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

[Dewrah]

Alright, as much as I hate posting anything online (and even more-so in these flame-war threads), I somehow feel compelled to drop my two rivulets of water into this gaping ocean. Being a heterosexual white male in a first-world country with a middle-class job I find it hard to get offended by anything, less so when I don't even have a dog in the race as it is with the issue of being transgender in a world that can't accept homosexuality with anything approaching maturity. Therefore, I won't tell you not to be offended by a joke regarding something that clearly affects you. Doing so would reflect not only a brazen lack of empathy and understanding but also a callous sense of superiority that you can rest assured I could not begin to possess.

That being said, I don't believe I have ever seen anything even closely resembling distaste or disrespect by Yahtzee towards the LGBT (Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender) community, but rather towards those who would look upon the same with disgust or bigotry. His self-effacement through use of homosexual reference always came with a tone resembling that of an eye-roll, mocking not the activity or behavior referenced but rather preemptively defacing the vitriolic comments and hate-filled responses typical of those who indeed possess the viewpoint of an immature, bigoted, and at best semi-literate troll.

In short (and to use that asinine phrase "TLR"), if we are going to profess offence toward anything in this most wretched hive of scum and villainy we call the internet, let us at least differentiate between those who truly believe in hatred and ignorance and those who mock them for our entertainment on internet videos. Long live Yahtzee, and long live Zero Punctuation.

 

[Spearmaster]

Based on what Ive heard I think ill pick up papers please, it sounds interesting, I was just wondering if staring at the papers and documents has messed with anyone's eyes due to the graphics or if its pretty easy on the eyes?

On a side note, self censorship is a shameful thing Yahtzee.

 

[Mangod]

I dunno, guys. Seems to me the "I'm not gay, I just suck of pre-op transexuals" is meant to be a "No, Except Yes"-joke*.

* http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NoExceptYes

I will concede, however, after reading some of the arguments both for and against the joke, that it was probably better that he change it.

 

[Calibanbutcher]

Man, the holocaust was such a chuckle, right, Escapist? I demand that you remove that joke too. It's offensive.

Jews don't get daily harassment and violence for being Jewish anymore and none the current generation experienced the holocaust. Transgender folk face constant harassment and violence everyday from people they don't even know. Transgender people are at higher risk of being killed than anyone else in the world. There has been a transgender woman murdered almost every week this past summer and two this very week in America. Keep in mind there aren't that many of us to begin with so that makes so many murders even more significant.

As a transsexual woman myself, I don't want my escapism from reality to also be spitting on me and my whole identity like the majority of people I meet in life do. So yes, for something that is supposed to be entertaining, I find it very personally offensive.

1. There are still people around that survived the concentration camps and the holocaust, though it is probably safe to assume that there are less holocaust survivors browsing the escapist than there are transsexuals.

2. Claiming that "jews don't get harassed anymore" is, quite frankly, bullshit. Maybe they don't get harassed where you're from but I had my fair share of conversations where people outright told me that they believed in a jewish conspiracy that runs the world from the shadows and that maybe, just maybe someone should do something about it, not that they themselves are racist or anything... (I am not jewish by the way, nor am I a transsexual)

Not directed at you, but at whomever it may concern.
4. Your medical diagnosis does not make you fucking special. It simply doesn't. Yes it sucks that you're facing more "challenges" and harassment than Citizen McWhiteGuy but if you want to be accepted as just another part of society, which afaik is the goal of the LGBT movement, you might be better off fighting on a different front, seeing as censoring a notoriously foul-mouthed internet-comedian known to be as offensive as it gets, might not bode terribly well with the rest of the audience and maybe cause some people to view your very much justified struggle in a bad light.

So someone made a fucking joke that offends your sensibilites, so fucking what? If someone truly decides to commit suicide because of this, if this is all it takes to drive them to jump of a cliff then they should have been in psychiatric care from the get-go.
Humour is not what drives others to violence.
Hatred, Ignorance and most importantly FEAR are what cause violence and harassment.

Humour is there to build bridges and making fun of something can help raise awareness of a subject, further the understanding of said subject and if we all were to laugh together, we'd be a lot better of and I personally believe that there shouldn't be a subject, a group or anything that is off-limits when it comes to being made fun off, as long as the humour is not vitrolic and based on slurs and hatred.

 

[anthony87]

They seriously changed what he said in the video?

Escapist...I am disappoint.

 

[Helmholtz Watson]

Got a laugh out of "Ironically", but then that was followed up almost immediately by a bad transgender joke.

Yeah, jokes about the holocaust are fine but heaven forbid that transsexuals get a joke made about them.

 

[Helmholtz Watson]

Man, the holocaust was such a chuckle, right, Escapist? I demand that you remove that joke too. It's offensive.

Jews don't get daily harassment and violence for being Jewish anymore and none the current generation experienced the holocaust. Transgender folk face constant harassment and violence everyday from people they don't even know. Transgender people are at higher risk of being killed than anyone else in the world. There has been a transgender woman murdered almost every week this past summer and two this very week in America. Keep in mind there aren't that many of us to begin with so that makes so many murders even more significant.

As a transsexual woman myself, I don't want my escapism from reality to also be spitting on me and my whole identity like the majority of people I meet in life do. So yes, for something that is supposed to be entertaining, I find it very personally offensive.

