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

[MeisterKleister]

Well the way he worded it didn't make it sound like the guy had any emotional connection to the person in question, more like he went out of his way to find pre-op transexuals purely for the sake of sucking them off. Even then I kinda question if it was intended to be taken as 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.

Yahtzee merely implied that fellating a penis is at least somewhat gay, nothing more. Making fun of the politician's hypocrisy, as you said.
He made no implications about anyone's gender or gender identity. By the way, the word 'gender' has various definitions actually.

Edit: Hmm, I seem to disagree with your definition of what constitutes 'gay'.
Human sexuality doesn't fit neatly into boxes. It's a spectrum.

 

[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.

None of his jokes really come at the expense of anyone, because nothing is off base, including himself. It's equal-opportunities comedy.

If you don't believe me, go back and watch the end of the second E3 roundup where he goes on his spiel about everyone being shit.

I'd ask you to read my post once more, for your own benefit, because you are holding completely the wrong end of the stick, what I am saying is quite important and you might learn something.

 

[porous_shield]

Yup, the "other checkpoint" was the only thing that annoyed the hell out of me in Papers, please.
Why couldn't they simply have it so that, say, at the end of every two weeks or so the mid-manager shows up and only then would the player learn how many inconsistencies they missed. I mean, the guy shows up either way, might as well put him to proper use...

I read some wehere, or heard somewhere (I can't find it at the moment), that the person who made it knows it doesn't make sense and but wanted a way to give immediate feedback on mistakes and thus we get a citation printer.

If we got a list of citations at the end of a week or every couple of weeks I would be immediately shipped off to hard labour because I wouldn't know right away where I was making mistakes them and I would end up repeating them over and over.

It doesn't really break my immersion because it's a totalitarian regime and I just imagine that they have some way of spying on me or checking my work. Nineteen-eighty four style.

_______________

One thing I don't understand is how some people have expired documents to enter Arstotska that date before the border was open though I suppose they could be forged. It also makes me wonder if Artotska is deliberately adding irregularities to the papers of people that they want to detain.

 

[paulbnet]

Brothers seems a bit too 'run of the mill', when you put it this way.
Also, I've heard fairly good things about 'Papers, please!'. I'll probably check it out eventually (at least it tries something different).

I fired up Steam as soon as I read the review. It is a nasty rash Yahtzee has but bow I have got it too! It is awesome. Very bleak mind, but I have never played anything like it. Papers Please is the "Rock Star ate my Hamster" of state security. May the Indie market go from strength to strength.

 

[Zombie Badger]

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'm starting to get the feeling that when it comes to arguments, both you and I are just repeating ourselves with slightly different wording. Should we agree to disagree?

I'm starting to think that may be a good idea. I rather regret bringing my previous points up in my last statement as I think they detracted from the point I was trying to make: That gay and straight are not defined by genitals, so a man fellating a pre-op MtF transgender person is straight, as that person is a woman, and vice-versa.

Yahtzee merely implied that fellating a penis is at least somewhat gay, nothing more. Making fun of the politician's hypocrisy, as you said.
He made no implications about anyone's gender or gender identity. By the way, the word 'gender' has various definitions actually.

When I referred to gender I meant gender identity. Sorry for any confusion. For the rest, I refer you to the previous half of this post.

 

[MeisterKleister]

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.

None of his jokes really come at the expense of anyone, because nothing is off base, including himself. It's equal-opportunities comedy.

If you don't believe me, go back and watch the end of the second E3 roundup where he goes on his spiel about everyone being shit.

I'd ask you to read my post once more, for your own benefit, because you are holding completely the wrong end of the stick, what I am saying is quite important and you might learn something.

Your very first statement is already not true.
I remember him making fun of himself and specifically of white, middle-class men like him in one of his (I think it was) Call of Duty reviews.
Anyway, I disagree with you about what constitutes good writing and good jokes.

 

[JudgeGame]

-snip-

None of his jokes really come at the expense of anyone, because nothing is off base, including himself. It's equal-opportunities comedy.

