Culture

An Exhaustive, Deeply Sombre Round-Up Of People Making Fun Of Peter Dutton

Peter Dutton is the internet's punchline. He is the Bing of people.

by Alex McKinnon  11 September 2015
Peter Dutton has injured his bicep.

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Immigration Minister and boiled cabbage Peter Dutton has not been the government’s golden boy lately. After being widely mocked for saying that Fairfax Media is waging “a bit of a jihad” against the government a couple of weeks ago, earlier today he was caught out joking about Pacific island nations being swallowed up by the sea at a press conference, before being reminded that he was standing directly under a boom microphone and making the same face a crash-test dummy makes when the Kia Sorento hits the wall.

The very serious political and diplomatic implications of a senior government minister joking about an issue like this aside, one of the silver linings of this colossal fuck-up has been the forceful collective reminder that Peter Dutton is the internet’s punchline. He’s like if Gob Bluth and Alexander Downer had a baby, and then abandoned that baby in a Red Rooster. Peter Dutton is the Bing of people.

This is something that people have noticed for a while, and today’s monumental display of Peter Dutton-ness was just another excuse for the internet to point it out:

Peter Dutton has been the world’s largest schadenfreude magnet for a long time, even when he hasn’t done or said anything particularly noteworthy. Maybe people aren’t even aware of why they mock Peter Dutton, which somehow makes it all the more satisying. He’s the poor schmo slipping on a banana peel in a 1920s gag reel, only the banana peel is the whole world. 

Undoubtedly the greatest cataloguer of Peter Dutton’s unique glumpness is Sydney comedian, Checkout presenter and sometime Junkee contributor Ben Jenkins, who has devoted an extraordinary amount of energy to pinpointing whatever it is that makes Australia’s current Immigration Minister the human equivalent of a sad trombone sound.

So serious is Jenkins in his mission, he even tries to inhabit the mind of Peter Dutton himself — a dangerous endeavour, given imagining yourself as Peter Dutton is pretty much the dictionary definition of “gazing into the abyss”.

At this point, I’m starting to get worried about him.

duttbutt

Jenkins’ sanity or lack thereof aside, one fact is inescapable: in a government full of Jerrys from Parks and Recreation, Peter Dutton is Kyle. They even look the same.

bigpete

Oh God.

Peter Dutton, if you’re reading this: you tried, okay buddy? You … you tried.