En défense de Cards Against Humanity
A Case for Cards Against Humanity

cardsagainsthumanity

Il y a eu ces derniers jours dans le microcosme ludique quelques discussions à propos de Cards Against Humanity, l’un des succès éditoriaux les plus notables et les plus inattendus de ces dernières années. Ce jeu a été critiqué, parfois agressivement, d’abord sur l’un de mes sites ludiques préférés, Shut up and sit down, et ensuite sur Facebook par l’un de mes auteurs de jeux préférés, qui est aussi un excellent ami, Eric Lang. Je pense qu’ils se trompent au sujet de ce jeu, de sa signification et de son impact. Ils se trompent d’une manière qui fait un peu penser à ces intellectuels américains assurant aujourd’hui que Charlie Hebdo était raciste et agressif, alors que c’est sans doute le plus profondément pacifiste et antiraciste des magazines français.

Mais retournons à Cards Against Humanity. Ce n’est sans doute pas le meilleur jeu du monde, ni le plus original, puisque ce n’est jamais qu’une variante de Apples to Apples. C’est vulgaire et agressif, mais délibérément, et avec humour. Je pense même qu’un tel jeu ne pourrait pas avoir été conçu, et ne peut sans doute pas être joué correctement, par des gens capables de prendre au pied de la lettre, au premier degré, l’une des blagues sexistes, racistes ou simplement stupides générées par les cartes. J’ai joué une douzaine de parties de Cards Against Humanity, j’ai acheté toutes les extensions, je me suis parfois amusé simplement en feuilletant les cartes, et je ne me suis jamais senti le moins du monde mal à l’aise. D’abord, ce n’est qu’un jeu (quelque chose qu’il faudrait souvent rappeler pour bien des jeux, notamment les jeux de guerre). Ensuite, pour tous les joueurs avec qui j’ai joué à Cards Against Humanity (parmi lesquels quelques des noirs, des homosexuels, des juifs et des femmes), il était clair que le jeu ne se moquait en rien des noirs, des homosexuels, des juifs ou des femmes (ou d’autres), mais se moquait des stéréotypes. Je pense qu’il est socialement important que l’humour puisse viser tous les phénomènes sociaux, y compris les moins sympathiques. Refuser cela, ce n’est pas protéger les victimes de sexisme ou de racisme, c’est refuser de voir nos problèmes et de se moquer d’eux.

L’humour est la politesse du désespoir, disait Chris Marker. Je pense que les auteurs de Cards Against Humanity sont lucides, et pas mal désabusés, face au racisme et à toutes les sortes d’exclusion dans nos sociétés occidentales. J’ai lu dans l’une des critiques de ce jeu que Cards Against Humanity » était un jeu emblématique de la « White Male Culture » – si c’est le cas, ce n’est pas parce qu’il se moque des noirs ou des femmes, c’est parce qu’il se moque de la « White Male Culture ». Cards against humanity est,  en fait, un jeu sur la conscience politique.

Nous avons en France un jeu très similaire, Taggle. Taggle est aussi vulgaire que Cards Against Humanity, mais beaucoup moins provocateur. Pourtant, alors que je n’ai aucun état d’âme à jouer à Cards Against Humanity, il m’est arrivé de me sentir mal à l’aise avec Taggle. La raison en est que si le jeu est truffé de blagues sexistes sur les hommes et les femmes, il évite plutôt tout ce qui touche à la politique, au racisme ou à la religion, suggérant soit que les problèmes sont différents, soit qu’auteur et éditeur n’étaient pas très à l’aise sur ces thèmes, soit plus probablement qu’ils avaient un peu peur d’en parler.

On peut rire de tout, mais pas avec n’importe qui, disait Pierre Desproges. Cette boutade s’applique parfaitement, je pense, à Cards Against Humanity. Il y a quelques personnes avec qui je ne voudrais pas y jouer – mais le problème, ce sont les personnes, pas le jeu.

Donc, si vous n’aimez pas Cards Against Humanity, n’y jouez pas, mais ne dites pas que ce jeu est sexiste ou raciste, car il est tout le contraire.

Au fait, les auteurs de Cards Against Humanity ont également conçu un autre jeu de cartes, Clusterfuck, que je considère comme l’un des meilleurs jeux à rôles cachés. Vous pouvez télécharger les cartes ici. Je pense que ce jeu mériterait une édition imprimée, avec un plus grand nombre de cartes. Si l’équipe de Cards Against Humanity passe sur mon blog, j’espère que cela leur donnera des idées.


Cards against humanity

A game of cards Against Humanity last week, at my Ludopathic Gathering

There has been these last days in the gaming microcosm a few discussions about Cards Against Humanity, one of the most striking and unexpected recent card game hits. This game has been aggressively criticized, first on one of my favorite boardgame website, Shut up and sit down, and then on facebook by one of my favorite game designers, and very good friend, Eric Lang. I think they are wrong about this game and, most of all, about its social effect and meaning. They are wrong in a way not completely dissimilar with the US intellectuals who now claim that Charlie Hebdo was racist and agressive, when it was probably the most deeply antiracist and pacifist French paper.