If you don't believe me, go back and watch the end of the second E3 roundup where he goes on his spiel about everyone being shit.

I'd ask you to read my post once more, for your own benefit, because you are holding completely the wrong end of the stick, what I am saying is quite important and you might learn something.

Your very first statement is already not true.
I remember him making fun of himself and specifically of white, middle-class men like him in one of his (I think it was) Call of Duty reviews.
Anyway, I disagree with you about what constitutes good writing and good jokes.

I guess you might as well reveal what your idea of a good joke is. However, I doubt you can come up with a compelling argument for why "I'm not gay, I only suck-off pre-op transexuals." can be considered a good joke.

 

[Erttheking]

-snip-

None of his jokes really come at the expense of anyone, because nothing is off base, including himself. It's equal-opportunities comedy.

If you don't believe me, go back and watch the end of the second E3 roundup where he goes on his spiel about everyone being shit.

I'd ask you to read my post once more, for your own benefit, because you are holding completely the wrong end of the stick, what I am saying is quite important and you might learn something.

Your very first statement is already not true.
I remember him making fun of himself and specifically of white, middle-class men like him in one of his (I think it was) Call of Duty reviews.
Anyway, I disagree with you about what constitutes good writing and good jokes.

I guess you might as well reveal what your idea of a good joke is. However, I doubt you can come up with a compelling argument for why "I'm not gay, I only suck-off pre-op transexuals." can be considered a good joke.

You know, you could've said that without insulting the guy. I mean you don't need to think the joke is funny, no need to insult him for disagreeing with you.

 

[MeisterKleister]

-snip-

None of his jokes really come at the expense of anyone, because nothing is off base, including himself. It's equal-opportunities comedy.

If you don't believe me, go back and watch the end of the second E3 roundup where he goes on his spiel about everyone being shit.

I'd ask you to read my post once more, for your own benefit, because you are holding completely the wrong end of the stick, what I am saying is quite important and you might learn something.

Your very first statement is already not true.
I remember him making fun of himself and specifically of white, middle-class men like him in one of his (I think it was) Call of Duty reviews.
Anyway, I disagree with you about what constitutes good writing and good jokes.

I guess you might as well reveal what your idea of a good joke is. However, I doubt you can come up with a compelling argument for why "I'm not gay, I only suck-off pre-op transexuals." can be considered a good joke.

Humor is probably one of the - if not the most - subjective thing in existence.
So what makes a "good" joke varies depending on the individual's opinion. I laughed because that joke reminded me of hypocritical, homophobic preachers who rail against homosexuality/homosexual behavior and then turn out to be gay themselves, or at least engage in homosexual activities.

Also, I totally disagree that that joke makes any implications (negative or otherwise) about transsexual people in any way.

Edit: As I see, the discussion now boils down to whether fellating a "pre-op transsexual" should be considered 'gay' or not. A matter of definition.
I would argue that it is gay indeed, at least to some degree. That doesn't mean that the politician is attracted to men, nor does is mean that the transsexual person shouldn't be considered a woman in some way or another.

 

[ToastiestZombie]

This is insult to motherland. Dirty Kolechian dogs have infiltrate thread and take offense to extremely funny joke made at half-man half-woman expense. All this on review of game based on happy life of Arstotzka citizen.

Glory to Arstotzka.

 

[Sticky]

The thing I find interesting about Papers, Please isn't really the banality of evil simulator. The entire game is a political statement about not just things that happened in the past, but things that are happening right now.

Talking with people about the game revealed to me that most people who play it feel that it's exclusively a simulator about the life of some poor drone in an Eastern European bloc country sometime in the 50's or 60's. Which completely misses the entire point of the game, inefficient bureaucracy and zero-tolerance laws to fit people into a "perfect human" classification is in itself wasteful and hateful. And most countries on the planet right now are particularly guilty of it (did the fact that it had full-body naked scanners not tip you off to the possibility that it may be a critique about the immigration and traveling systems that we have RIGHT NOW?)

