Zero Punctuation: Papers, Please and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons

[Warachia]

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. I don't actually know much about Yahtzee's character and I wouldn't assume he's the kind of person that cares if anyone is offended by what he says. I do however know he is an exoerienced writer and as such I would expect him to take some pride in the jokes he writes. Making a joke about a pre-op transexual or having sex with a pre-op transexual is easy because it appeals to the playground humour built on pubescent boys' sexual insecurities and you only have to bring up the image of a man with a penis in his mouth to make the lowest common denominator viewer piss themselves. Generally, good writers find ways of creating comedy that transcend human knee-jerk reactions and I personally apreciate when a writer has assumed that I, the person enjoying their output, is not a club-dragging neanderthal and they attempt comedy with a little more sophistication than "Look at this thing you have been taught to find funny and laugh, sheep".

I reiterate, this has nothing to do with offense, even if that is a can of worms I would be willing to open. This is about being a good writer and creating witty, original humour. I'm not here to speak up for anyone but myself. Jokes about femininity, homosexuality, transexuality, domestic violence, sexual abuse and the ilk are the easy option and unbecoming of anyone who has talent to write better jokes; and, need I say it, have been sufficiently played out over the last few millennia in my opinion.

Believe me, I understand the tight schedule Zero Punctuation has to follow and it is no small task to come up with 50 jokes and fit them in a 5 minute skit every week but as a long-time viewer I would let it be known I'd much prefer 25 curated jokes that didn't involve a penis threatening someone's sexuality or making fun of someone who has done nothing to elicit public ridicule.

First off, Yahtzee has mocked everyone, including "the middle-class, able-bodied, straight, white, cis(?) men" who are his usual generic targets (because they're the easiest to draw).

Secondly, I don't get why people are fine with all of the other offensive jokes, and then they're not fine with a not very offensive transsexual joke, the joke being that even though the person isn't a women (yet) they're not gay, he's using it as a contradiction, and not to mock transsexuals.

Maybe it's just me, but I'd figure a holocaust joke would make people more upset.

 

[Zombie Badger]

In as far as porn sites, I neglected to include "porn aggregation" websites as part of my statement as they typically also include some sort of homosexual section for each gender, somewhat diminishing their value as a point of comparison.

I can understand why you ignored aggregate sites to a certain extent, but my point was more limited to such sites that were clearly aimed at a single demographic (pretty much all lesbian porn found on such sites is made purely for the enjoyment of heterosexual men, porn aimed at lesbians being very different).

...That is unsubstantiated of course, although I'm curious to look into it now.

I think it's good that our conversation has made us interested in trying more about the subject at hand.

 

[JudgeGame]

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. I don't actually know much about Yahtzee's character and I wouldn't assume he's the kind of person that cares if anyone is offended by what he says. I do however know he is an exoerienced writer and as such I would expect him to take some pride in the jokes he writes. Making a joke about a pre-op transexual or having sex with a pre-op transexual is easy because it appeals to the playground humour built on pubescent boys' sexual insecurities and you only have to bring up the image of a man with a penis in his mouth to make the lowest common denominator viewer piss themselves. Generally, good writers find ways of creating comedy that transcend human knee-jerk reactions and I personally apreciate when a writer has assumed that I, the person enjoying their output, is not a club-dragging neanderthal and they attempt comedy with a little more sophistication than "Look at this thing you have been taught to find funny and laugh, sheep".

I reiterate, this has nothing to do with offense, even if that is a can of worms I would be willing to open. This is about being a good writer and creating witty, original humour. I'm not here to speak up for anyone but myself. Jokes about femininity, homosexuality, transexuality, domestic violence, sexual abuse and the ilk are the easy option and unbecoming of anyone who has talent to write better jokes; and, need I say it, have been sufficiently played out over the last few millennia in my opinion.

Believe me, I understand the tight schedule Zero Punctuation has to follow and it is no small task to come up with 50 jokes and fit them in a 5 minute skit every week but as a long-time viewer I would let it be known I'd much prefer 25 curated jokes that didn't involve a penis threatening someone's sexuality or making fun of someone who has done nothing to elicit public ridicule.

First off, Yahtzee has mocked everyone, including "the middle-class, able-bodied, straight, white, cis(?) men" who are his usual generic targets (because they're the easiest to draw).

Secondly, I don't get why people are fine with all of the other offensive jokes, and then they're not fine with a not very offensive transsexual joke, the joke being that even though the person isn't a women (yet) they're not gay, he's using it as a contradiction, and not to mock transsexuals.

Maybe it's just me, but I'd figure a holocaust joke would make people more upset.

Did you even read my post? I said this isn't about offense.

 

[Reeve]

Isn't it a bit homophobic to even care whether sex with a transexual makes you gay or not? What's so bad about being gay, eh?