What fanatasy land are you living in where Jews all life care free lives? Instead of spewing ignorance about what my people face, why don't you educate yourself [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_antisemitism]?

I'll help you out by giving you just a few modern examples....

Violence against Jews for having the audacity to not immediately denounce Israel [http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/29/hate-crimes-force-jews-out-of-malmo/?page=all], followed by the mayor of the town telling Jews that its their own fault [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_Sweden#Ilmar_Reepalu].

A recent report on the state of affairs for Jews in Sweden [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISBRtMIFWgE].

Violence against Jews in France [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toulouse_and_Montauban_shootings]

and the ever classy examples of Arabic [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow%27s_Pioneers] tv shows [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzSkoK4sIJ4].

 

[l3o2828]

I'm not going to comment on what i think about the transexual joke, but i do believe Yahtzee's apology was quite enough, and changing the line up and virtually censoring it , even if yahtzee does indeed regret it just comes up as incredibly 'Politically correct' for me.
There was no biggotry in Yahtzee's comment, no real hate for transexuals, i mean, i respect your right to feel offended at everything, but this just looks like a really blown out of proportion case, which i hope doesn't happen again.

Nice review.

 

[IceForce]

How come the video thumbnail is like a broken picture symbol?

Because they changed the thumbnail.

The old thumbnail had a sign which read "No trannies". This apparently offended people, so it was changed.

 

[IceForce]

They seriously changed what he said in the video?

Escapist...I am disappoint.

You gotta admit though, the edit was pretty seamless.

If I hadn't read this thread, and no one told me it'd been changed, I would never have noticed.

 

[Blackpapa]

Yahtzee is offensive humor game journalism. Hurtful and over-the-line jokes are what set zero punctuation apart from the other thousand indie journalist segments and in fact, the reason why I watch it over all the rest. No great tragedy has happened either way - but Escapist getting pressured into editing the joke will have a chilling effect on Yahtzee's humor, taking away part of what makes this series entertaining, diluting the ZP brand.

The joke, in it's original form, was funny.

I do not approve of having lists of people who you can't laugh at - if only because it implies that there's a second list list of people one is permitted to laugh at.

Having one's dick cut off and being injected with hormones, I imagine, is pretty traumatic, so I'd attribute the disproportionate reaction to that, rather than the joke being outside what I've come to expect from ZP.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Jokes against transsexuals were completely unnecessary and completely offensive.

Jokes are never necessary, either they're funny or they're not. I'd also like to point out that 1) humor suspends morality and 2) even if it did not, the joke was about people who desperately try to lie through technicisms, not about any particular sexuality.

 

[wulf3n]

Does anyone know of a link to the original unedited version of this video?

Everyone who got offended should be ashamed of themselves.

 

[Blackpapa]

I made this account just to say how disenchanted I am with you, Yahtzee. Here I was thinking you were a snarky, "I-aint-gonna-take-no-bullshit" reviewer who tells it how it is. But no, you're just as spineless as anyone else. The second some delusional wannabe "social pioneers" make a complaint, you cave and bend over backwards for them. In the end, you can't take your own medicine.

Escapist asked Yahtzee to create an edited version and he did. I imagine he wasn't happy about it, but as long as escapist is paying for his videos, they can demand anything, including permanently switching the background color to a progressive pink. Yahtzee can comply or take his leave.

Blame is to be laid on the Escapist. Between this and Jim stuffing a dildo in his mouth, I'm beginning to think this may not be the site for me.

 

[porous_shield]

Based on what Ive heard I think ill pick up papers please, it sounds interesting, I was just wondering if staring at the papers and documents has messed with anyone's eyes due to the graphics or if its pretty easy on the eyes?

On a side note, self censorship is a shameful thing Yahtzee.

I'm sure if you play this game for hours on end than it might give you an headache but the documents and other things you have to look at are quite legible and don't involve eye strain. This isn't like the blurry/tiny words in many console games and I've had no problem with reading anything.

 

[Mr. Happy Face]

Man, this topic was mostly dead, and I hate to start up the fire again, but I feel the need to say something.

Bravo, Mr. Croshaw. Bravo to you, sir. It takes a big man to admit when he's made a mistake, and it takes an even bigger man to admit to a mistake and correct it on the Internet, where the digital sharks are always circling for blood.

Here's how I see it: Yahtzee made a joke that offended the LGBT community, but instead of calling them all tossers and going about his day, he examined the joke in context and decided that not only was it somewhat tasteless, it was taking away from the overall message in his review. In other words, he regretted it, so he changed it. That's an act of moral and intellectual courage if ever I've seen one, because he had to know that it was going to piss off some of his fans. But he did it anyway.

So to all the Yahtzee haters out there, I have this to say: Quit screaming about censorship and giving in to special interest. This isn't about that. This is about getting a message across in the best way possible, and Yahtzee has done that. Hat's off, sir.

 

[Brad Shepard]

So let me get this right, trans people and supporters want acceptance, but cant stand it when someone makes a joke? a joke not made out of hatred or anything, just a joke? yeesh.

 

[Blue Hero]

Snipped

If your "girlfriend" has a penis, doesn't that make her a man? Call me old fashion (or a bigot) but I'm pretty sure men have penises and women have vaginas.

 

[Doom972]

"Pantomime dames"? That's not what I remember. Looks like Yahtzee will censor himself if pressured hard enough.