Put on a new coat of paint, swap the mechanical stamp with an expensive-but-mostly-useless computer, and you have yourself a TSA checkpoint simulator, complete with lots of useless laws and regulations as well as a handbook telling you when you can hand people over to men in suspicious black vans when they pick their noses incorrectly. A fact that seems to have completely gone over the heads of many who played it. It's not just a statement of the way things were, but a statement of the way things are right now.

Also to people melting down over the transexual joke: Surprise, that's an actual law in the game. Is it really surprising to you that a simulated totalitarian regime may not be the most socially inclusive government in the world?

 

[JimB]

I was referring to the politician joke, not the border control one.

I actually logged on to ask people about this, so thank you for the answer before I even asked: Which transsexual joke are people talking about? Because the politician one isn't a transsexual joke; it's a lying politician joke. The politician accused of being gay says only sucks off pre-op transsexuals. Plural. As in, he has sucked multiple penises, and wants his accusers to believe it's okay because they're really women inside...except for the part where he stops having sex with them after their operations. It's a lie. The politician is lying. He's not interested in the person as a woman; he's interested in the penis. In light of that, I question whether the purported transsexuals are actually transsexual at all, or if the politician is lying about that part too.

 

[JudgeGame]

-snip-

None of his jokes really come at the expense of anyone, because nothing is off base, including himself. It's equal-opportunities comedy.

If you don't believe me, go back and watch the end of the second E3 roundup where he goes on his spiel about everyone being shit.

I'd ask you to read my post once more, for your own benefit, because you are holding completely the wrong end of the stick, what I am saying is quite important and you might learn something.

Your very first statement is already not true.
I remember him making fun of himself and specifically of white, middle-class men like him in one of his (I think it was) Call of Duty reviews.
Anyway, I disagree with you about what constitutes good writing and good jokes.

I guess you might as well reveal what your idea of a good joke is. However, I doubt you can come up with a compelling argument for why "I'm not gay, I only suck-off pre-op transexuals." can be considered a good joke.

Humor is probably one of the - if not the most - subjective thing in existence.
So what makes a "good" joke varies depending on the individual's opinion. I laughed because that joke reminded me of hypocritical, homophobic preachers who rail against homosexuality/homosexual behavior and then turn out to be gay themselves, or at least engage in homosexual activities.

And I totally disagree that it makes any implications (negative or otherwise) about transsexual people.

So it's a joke at the expense of closetted queer people? I'm not trying to be clever but maybe if we want to laugh at homophobes, maybe we should laugh at their terrible, warped, totally absurd opinions at not at who they choose to have sex with. As it stands, the joke seems to imply homophobes who are secretly queer are somehow worse than other kinds of homophobes and more worthy of ridicule. This is jumping from an interpretation I don't adscribe to. In my opinion, nothing about the joke points to any relation with sercretly queer homophobes. As I see it, if you create a joke in your head and project it onto another joke that doesn't improve the quality of the joke you projected it onto.

NB By all this I am not implying that cis men attracted to trans women can be considered queer.

 

[JudgeGame]

-snip-

None of his jokes really come at the expense of anyone, because nothing is off base, including himself. It's equal-opportunities comedy.

If you don't believe me, go back and watch the end of the second E3 roundup where he goes on his spiel about everyone being shit.

I'd ask you to read my post once more, for your own benefit, because you are holding completely the wrong end of the stick, what I am saying is quite important and you might learn something.

Your very first statement is already not true.
I remember him making fun of himself and specifically of white, middle-class men like him in one of his (I think it was) Call of Duty reviews.
Anyway, I disagree with you about what constitutes good writing and good jokes.

I guess you might as well reveal what your idea of a good joke is. However, I doubt you can come up with a compelling argument for why "I'm not gay, I only suck-off pre-op transexuals." can be considered a good joke.

You know, you could've said that without insulting the guy. I mean you don't need to think the joke is funny, no need to insult him for disagreeing with you.

Who insulted who and how?