 

[Warachia]

"You're right that nothing should be immune to jokes. The question is about the choice of joke to make. The problem with Yahtzee's politician joke was that it implies unpleasant things about Yahtzee and his own views on the subject matter, partly by the fact that he didn't intend it to be offensive."

"The joke itself is intended to be a new spin on the old 'closeted right-wing politician' joke, and is clearly not intended to be offensive towards transgender people. The problem is that it implies that someone who is transgender cannot be considered to be in any way their desired gender without surgery, which implies that their physical body is the only thing that defines their gender, and that their own perception of themself is meaningless."

"The thing is, Yahtzee is saying that anyone who would have sex with a pre-op transgender person would be gay, which implies that any pre-op or non-op people cannot be considered in any way to be their desired gender. Now, the thing with the definition of gay and straight is that they are not based on genitalia, instead being based on gender. As strange as it may sound, being attracted to penis does not make you gay. Being attracted to people of the same gender (regardless of their genitals) does. This can be seen in that MtF transsexual porn is exclusively consumed by straight men (Details on FtM porn is hard to find and its existence is often debated). Gay men (such as myself) are not attracted to women, regardless of their genitalia, and MtF transgender individuals are not considered attractive to gay men due to them being distinctly female."

I've taken these three separate posts and put them together because I have a big issue with them, and I'm sorry to be harsh, but yes, if you are attracted to the same physical gender that you are, then you are gay (this IS based entirely on genitalia), it has nothing to do with how you perceive yourself to be, if you are a man, who thinks of themselves as a women, that's fine, good for you, but that doesn't change the fact that physically you are still a man, and you will still be treated as such, and you should not expect people to treat you differently because of your sexuality, and this also applies the other way around, in other words, you will not be considered your desired gender unless you have surgery. Their perception of themselves is meaningless because, for the most part, the world labels your physical body as it is, and not how you want it to be.

Let's look at that joke in question, it's about a man who only does sexual acts with another man who perceives themselves to be a woman, is the first man gay? Yes he is, because he does not care about the person, merely the gender and mindset they currently have, is he mocking the transsexual for thinking they are a woman or wanting to become a woman? No he isn't, they are a secondary actor in the joke and not the main focus of it.

If the joke was reversed, and was about a man who only performed sexual acts on women who perceived themselves as men, would the man be gay? No he wouldn't, because again his attraction is based on gender and their mindset.

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

papers please sounds like a sub game to another game. or at least should be.

Yeah. When you reach level 99 in Dragon's Crown, your characters should be drafted and put to good use on the kingdom's border, guarding a toll bridge, playing Papers, please

That would be fun.

 

[DanHibiki]

I think i'd like Papers Please more if it didn't remind me so much of my summer job.

I won't go in to it, but let's just say that I did a lot of paperwork for the government.

 

[CoronaryThrombosis]

This thread is hilarious from top to bottom. Apparently, my generation is going to run the world until we die. You younger folk are going to get steamrolled by life. Yahtzee's jokes weren't funny before the caricatures showed up in the comments and made them hilarious. Nobody cares how you feel; especially Yahtzee.

I'd like to see more games like Papers Please. I want to see a game where you're an adviser to a dictator (or a president, it doesn't matter) and you have to decide whether to help the leader's plans, or sabotage everything. You could decide to be a strongman and crush the leader's enemies, or get the military's support and overthrow the leader in a coup.

 

[wAriot]

You all seem to be forgetting that there is no actual consensus in any of these matters (unless you count Tumblr as an expert in sexuality), only opinion. In my opinion, it is gay to suck dick (nothing wrong with that, though). And you can disagree as much as you want with me, but no one would be "right" or "wrong".

All MtF transsexual porn is consumed by straight men, gay men (like myself) having no interest in it because it involves women

You keep repeating this as if it was fact. Which is not. Actually, I'm pretty sure this could just be classified as "an outright lie".

Isn't it a bit homophobic to even care whether sex with a transexual makes you gay or not? What's so bad about being gay, eh?

Oh boy here we go.

 

[Warachia]

Did you even read my post? I said this isn't about offense.

I did, and I don't think you understood his joke at all, the joke was that a regular man didn't consider himself gay because the person he was having sexual relations with would some day be a woman (even if he would never pursue them as a woman), that's not playground humour.

Incidentally I don't recall WWII Jews deserving public ridicule either, yet you are fine with that joke.

If you want to suck a dick, you are gay.

Even if you are a woman then?

 

[Melion]

This is so amusing, you people are "offended" because of his tranny joke but not his other borderline racist jokes? Dear lord.

Spoiler

 

[Cpt. Slow]

This is so amusing, you people are "offended" because of his tranny joke but not his other borderline racist jokes? Dear lord.

That is one hefty 'prepare your anus' image.

 

[Melion]

This is so amusing, you people are "offended" because of his tranny joke but not his other borderline racist jokes? Dear lord.

That is one hefty 'prepare your anus' image.

