Pirates lived lives full of untold wonder. They spent their time exploring the seas, and raiding those unfortunate enough to cross their path for the chance at glory and riches. But I guess you wouldn’t know anything about that. Because apparently, you’re too fucking good for pirates, huh?
You ask people, “Hey, what’s the best pirate movie?” You know what they’ll say, 9 times out of 10? Pirates of the fuckin Caribbean. I know you were thinking it, too. Those were good when I was 12, but now what? Where do I go from here? How am I supposed to mindlessly consume as a late-stage-capitalist sheep without my niche interest being sated? Did the Hollywood hive mind decide that the pirate genre deserved to die alongside the need to produce anything other than soulless sequels?
It’s made even worse by looking at the movies closer. That time where Davy Jones lost his heart because his divine ex-wife decided to experiment with macrophilia, bullshit. The main plot relying on this mystical fucking compass that leads people to their true loves or whatever the fuck, bullshit. Those frilly powdered wigs that half the fucking cast wore, absolute bullshit. How am I supposed to indulge in my totally legitimate pirate fantasies without being reminded of this vapid nautical headache?
Don’t even get me started on pirate video games. All I want to do it to be able to role-play as the captain of my decked out square mast brig, desperately scrubbing the bilge out of my scurvy-ridden flesh. But no. Instead, every game follows a pay-to-win model that wants me to cash out for the golden cannon that shoots blazing super-Saiyan cannonballs or some other uninspired drivel. The only passable options require giving money to Ubisoft or spending an ungodly amount of time learning how to stop my vessel from clipping through the tutorial dock.
It doesn’t help matters that the only cultural impacts from our swashbuckling ruffians are that one episode of lazy town and promiscuous costumes during Halloween. Even the porn isn’t that good. Why do none of the actors have crabs? Why do they all have a full set of teeth? How am I supposed to get off without Blackbeard himself going to pound town with his first mate? Ridiculous.
For now, the last bastion for honest-to-goodness plundering will remain my bathtub. My therapist says that I’m far too fixated on this pirate thing, but pirates never listened to their therapists anyway.
