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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
I'm a firm beleiver that comedy is open to everything and that nothing is off limits! That joke wasn't being aimed at trans people it was just a metaphor created for that particular point. It wasn't malicious or anything like that. Granted jokes can be taken the wrong way but I belive that having the person explain it, is a much better way of understanding then just changing it as nothing is learned.
It's like racism jokes. There are jokes that are actually racist, but there are also jokes that seem racist but are actually poking fun at the subject and making it seem ludicrous. Or the London bombings. We had a choice of wether being "terrified" or getting on with it. Being British we made fun of the terroists thinking that they would be able to get to the people by disrupting the London Underground of all things? Something that runs smoothly for about 1 day a year!
I am a pre-op transsexual and I wasn't offended. However if he regrets the joke then he regrets it.
I guess what happened is that he got uncomfortably close to "MtF's are male, so having sex with them is gay". But his explanation shows that that was not his intention. I like watching How I Met Your Mother and they DO cross that line. You know that classic "You see that girl? That's a man! *puke*", it's not funny to be on the receiving end of. I have a male friend who is afraid to hug me because he thinks it's gay. He jokes "no more than three seconds or it's gay" and it really gets to me. It makes me feel inadequate.
With that said most transsexuals don't want anyone touching their pre-op genitals so I'm not sure who you are fighting for. In fact transgirls in my community are told to stay away from "tranny chasers" because they only want the thrill and don't give a crap about you.
Even as someone who does have a fetish for pre-op trans women and simultaneously identifies as straight, I didn?t find it offensive. I understood the context, felt a little bit annoyed (fact: the largest demographic for T-girl porn are straight men), and moved on. I can understand why some people might find it offensive, but Yahtzee has made equally controversial, if not moreso, jokes that play on stereotypes in previous ZP videos. I mean, I can?t remember all of them, but I can?t think of a reason why there was apparently more of a backlash to this joke than previous ones, other than that transgender people seem to be the most discriminated minority out there.
Not to say that I don?t think he should have changed it. He says he personally regretted the wording of it (and if you think even the most edgy of comedians, or just people in general, don?t have joke standards or regret certain things they say, you?re wrong), and I?m not going to bother making up theories that he was ?forced? to censor himself. There?s no proof of that. It was his decision to change the line, it?s done, that?s it, and the world keeps turning.
I can't believe yahtzee got this far without changing an offensive joke before. Kudos for the long streak, now let's see how long the next one will last.
Lieju said:
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.
That wasn't me who said it, you messed up the quotes.
Relish in Chaos said:
I can?t think of a reason why there was apparently more of a backlash to this joke than previous ones, other than that transgender people seem to be the most discriminated minority out there.
Like I pointed out before, it weren't just people who initially complained about the joke who made the comment-thread explode.
There are quite a lot of anti-trans people here, it seems(at least more than homophobes, for example), and they jumped in the discussion with their opinions on gender identity, and it escalated from there.
God fucking forbid someone make a joke at the expense of transsexuals. I get they're not exactly the happiest bunch of people, being in the wrong bodies and all that, but it's not even a joke about them. It's poking fun at the people who engage in sexual activities with them before their operation to sort out their junk.
I'd just like to quote something that sums up this entire argument:
It bothers me that Yahtzee writes a lot of jokes at the expense of women or anyone who isn't the middle-class, able-bodied, straight, white, cis man.
Okay, fuck everything then. I must be a **** because I'm white, not disabled, not gay and have no issue being born a dude. Oh don't worry though, it's not as if this completely undeserved hatred is completely undeserved, I have all the privilege in the world and life is easy for the likes of me in comparison to someone who isn't all of those things.
It's a joke on the internet. I mean we can start breaking it down and say the implications of the original joke is that it's gay to suck off a pre-op transsexual because they're dudes, and that's offensive to transsexuals because they think that since they consider themselves to be the gender they want to be, it would be strait to suck off a pre-op transsexual, but even that conclusion itself sounds like a fucking joke.
If yahtzee legitimately himself believed the joke was in bad taste and changed it by his own volition, there should be no debate here at all, but he had no OBLIGATION to change it. Honestly I don't get how people thin skinned enough to get offended by things like this survive in the world. It seems like you'd just be a mess, constantly in a state of outrage over fucking nothing.
Anyone who gets offended by a joke is too thinned skin.
I've heard some godawful jokes in my time, but I've never once been offended by. Sure, I've found them tasteless, crude, etc, but not once have I thought 'You know what? This joke hurts my feelings. Time to let everyone know just how hurt my feelings are."
The joke in question was more about cognitive dissonance, then it was a dig at transsexuals, but then again, I've seen some really obvious Critical Miss jokes fly right over the heads of people around here, so hey, what do I know?
If Yahtzee, upon seeing the criticism, reflected, and truly regretted making a joke about transsexuals for his own sake, because he doesn't want to be a guy that makes jokes like that, then I think its fine. He has every right; it's his show. He should be represented the way he wants to be represented by his work.
On the other hand, if he did it simply to appease upset fans then... yeah, it should've stayed. People are too thin-skinned. It wasn't a particularly scathing joke anyway.
Nyeehhhh...
On one hand, I have trouble finding that exactly offensive. Maybe I'm reading it wrong.
On the other hand, if it is offensive to certain peoples, I don't mind it being changed, if just because I don't agree with making hurtful jokes to people who are already bullied/disliked/etc.
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