Prepare for butthurt.

 

[Zombie Badger]

I've taken these three separate posts and put them together because I have a big issue with them, and I'm sorry to be harsh, but yes, if you are attracted to the same physical gender that you are, then you are gay (this IS based entirely on genitalia), it has nothing to do with how you perceive yourself to be, if you are a man, who thinks of themselves as a women, that's fine, good for you, but that doesn't change the fact that physically you are still a man, and you will still be treated as such, and you should not expect people to treat you differently because of your sexuality, and this also applies the other way around, in other words, you will not be considered your desired gender unless you have surgery.

My question to you then is that if a man were to lose his genitals in horrible accident, and then had sex with his girlfriend, what would that be classed as?

If the joke was reversed, and was about a man who only performed sexual acts on women who perceived themselves as men, would the man be gay? No he wouldn't, because again his attraction is based on gender and their mindset.

I would disagree with you on that point. As far as I can see he would be gay. I also think that if we continue this conversation we will simply be repeating the same points back to each other over and over, and it would be rather futile.

 

[Cpt. Slow]

Prepare for butthurt.

Well, I am reading the comments, and I can say that it already is flowing like the Niagara Falls.

 

[ErinBeee]

Okay, just to clear some stuff up...

-Why is the joke offensive?

Whether you agree with me or not, the joke is in bad taste because it's saying that sleeping with a pre op transsexual makes you gay, the implication (intentional or not) being that pre op transsexuals are men.


-Why don't you care about the jokes about jews and nazis, or any other group?

Because transsexuals are THE MOST at risk minority group for suicide, bullying, and a range of other really bad things. The transsexual youth suicide rate is around 25% at last counting, and by age 20, 50% of transsexual people will have made at least one suicide attempt. In the US, the it's estimated that 20-40% of the homeless youth are LGBT people (after parental rejection) with a particularly high percentage of those lgbt people being trans people. The Jewish population no longer suffers from such a high death rate, which makes the trans joke worse, but in reality, jokes about the holocaust arn't really okay either. Just this is MORE not okay.


-Nothing should be above ridiculue! Get a sense of humour!

It's not about being above ridicule, or being too precious to laugh at a joke at your own expense. The fact is that suicide rates, homelessness, etc etc are hugely influenced by rejection (by parents and society) and jokes of this kind popularise misconceptions about trans people, and create a social zeitgeist where trans people are freaks, to be shunned and rejected. This continues to drive up the suicide rates and the numbers of trans people being kicked out of their homes by their own parents for coming out. It's not about whether an individual person is offended, it's about the message that it sends to society as a whole. In hundreds of years time it may be okay to make such jokes, when it's 100% accepted that trans people arn't freaks and that these misconceptions no longer exist, in the same way that it's okay (though still maybe in bad taste) to make jokes about how left handed people were once burned as witches.





And this will be the last zero punctuation I ever watch. There's a difference between risqué humour, and promoting misconceptions that can harm a group that is killing itself left right and center. And before you say that things like that don't make a difference, just look at silence of the lambs. That movie on it's own set public perception of trans people back by 10 years, just because it promoted a misconception about trans people.

 

[Warachia]

I've taken these three separate posts and put them together because I have a big issue with them, and I'm sorry to be harsh, but yes, if you are attracted to the same physical gender that you are, then you are gay (this IS based entirely on genitalia), it has nothing to do with how you perceive yourself to be, if you are a man, who thinks of themselves as a women, that's fine, good for you, but that doesn't change the fact that physically you are still a man, and you will still be treated as such, and you should not expect people to treat you differently because of your sexuality, and this also applies the other way around, in other words, you will not be considered your desired gender unless you have surgery.

My question to you then is that if a man were to lose his genitals in horrible accident, and then had sex with his girlfriend, what would that be classed as?

Foreplay, at least that's what I'd say it would be because he has no genitals with which to have intercourse with, now if you were asking what the former man would be called, in most forms he would still be called a man, because he was born a man, and does not have any female genitals, they would ignore the fact that he no longer has male genitals, though on medical forms I'm pretty sure they'd clarify a little more and would have another term for it, but I could be wrong because I did not look up any cases where this has happened.

If the joke was reversed, and was about a man who only performed sexual acts on women who perceived themselves as men, would the man be gay? No he wouldn't, because again his attraction is based on gender and their mindset.

I would disagree with you on that point. As far as I can see he would be gay. I also think that if we continue this conversation we will simply be repeating the same points back to each other over and over, and it would be rather futile.

Then let's try to end this, he's attracted to a person for their physical body and their mindset while they're in that gender, he's not attracted to the same person when they are a different gender, so if he only cares about the mentally men, but doesn't care for the same people when they are physically men, now, the majority of the world only cares about the physical attraction, meaning he's straight, but what would you call it? And if you call it gay, then why wouldn't he be attracted to the same person if they were the same gender as him?