ON PURPOSE! The UCF is utterly unprepared for its war, led by idiots, and only moderately succeeds on a small scale by throwing soldier after soldier into a metaphorical meat grinder. Our protagonist, Johnny Rico, rises through the ranks from Private all the way to Lieutenant simply by his superiors dying in front of him. At no point in the movie does this Aryan-looking-ass-man do anything deserving of a promotion and yet he continually fails upwards…it’s perfect.

Through researching the critical and public response to Starship Troopers, then and now, I was introduced to the concept of “Poe’s Law.” Poe’s Law boils down to the fact that “a parody of something extreme can be mistaken for the real thing, and if a real thing sounds extreme enough, it can be mistaken for a parody…” Totalitarian fascism is about as extreme as it gets and Starship Troopers and Helldivers 2 are beautiful critiques of fascism because of the extreme lengths they take their satire.

What are some of your favorite satires or critiques? Were they well regarded when they were released or did it take time for them to be fully understood?