But let’s go back to Cards Against Humanity. It might not be the best game around, nor the most original – after all, it’s just a variation on Apples to Apples. It’s offensive, it’s crass, it’s vulgar but all this is deliberate and obviously to be taken with a good pinch of salt. I even think that such a game could not have been designed, and probably could not really be played, by people susceptible to take at face value any one of the sexist, racist or just plain stupid jokes on the cards. I’ve played a dozen games of Cards against Humanity, I’ve bought all expansions, I’ve had fun just browsing through the cards, and I never felt uneasy in the slightest way. It was obvious for me first that this was just a game (something that ought to be reminded more often about many games, especially war games), and it was obvious for me and for all the people I played with (among which blacks, gays, jews and women, and even the occasional jewish homosexual woman) that the game is not mocking blacks, gays, Jews or women – to name a few – but the stereotypes about them. I think it’s socially important that humor could target everything, including the worse aspects of our society. Refusing to do this is not defending the victims of sexism or racism, it is preventing us to see (and laugh at) our social problems.

Humour is the courtesy of despair, said Chris Marker. I think the designers of Cards Against Humanity must be very lucid and disillusioned by racism and exclusion of all kinds in our western societies. I’ve read somewhere, and this was intended as a criticism, that Cards Against Humanity was epithemizing “white male culture” – it might be true, but if it’s the case, it’s not because it’s about white males mocking blacks or women, it’s because it’s about white males mocking themselves. Cards against Humanity is a game about political consciousness.

We happen to have in France a game very similar with Cards Against Humanity, Taggle. It’s as crass and gross as CAH, but far less provocative. While I have no problems playing Cards Against Humanity, I feel a bit uneasy playing Taggle. The reason why is that while the game is full of sexist jokes about men and women, it carefully avoids making fun of politics, race and religion – and this is the problem, because it suggests either that the designer and/or publisher were not completely at ease with these issues or that they were afraid it would hurt the sales.

A French humorist, Pierre Desproges, once said that “one can laugh at everything, but not with everyone”. I think this perfectly applies to Cards Against Humanity. There are some people I would not play this game with, but the issue is with the people, not the game.

So, if you don’t like Cards Against Humanity, don’t play it – but don’t say it is sexist or racist, because it definitely isn’t.

By the way, the designers of Cards Against Humanity have designed another great card game, Clusterfuck, which can be downloaded here. I think it’s one of the very best hidden roles games around, and it would certainly deserve a printed edition with many more cards. Let’s hope they get the hint if they read this blogpost.

3 thoughts on “En défense de Cards Against Humanity
A Case for Cards Against Humanity

  1. I agree that the game’s offensive nature is not a real problem, I think Shut Up and Sit Down missed the mark. I think the game isn’t very good, but for mechanic reasons. I think that first of all they stole Apples to Apples (if someone release Mascarade with their own roles, you wouldn’t appreciate it) but they also made it worse. Apples to Apples at least had some thought to the humour, because there’s just one word on each card. In Cards Against Humanity the punchline is already written. You could take black cards out randomly and people would laugh the same as if you had carefully selected it. The whole joke is the fact that it’s offensive.

    It reminds me of a child who hears a crude joke, and then they just say crude things to be funny. The joke was funny in context, you can’t just say a bad word and get the same laughs. CaH is funny once, but after that it’s boring. I’d rather play any other game. But then again, I don’t drink, so I’m probably not the target audience.

    But yea, I definitely agree that the accusations of racism, sexism, etc were misplaced and over sensitive. The game has plenty of problems, and those issues aren’t why I read SU&SD- they’re board game reviewers and I wish they’d stick to that aspect.

  2. Cards Against Humanity needs about as much “defending” as Grand Theft Auto V. Both are hugely successful and both are almost emblematic to outsiders of their respective media as a whole. “Oh, yeah this is what video games do now”. “Oh yeah, this is what party games are now.”

    Neither one is about “political consciousness,” really. Both are just toolkits for the type of satire that sells, the “let’s just plop this awful thing here and let people laugh at it because they know it’s so wrong” approach. It’s not “consciousness” or catharsis. It’s just lazy design.

    So if a prominent reviewer takes the design to task for pretty much being what it is, I don’t really understand the problem.

    Personally, what I think is missing in the design is a next step that something like Hotline Miami decided to take. It flat out asked the player “so hey, uhm, why do you like to play stuff like this?” I would be interested in a CAH game where players had to come up with equally crass jokes but had to either sign those jokes or take a vote on who they thought came up with it. It wouldn’t be Apples to Apples country anymore would it?

    • Cards against humanity doesn’t need to be defended if the only goal of its designers was to make money. I might be wrong, but my feeling is that they had a real satiric, and probably political, intent, and I think they didn’t fail at it, although they might have been carried away by commercial success.
      What you suggest as other games is interesting on paper, but probably wouldn’t work as a social experiment like CaH does, because it would require too much detachment from players. I really thinks that Cards Against Humanity is much more intelligent and positive than it looks.

Leave a Reply