Breast-size joke cliches

[flowerthief]

I want to get an opinion, especially from female players.

Yeah I know the breast jokes are cliche but I sort of like having them in my story's script because they seem like the kind of things the male lead would say to the female lead, at least early on. But on the other hand, I don't want to put off potential female players, even though the game is clearly BxG.

I guess what I'm asking is, which is more likely to be the reason you might stop playing a game or reading a story that had a lot of breast-size jokes in it: because it's cliche, or because it's offensive to you? (If the former, I'm not gonna worry. If the latter, I would have to rewrite a lot of script)

[Deji]

I know guys joke about girls' breasts between them and that is ok, but imho, a guy telling a joke about a girl's breasts to her is either:

- a jerk - his sole objective is to piss the girl off for his own pleasure (this may lead to a Takahashi Couple <- WARNING: TV TROPES)
- a poor person that wasn't gifted with common sense like the rest of the normal human beings and should be treated differently, you know, because he's special.

Now, you may realize that any of those two kind of protagonist may put some people off, so you should handle it with care.

[J. Datie]

I'm not going to lie, most breast-size jokes fall flat. They're about as bad as that pun I just made. I think it really depends on the execution and why the joke is being made. If it's supposed to be humourous, well, refer to my first sentence. If it's for character development, then, like Deji said, the character probably either naive or mean spirited. I suppose they could have a very close relationship and it's an in-joke between the two of them, but I don't think I've ever seen that happen. It's always the jerk protagonist, usually aimed at some kind of tsundere. Bad comedy ensues.

[Aleema]

Breast jokes are not A material, but people in real life are not comedians. And jokes from people you would actually know are base and often about dicks or breasts. I don't see a problem with including them if they're not meant to represent YOUR humor, in that, this is what you think excellent comedy is, but just to flesh out a character. This is what pot-smoking undergrads say while playing Halo. I get that.

I'm going to agree with Deji in that context is important. A man to another man -> ok. Happens. Man to a woman -> he wants to be an asshole, don't let him get away with it, and don't make that his charm. Woman to another woman -> I hate these with a passion. While it's easy to talk about breasts and vaginas and tampons and other lady things with other ladies, that is not what I do on a regular basis. I barely talk about that stuff with my own sister. Having women touch their boobs and compare them to each other, to me, seems along the line of men whipping their dicks out and comparing. You don't do that, and you'd feel weird if I wrote a story that made the men do that for my pleasure. I'd stop playing your game instantly if wrote a woman obsessing about breast size. Now, I do think less endowed women, especially in their teen years, will be sensitive to it ... but almost always from men commenting on their chest size. Those guys are douches. If you want to write a douche, go for it. I'll hate him pretty quickly. xD

I think the jdrama "Yama Onna, Kabe Onna (Mountain Woman, Wall Woman)" has ruined me for women obsessing about breasts. >_>

[papillon]

I'm... trying to think of jokes about breast size and failing. I can think of lots of stupid slang terms for breasts that some people think are funny, but that's not exactly jokes. I can think of people being made fun of for having either large or small breasts but that's not exactly jokes either, and would tend to establish that your character is an ass.

Maybe it's because I'm just about to go to bed so my brain isn't up to par at the moment but the closest I can think of to a joke at the moment is people wondering how a character (both thin and very buxom) manages to take in ridiculous amounts of (food/alcohol) without ever becoming (fat/drunk) and wondering if she's storing it in her bosom...

[Aleema]

I can think of a few, but they're not "jokes", like you said. In that they have a punchline. They're usually pointing out a lack in size, or funny things that happen when they're too big. They're sometimes slapstick. But they're all basically the equivalent of saying "penis" and giggling.

[LVUER]

Breast joke is not funny (or at least anymore). I think no normal man/woman jokes about their dicks/boobs (or whatever private) often. Most often, it's not about jokes, but more to insults (like when some women having a mouth-fight, so they could start to insult others physical flaw).

@Aleema:
Since we're talking about jokes, reading your post make me laugh (in good way). They're funny ^_^

[Lekhaka]

seems along the line of men whipping their dicks out and comparing.

Wait, you mean they don't do that anymore?

[PyTom]

The are a couple of advantages of the visual novel format, but I think the biggest is that it is one of the very few media that is both visual and first person. You are inside the protagonists head, you can hear what he (or she) is thinking as he reacts to the interesting people around him. That's one of the big advantages of the format, IMO.

If you're anything like me, you have all sorts of thoughts as you go through your life. Many of those thoughts are "normal", but it's also normal to have offensive, perverted, and embarassing thoughts. (At least, I hope it is.) Most people's thoughts aren't politically correct. I think most people have a filter on what they say, so that they can get through life without causing offense or friction.

But I think one of the big advantages of the VN format is that we can get into a character's head, and see them without that filter - and we need to be careful that, as a community, we don't give up that advantage. Does it make sense for a character to make offensive jokes out loud - probably not, although it depends on the character. But I think it should be far more acceptable for a character to, in his or her thoughts, offend some reader somewhere.

(This doesn't really answer the main question - but it was inspired by this thread, so I'm posting it anyway.)

[Sapphi]

The problem I personally have with the breast-size jokes is that they are extremely overused and therefore tiresome to anyone who watches a lot of anime (aka me). Because of this, it becomes some kind of expected thing whenever you see a character with a small or flat chest. As people before me already said, if you are doing this to establish a character's mean personality, that is perfectly fine, but... for comedy purposes, I think I laughed the first couple times I saw it, now I just groan. It does turn me off a little from the show or whatever it is, because it just smacks of uninspired writing and borrowing from other shows, not to mention expecting audiences to laugh at the same exact joke every time it's used.

As far as being offensive, I think it's a little bit in poor taste, but it doesn't make me want to go cry in a corner or anything.

[Samu-kun]

All jokes are pretty much about the delivery. I mean, depending on how it's done, I might either face palm or laugh hysterically. Or both.

[flowerthief]

Thanks for the responses

Yeah, a Takahashi Couple or something similar to that is what I'm going for, I suppose. The jokes are meant as insults as well as cheap humor, and I should have mentioned that the female lead also says a lot of mean things to him. My dilemma is that if I take the breast jokes out now, the insulting between the two chars becomes one-sided unless I can replace his insults with some other kind of insults that are more acceptable to everyone. I'm not sure what, though. (but whatever it is, it won't be any funnier)

The current plan was to leave the jokes in and hope that self-reflections by the male lead are enough to preserve some sympathy. ("I know I shouldn't have said that to her but habits are hard to break") Basically, both chars need to be mean to each other...but sympathetic to the player. There might not be a way to do this that hasn't already been thought of by Rumiko Takahashi, I dunno. I guess I need to think about it more.

[papillon]

If they're both harassing each other equally people are probably less likely to find it offensive, other than not liking Takahashi couples to begin with.

[Alex]

IMO it would be interesting for you to read S.Freud's "Jokes and their relation to the unconscious".

[neowired]

Only if it really makes sense for the character to have that sort of humor. Otherwise only if you want to attract the bad sort of readers/watchers who find this exact sort of humor funny.