[Solid Snake]

Originally Posted by PCD

And then there's the "Miss" Yasogami Pageant I mentioned before, wherein several male characters are forced into a crossdressing pageant. (Yosuke is absolutely disgusted and horrified by the idea, because Yosuke is a homophobic asshole, and keeps trying to talk about a man's pride and so forth.) What made me painfully uncomfortable is that, when the boys go up on stage, the crowd breaks not only into roars of laughter, but cries of "gross!" and "that's so wrong!" Notably, Kanji is baffled that they are being treated as laughing stocks.

The Yasogami Pageant sequence made me feel very uncomfortable for everyone involved, even Yosuke, and you've only touched on half of it.

Let's start before the contest begins. A beauty pageant is announced for the Culture Festival. And, holy fucking shit does the game waste no time in establishing very, very wrong and disturbing things about this.

* It's a beauty contest for girls in high school, watched by the boys in high school, and presumably watched by teachers at the high school as well.
...It eventually becomes a swimsuit contest, because Teddie, upon winning the crossdressing contest, is allowed to change the rules at his mere unchallenged whim, which is even more disturbing.

* A teacher, who's previously established as excessively sexually promiscuous around her teenage students because there's a ridiculously predictable and unrealistic trope for the benefit of the heterosexual men playing the game, decides to participate as a contestant in this contest.
...Despite the fact that, you know, she's a teacher. And even after Teddie changes the rules, she decides it's totally okay to show off her swimsuit body in front of her students.
...yup.

* Yosuke volunteers Chie, Yukiko, Rise and Naoto, who are forced to participate in this contest against their will and without their permission.
...As if that wasn't bad enough on Yosuke's part (forcing Naoto with his/her gender identity conflict -- whether s/he is truly trans or not -- to participate in something like this? Low blow, Yosuke), the aforementioned deviant of a teacher refuses to allow them to quit. The only character who's actually remotely interested in participating is Rise; Chie, Yukiko and Naoto all make their moral objections readily apparent, for obvious reasons.

...So Yosuke looks like shit, because he unilaterally signs up the ladies just because he thinks they're pretty (well, everyone except Chie; in Chie's case, he just wants to fuck with her because the two have a rivalry thing going on.) The teacher looks like shit, because who the fuck wouldn't let those four abandon the show if they didn't personally agree to participate?

...Yosuke further looks like shit when, after Kanji (being the most respectable decent human being present among the men, at least at the moment) expresses no interest in these shenanigans, Yosuke attempts to entice Kanji's approval and ensure Naoto's participation by letting slip that Kanji has a crush on Naoto, in the ultimate jerk move. Not that Rise's much better; she says the same thing to Naoto literally two minutes later, and only Naoto's unrealistic denseness regarding romantic affections leads her to miss the obvious implications of the statements. