Poll: Yahtzee changes joke in ZP video

chinangel

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Lightknight said:
chinangel said:
as I said before: gay men are attracted to masculinity, tell me what is masculine about a pair of breasts? Nothing. Transsexual porn is not directed at gay men because it features a man/woman and a transsexual. It's targeted at heterosexual and bisexual men.

I'm sorry but i've read a lot on this (my library had a shockingly large amount on the subject) and well...the fact is that heterosexual men are attracted to femininity, gay men: masculinity.

There are just some men who fetishize (sp?) a woman with a dick, and they identify as heterosexual, it's why futanari hentai is so prevalent.

it's a weird thing about sexuality I suppose.
It should be assumed that by the nature of the joke that this was a pre-op transexual with a dick that the individual was sexually a male. How, in your scenario, is the individual supposed to have feminine breasts if they're pre-op (aka, have not undergone a sex change in which breast augmentation is usually part of the process)? Hormonal supplementation can do a little along those lines but it doesn't go the full-nine yards.

I get that there is a culture around what you're specifically talking about, but I fail to see how it applies to this particular setup? I believe your particular offense would only make sense if Yahtzee had used a term like shemale or something to indicate that it was a feminine individual that differed from females in only one region. You don't seem unreasonable, so perhaps looking at it from this angle may shed a new light on the topic.

Thanks for your response, by the way. I hope I'm not making you feel uncomfortable or insulted.
I'm neither uncomfortable nor insulted, just trying to be informing ^^

And actually hormones do a lot for breast growth. THey follow a genetic pattern that is dormant in CIS men. Basically, look at your mother, that would be your breast growth if you were transgendered or female, and estrogen activates that. In most cases, Breast Augmentation surgery is not part of the procedure, though some choose to get it.

I can see this being the case if the person in question was a crossdresser, though again crossdresser's are not always gay: a large portion of them are men, so...yeah this joke is a bit confused.
 

Lightknight

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chinangel said:
Lightknight said:
chinangel said:
as I said before: gay men are attracted to masculinity, tell me what is masculine about a pair of breasts? Nothing. Transsexual porn is not directed at gay men because it features a man/woman and a transsexual. It's targeted at heterosexual and bisexual men.

I'm sorry but i've read a lot on this (my library had a shockingly large amount on the subject) and well...the fact is that heterosexual men are attracted to femininity, gay men: masculinity.

There are just some men who fetishize (sp?) a woman with a dick, and they identify as heterosexual, it's why futanari hentai is so prevalent.

it's a weird thing about sexuality I suppose.
It should be assumed that by the nature of the joke that this was a pre-op transexual with a dick that the individual was sexually a male. How, in your scenario, is the individual supposed to have feminine breasts if they're pre-op (aka, have not undergone a sex change in which breast augmentation is usually part of the process)? Hormonal supplementation can do a little along those lines but it doesn't go the full-nine yards.

I get that there is a culture around what you're specifically talking about, but I fail to see how it applies to this particular setup? I believe your particular offense would only make sense if Yahtzee had used a term like shemale or something to indicate that it was a feminine individual that differed from females in only one region. You don't seem unreasonable, so perhaps looking at it from this angle may shed a new light on the topic.

Thanks for your response, by the way. I hope I'm not making you feel uncomfortable or insulted.
I'm neither uncomfortable nor insulted, just trying to be informing ^^

And actually hormones do a lot for breast growth. THey follow a genetic pattern that is dormant in CIS men. Basically, look at your mother, that would be your breast growth if you were transgendered or female, and estrogen activates that. In most cases, Breast Augmentation surgery is not part of the procedure, though some choose to get it.

I can see this being the case if the person in question was a crossdresser, though again crossdresser's are not always gay: a large portion of them are men, so...yeah this joke is a bit confused.
I think his edit of the joke certainly got rid of any possibilities.

I haven't seen HRT be that effective unless taken at a really young age. You can absolutely get men with breasts I think it's clear that Yahtzee was just referring to a fully male body before the operation. The are absolutely exceptions but I doubt we would really confuse that with him talking about a mostly female body that had a dick.
 

Queen Michael

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You know, if transsexual people's feelings were hurt by this, then I applaud Yahtzee for changing it. I'm happy that he actually cares about the feelings about people who appreciate his work. Transsexuals have a hard enough time as it is.

Let me be frank: That your videos are controversial is one thing. But if they geuinely hurt the feelings of people who were supposed to enjoy them, then you're doing something wrong. Yahtzee understands that.
 

LetalisK

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If Yahtzee wants to change the joke, I don't particularly care and I'm not going to assume he was pressured by anyone to do it nor would I hold it against him as that just seems like a silly thing to do. I have no reason to believe he didn't do it genuinely. That said, that doesn't mean I can't also disagree with the controversy around it.
 

Rosiv

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Lightknight said:
Rosiv said:
Well HRT can make a completely feminine body that has a dick, so its possible, i dont want to be crude, but there are pre-operative pornstars that have surprised me on a many occasion of browsing. I mean it depends on the age of transition, i dont really think MtF get breast implants anyways, else that would conflict with the HRT they would take, ie: breast growth on breast growth.

I guess it comes down to what pre-op means, which is iffy. Although if you consider the phrase op to mean operation, then it would connotate the vaginoplasty, which doesnt exclude HRT.
I'd say you're taking offense to what would be a very specific situation. An exception to the norm of an already uncommon demographic. I think the intention was pretty clear in the context of the discussion. It was referring to a transexual female who was still every bit a male physically. As you stated, heterosexual males are attracted to femininity and homosexual males to masculinity. His point was very much on an individual attracted to masculinity.

I just think it's clear and that you'd have to work at it for a few exceptions for male bodies that recieved HRT at a VERY young age. Most don't get that opportunity. In fact, it's commonly considered unethical to give them before a reasonable age in many places.
Well i personally didnt take offense, im just saying that hormones arent perfect, but they can result in good bodies even not counting age, it also depends on what you mean by good body, i mean some women are just androgynous in general. Some people take to hormones well, others dont. I mean even women with regular levels who are natural born end of with masculine builds for who knows what reason.

But according to the joke image, the person in question at the time was flat, and had a beard, so i guess they were male bodied, to a degree. So i cant say you are wrong i guess.
 

IceForce

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Monxeroth said:
I feel kinda compelled to upload the original now to youtube just because :L
I was wondering if anyone saved the original.
I tried googling around, but couldn't find it.

I assumed that no one thought to save it, since no one expected Yahtzee to change it.
I certainly didn't expect a ZP video to be edited just to change a joke in it.
 

Lightknight

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Rosiv said:
Well i personally didnt take offense, im just saying that hormones arent perfect, but they can result in good bodies even not counting age, it also depends on what you mean by good body, i mean some women are just androgynous in general. Some people take to hormones well, others dont. I mean even women with regular levels who are natural born end of with masculine builds for who knows what reason.

But according to the joke image, the person in question at the time was flat, and had a beard, so i guess they were male bodied, to a degree. So i cant say you are wrong i guess.
After a certain age, the effects of HRT are unable to reverse a number of changes brought on by puberty. This includes, for example, body hair and bone structure. The breasts also aren't formed as fully as they would have been had the person been born physically female.

But yes, the accompanying image was a very masculine individual.
 

Smeatza

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MarsAtlas said:
Classifies, segregates, and sometimes dehumanizes people. Its actually a documented psychological effect. I don't want to sound like a hippie or an alarmist, but there's a good reason as to why you should avoid deadpan jokes at the expense of an entire people group.
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide#Stages_of_genocide.2C_influences_leading_to_genocide.2C_and_efforts_to_prevent_it ).
I see what you're saying, but they're more of a warning sign than they are a confirmation of dehumanisation.

MarsAtlas said:
Of course there's a difference between a joke that is an observation about what happens to a group of people and about a joke about that group of people themselves. The joke wasn't an observation of transgender people, it was more of a bash at closeted politicians defending their actions while it was implicitly stating that a transgender woman is really just down pat a man.
The way I saw it, it was stating that pre-op transgender women have penis'. Nothing more.
For the joke to work Yahtzee needed a group of people who have penis' but aren't men. So that the subject of the joke could say "I might be sucking a dick but I'm not gay because this person is not a man."
The only possible implications there are of homosexuality.

In typing this post though I have come to realise that there is an interpretation of the joke which is directly offensive. When looked at in a certain light both the implication you mentioned is made to the audience and the subject of the joke is mocked for having a more accurate understanding of gender identity than the audience.

MarsAtlas said:
Because he's not actually perpetuating anything on an entire group in most of his other jokes, and when he does, its with exaggeration to let people know he wasn't serious. The exaggeration itself is typically the joke. There's no exaggeration in the "pre-op transsexual" joke, however, its intent to focus on some lying politician, whether it be on the basis he's denying his homosexual tendencies or that he's defending his promiscuous activities. Again, accidentally, he perpetuates the idea that transgender identities aren't legitimate.
I can see how it would look that way in some interpretations. That's the thing about comedy, it can seem completely innocuous from one angle.......

MarsAtlas said:
I do understand the fundamentals of comedy. I understand that it wasn't his intention for the joke to be transphobic. But it was, even if it was an accident. Granted, yes, some people know think he's a bigot, and I think thats a misjudgment, an overreaction on their part over a (slightly regrettable) choice of words, and I'm not denying that there were people like that. Their existence doesn't mean that there wasn't something wrong with the joke to begin with, though.
Does that mean there's something wrong with the joke itself though? If it's only cissexist (much more applicable term) under certain interpretations, is there something wrong with the joke? Or just the way it's told? Did the reference to pre-op transexuals have to be removed entirely? Or could the joke just have been adjusted to remove the implication?

Bearing all of the above in mind. I don't blame Yahtzee for removing the reference anymore, it will have been much easier (and probably less controversial) than amending the joke. I just wish he'd defended the joke just a tiny bit, acknowledged that it could be viewed in an innocuous light as well.

MarsAtlas said:
I'll just leave this here then, so you understand why thats a bad thing for transpeople.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transphobia

As always with Wikipedia, its a good starting resource, but rarely a good destination.
Now that's a bit dramatic, discrimination and persecution are not the same as ignorance and generalisation.
"Transphobia is a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards transsexualism and transsexual or transgender people, based on the expression of their internal gender identity."
Not relevant to my comment.
"Cissexism, which is sometimes used as a synonym of transphobia, refers to the assumptions that all men and all women are biological male or female and that trans people are inferior to cis people."
This is, now I'm not sure if both of those are required for cissexism, or just one of them. But nobody here is stating that trans folk are inferior to anyone else so we can throw that out.
The assumption that "all men and all women are biological male or female" is inherently ignorant. Even if one knew nothing about gender identity, a basic knowledge of genetics would debunk that assumption. So, can general ignorance be considered discriminatory itself? Because I think it just more easily allows for discriminatory behaviour.

I do see where you're coming from, but I don't like equating ignorance with hate (i.e. the lack of a knowledge of gender identity being equated with transphobia).
 

Erana

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I don't think it needed to be changed; this is the internet, after all.

However, this doesn't feel like someone backing down when faced with repercussions for their actions, this feels like someone going "Hey, sorry, I genuinely wasn't thinking that what I said would hurt in that way. That was far from my intention." You know, how mature, grown-up people handle things like this in a civilized situation. Yahtzee obviously doesn't hate transsexuals or transgender people, and ultimately, arguing for his right to use transsex/gender peoples in his joke not even relevant, as the Extra Punctuation article explains, because he was alluding directly to the content of the video game in question.

As far as I'm concerned, this issue is over and done, with my further respecting Yahzee as a writer and person for responding calmly and respectfully about this matter.
 

Gamer_152

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I wasn't offended by the joke, but I did think it was a rather exclusionary joke in a community and wider society that is already far too exclusionary to trans people. Good on Yahtzee for making the change.
 

Geowulf

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I'm a Nationalist Socialist and I have been offended by Yahtzee's jokes about nazis! I demand an apology!
It saddens me that my favorite game critic decided to let politcal correctness ruin the joke.
Yahtzee is gay, it's official now. :p
 

Dismal purple

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If Yahtzee did this on his own volition and wasn't pressured into it then it can't be anything but a good thing.
 

Sparrow

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It entirely depends for me.

Did he change it because he regretted saying it on a personal level, or did he change it because he didn't want to piss people off/the editorial staff told him to change it? If it's the former, I'm a-ok with it. If it's the latter, I don't think he should have changed it.
 

Mersadeon

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If you can't take a joke, it's your fault. Comedy knows no bounds. Do you think Jimmy Carr has to change his program? Hell no, it's offensive to everyone, and that's the fun in it. You have to be able to laugh about yourself.

And more specifically - if you're easily offended by politically incorrect jokes, why are you watching Zero Punctuation? That's like a catholic going to a Ricky Gervais show and getting offended. You knew the deal.
 

Mr F.

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Strazdas said:
MarsAtlas said:
Strazdas said:
Its a joke, its not offensive by definition.
Funny, this is Merriam-Webster's definition of a joke:

Noun

a : something said or done to provoke laughter; especially : a brief oral narrative with a climactic humorous twist

Doesn't mention anything about being offensive. Most jokes have a victim, the butt of the joke. Yahtzee's intended butt of the joke is a closeted politician trying to defend his affairs. However, he worded it in a way that implies that transsexual women aren't women, hence transphobic, hence why people were upset. Nobody really gets upset when a lying asshole hypocrite is the butt of the joke, but when its a marginalized minority and the joke accidentally perpetuates hate for said minority, there's a good reason to be upset with the joke. Note that I said "the joke", not "the joke-teller".
A joke is done to provoke laughter. It is not done to provoke offence or offend others. Thus the definition as you posted yourself is kind of self explanatory. Jokes dont ahve victims. some people think that everything they dont like makes them victims is all.
So...

How do you kill a thousand flies at once?
Slap an Ethiopian in the face

That joke was not racist nor offensive, nor is it making light of a crippling famine which has killed thousands. It is not offensive because it is a joke! Jokes cannot be offensive! The fact that there are thousands of jokes out there which are utterly offensive, jokes out there which you would not dream of telling to your mother, jokes out there which in certain company would get you clocked on the jaw so hard your head revolved doesn't mean squat.

All jokes are inoffensive.

Right.

Sorry man, You are quite simple, utterly, on every level, wrong. Jokes can be as offensive as anything else.

I like the bit where everyone who seems to be angry that the joke was changed has utterly ignored his own apology and the reasons behind him changing said joke. Its amazing how hard people can miss a point. The second joke, in context, makes more sense and is less insulting. Yet everyone is willing to cry censorship.

Censorship would have been if the government refused to allow his show to continue. Censorship is me getting a "This page has been blocked" page because I wanted to look at a reversed gif of a kitten being rescued from a busy road (And apparently there is a blanket ban on that particular website. I am just glad there aint a blanket ban on the entirety of reddit.)

Freedom of speech is the freedom to say what you like without the government stopping you. Nothing else. If you make a joke, which you then realise is incredibly poor and someone points it out to you, you look at the joke, agree, and then change said joke, you have not been censored. Someone has pointed out a faux pas. Freedom of speech, this idea that everyone seems to be jumping at trying to defend, is not freedom from consequence.

If you say something homophobic, someone might tear you a new asshole. Both of you are excercising your right to freedom of speech.

So come on people. Flame me. Bring it. Or don't, because if you are enraged at a joke being changed, I really do not care about your opinion. If you see an issue here, I really do not care about your opinion. Much like I will choose to avoid talking to people who I find despicable.

Because it is incredibly relevant, I will once again just quote his apology.

Yahtzee said:
I suspect, though, that the image was latched onto because it was more visible, and the actual problematic remark was one from earlier in the video along the lines of "'Co-op single player' is like saying 'I'm not gay, I only suck off pre-op transsexuals'". And that one I do regret, in retrospect. It was supposed to be a joke about cognitive dissonance, that a man in denial about being gay would seek out things with penises attached that aren't necessarily men, but I realise now that this was a poor choice of words, because some people who identify as female have cocks. Lord knows I have nothing to gain from enforcing gender roles, 'cos I don't like cars OR football. I should probably have gone for something like 'I'm not gay, I only suck off pantomime dames.'
Yeah, my opinion of quite a few people is dropping as this "Controversy" runs further. The joke was offensive, Yahtzee stated that he regretted it. The reason why is he was indicating, accidentally, that people who have cocks attached are by default male, despite
some people who identify as female have cocks.
The joke in question normalises the opinion that this is the case, this opinion is incorrect.

So, if anyone wants to have a real discussion about identity and othering, I will be around. If anyone wants to just flame me because "ALL JOKES ARE INOFFENSIVE" and "CENSORSHIP" and other such bullshit, I will also be around.

To post statistics of how much more likely you are to face domestic violence as a trans person. To point out what victimisation is. To try and explain why innocent little jokes like this, born of being thoughtless, cause damage and why good jokes, such as the Trans horse in Dr Who, do not make people angry and are actually beneficial.

You can be funny without being offensive.
 

Geowulf

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MR. F, I suggest you make up your mind on single thought instead of babbling around.
Guess what? Yes, the joke was funny! So how is offensive??? As you quoted, Joke is something that causes laugher, it doesn't say "if joke is offensive it's not a joke then."
Joke should be counted as offensive if it was intentionally to BULLY someone, I don't see Yahtzee bullying anyone.

Grow up.
 

Montezuma's Lawyer

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Lieju said:
I don't think it was offensive to transsexuals, because the joke wasn't on them, it was on homophobes.

It wasn't saying anything about whether they identify as a man or a woman or anything.
It was a joke about someone who liked sucking dick but couldn't admit to being gay.


But it's okay to change your joke if your original intent didn't get across.

Also, it weren't just offended people who made the comment section explode. If transphobes wouldn't have jumped at those comments with their commentary on how trans-people are deluded and whatnot and then getting a response etc it would have never become such a shouting-match.
This guy gets it.

The trans community is used to these jokes, for the most part. Yahtzee is not coming from a place of hate, and everyone knows it. I sincerely doubt that it was changed because of trans people complaining, and moreso to help get rid of the douchebaggery from the transphobes.