 

[Erttheking]

-snip-

None of his jokes really come at the expense of anyone, because nothing is off base, including himself. It's equal-opportunities comedy.

If you don't believe me, go back and watch the end of the second E3 roundup where he goes on his spiel about everyone being shit.

I'd ask you to read my post once more, for your own benefit, because you are holding completely the wrong end of the stick, what I am saying is quite important and you might learn something.

Your very first statement is already not true.
I remember him making fun of himself and specifically of white, middle-class men like him in one of his (I think it was) Call of Duty reviews.
Anyway, I disagree with you about what constitutes good writing and good jokes.

I guess you might as well reveal what your idea of a good joke is. However, I doubt you can come up with a compelling argument for why "I'm not gay, I only suck-off pre-op transexuals." can be considered a good joke.

You know, you could've said that without insulting the guy. I mean you don't need to think the joke is funny, no need to insult him for disagreeing with you.

Who insulted who and how?

Oh, I misread your comment. I apologize for that and I am sorry for the misunderstanding.

 

[MeisterKleister]

-snip-

None of his jokes really come at the expense of anyone, because nothing is off base, including himself. It's equal-opportunities comedy.

If you don't believe me, go back and watch the end of the second E3 roundup where he goes on his spiel about everyone being shit.

I'd ask you to read my post once more, for your own benefit, because you are holding completely the wrong end of the stick, what I am saying is quite important and you might learn something.

Your very first statement is already not true.
I remember him making fun of himself and specifically of white, middle-class men like him in one of his (I think it was) Call of Duty reviews.
Anyway, I disagree with you about what constitutes good writing and good jokes.

I guess you might as well reveal what your idea of a good joke is. However, I doubt you can come up with a compelling argument for why "I'm not gay, I only suck-off pre-op transexuals." can be considered a good joke.

Humor is probably one of the - if not the most - subjective thing in existence.
So what makes a "good" joke varies depending on the individual's opinion. I laughed because that joke reminded me of hypocritical, homophobic preachers who rail against homosexuality/homosexual behavior and then turn out to be gay themselves, or at least engage in homosexual activities.

And I totally disagree that it makes any implications (negative or otherwise) about transsexual people.

So it's a joke at the expense of closetted queer people? I'm not trying to be clever but maybe if we want to laugh at homophobes, maybe we should laugh at their terrible, warped, totally absurd opinions at not at who they choose to have sex with. As it stands, the joke seems to imply homophobes who are secretly queer are somehow worse than other kinds of homophobes and more worthy of ridicule. This is jumping from an interpretation I don't adscribe to. In my opinion, nothing about the joke points to any relation with sercretly queer homophobes. As I see it, if you create a joke in your head and project it onto another joke that doesn't improve the quality of the joke you projected it onto.

NB By all this I am not implying that cis men attracted to trans women can be considered queer.

No, that's not what I said. It's a joke at the expense of hypocrites.
I am not laughing at them for who they chose to have sex with; I don't care about that. I find the hypocrisy and the irony funny.
I think it merely made fun of people who deny the obvious.

I agree that the joke doesn't point those kind of homophobes, but it reminded me of it anyway.
Jokes often work that way, I'm afraid. As I said, they're very subjective, potentially chock-full of personal idiosyncrasies and biases.

 

[Zombie Badger]

I was referring to the politician joke, not the border control one.

I actually logged on to ask people about this, so thank you for the answer before I even asked: Which transsexual joke are people talking about? Because the politician one isn't a transsexual joke; it's a lying politician joke. The politician accused of being gay says only sucks off pre-op transsexuals. Plural. As in, he has sucked multiple penises, and wants his accusers to believe it's okay because they're really women inside...except for the part where he stops having sex with them after their operations. It's a lie. The politician is lying. He's not interested in the person as a woman; he's interested in the penis. In light of that, I question whether the purported transsexuals are actually transsexual at all, or if the politician is lying about that part too.

