Jezebel, which describes itself as “a supposedly feminist website,” attempted to play off their Chun-Li gaffe as a joke.
Jezebel and writer Shannon Melero published an article titled “Who Forgot To Invite Chun-Li to the Mortal Kombat?” as a reaction to the recently released Mortal Kombat trailer.
Related: Warner Bros. Releases “Restricted” Mortal Kombat Trailer Featuring Goro
In the article, Melero writes, “But being the astute film critic that I am I immediately clocked a glaring error in the film. Where in all the realms is Chun-Li?”
She continued, “If there is a battle for the fate of Earth then don’t we need all of the greatest warriors gathered, which would include Chun-Li and her spinning bird kick that can knock a man’s head clean off?”
“Sounds like a pretty big plot hole to me that the ultimate street fight is supposed to be won by a ragtag team helmed by Sonya Blade, no offense to the Sonya stans,” she added.
The idiocy is not only in the headline, but the article is glaring for anyone who knows anything about Chun-Li. The character is from the Street Fighter franchise and not the Mortal Kombat franchise.
The publication would be eviscerated online for their stupidity.
Kael_319 wrote, “Shouldn’t people who know about video games write articles about videogames? street fighters is a very important IP.”
CJTH3BEAST wrote, “Chun-Li? Mortal Kombat? What brand of stupid have I come across this time?”
Skythos wrote, “You’d think that someone who claims to have a ‘masters degree from video game school’ in their bio would be better informed about 2 of the most prominent games from the fighting game genre.”
Ultrakat75 added, “Yea the fact YOU can’t comprehend that they are owned by 2 different copyright holders, plus why did they ever think Chun-Li was in Mortal Kombat? Have you even played a MK or SF game ever? Hell the most recent Street Fighter didn’t even come out on Xbox.”
Following this backlash, they would post an update shortly after publication writing, “Jezebel has discovered the answer to our question about Chun Li’s erasure, and it is that Chun Li is not part of the Mortal Kombat megaverse. Wow!”
The obvious tone is that they are trying to play their stupidity off as a joke.
Not only would Jezebel try to play it off as a joke, but Heather Alexandra, known for injecting identity politics into video game journalism, would also attempt to come to the publication’s defense.
Alexandra wrote on Twitter, “The messed up thing with some gamers who still wanna do the whole “my hobby is my castle” thing is that they don’t realize that most of the shit they get precious about has been around for, like… 40 years and isn’t obscure.”
In a subsequent post, Alexandra specifically addressed the Jezebel article writing, “This is re: the Jezebel shitpost. The reason that so many gamers are taking the bait is because they wanna feel like Goddamn Culture Warriors Chun-Li’s been around for 30 years ya dopes. My 60 year old father knows who she is. C’mon now.”
Alexandra concluded, “‘this bitch don’t know cuck li!’ They do. You took the bait (or, worse, had the bait sold to you by out-age merchants) because you somehow think that games culture is arcane when it’s more democratized than ever.”
Related: Kotaku Targets Mortal Kombat 11 for Casting Ronda Rousey as Sonya Blade
Alexandra would also claim the correction was part of their joke. The Twitter user wrote, “That is, in fact, part of the ‘bit.'”
The joke’s on Jezebel. They exposed themselves for being complete and utter morons. No amount of spin is going to fix that. People are laughing at them not with them. Jezebel is the real joke.