The problem is not the politician. The problem is that it treats pre-op MtF transgender people as unambiguously male, implying that the only thing that defines that person's gender identity is their genitalia, which then implies that the person's feelings towards themself does not matter, which taken to its logical conclusion says that transgender people are not actually transgender as their personal image means nothing (whereas in reality the 'man trapped in a woman's body' thing is literal).
Essentially this is saying that it is impossible for a transgender person's gender to be anything other than the physical sex of the body they are born with before surgery, so it is perpetuating the worldview that pre-op or non-op transgender people should not be treated as their desired sex. Views like this play a significant part in the staggeringly high suicide rate for transgender people (31% in the UK)
The other problem with this joke is that it only works if you subscribe to this view. In reality the genitalia of the person you are having sex with do not make the encounter gay or straight, it is the gender of the person you are sleeping with that does this (All MtF transsexual porn is consumed by straight men, gay men (like myself) having no interest in it because it involves women). So the politician in the joke is not a hypocrite because he is exclusively having sex with women.

Regarding the lying, at no point does the joke say that any of the women he has been sleeping with have had a sex change since. Also, you are assuming that all trangender people plan to have a sex change. Many do not, for various reasons (one of the most common being that for FtM people penis construction surgery is in its infancy to say the least). As I have already said, however, your genitals do not define your gender (if you were to lose yours in a freak accident, you gender would remain unchanged).

 

[Sticky]

I had to re-watch the video to find the one-off transexual joke people are melting down over. It happened so fast and was such a short visual gag that I'm still not sure if he's referring to transexuals or just that specific imaginary politician or homosexuals in general.

I find it more disturbing that I was hoping for meaningful discussion on what may be the best political critique video game made in the past ten years but instead find people still arguing about an ambiguous joke clocked in at 300 milliseconds long that isn't actually clear if it's 'hateful' or not. I feel our priorities may be skewed in a "Ship of Fools" sort of way.

I'm not going to say that the issue shouldn't be important to you, but I will say that I think the discussion is detracting from something that is vitally important in the message itself. It would be like not reading 1984 because one of the pages had smeared ink.

 

[MeisterKleister]

I had to re-watch the video to find the one-off transexual joke people are melting down over. It happened so fast and was such a short visual gag that I'm still not sure if he's referring to transexuals or just that specific imaginary politician or homosexuals in general.

I find it more disturbing that I was hoping for meaningful discussion on what may be the best political critique video game made in the past ten years but instead find people still arguing about an ambiguous joke clocked in at 300 milliseconds long that isn't actually clear if it's 'hateful' or not. I feel our priorities may be skewed in a "Ship of Fools" sort of way.

I'm not going to say that the issue shouldn't be important to you, but I will say that I think the discussion is detracting from something that is vitally important in the message itself. It would be like not reading 1984 because one of the pages had smeared ink.

As long as the discussion still has something to do with the video and is conducted in a civil manner, I really do not have a problem with this. I actually kinda enjoy it. Everyone can potentially learn something and walk away a little wiser (also I'm mostly unfamiliar with both games in the video).

I haven't heard about it before and I'm now thinking about trying out 'Papers, Please', however I do hear that it might already be sufficient to simply play the free, 1-hour demo/beta [http://dukope.com/] of it:
(Apologies, if this video has been posted before]

 

[Erttheking]

I had to re-watch the video to find the one-off transexual joke people are melting down over. It happened so fast and was such a short visual gag that I'm still not sure if he's referring to transexuals or just that specific imaginary politician or homosexuals in general.

I find it more disturbing that I was hoping for meaningful discussion on what may be the best political critique video game made in the past ten years but instead find people still arguing about an ambiguous joke clocked in at 300 milliseconds long that isn't actually clear if it's 'hateful' or not. I feel our priorities may be skewed in a "Ship of Fools" sort of way.

I'm not going to say that the issue shouldn't be important to you, but I will say that I think the discussion is detracting from something that is vitally important in the message itself. It would be like not reading 1984 because one of the pages had smeared ink.

You mean like how important paperwork is more often than not handled by over worked and under paid bureaucrats?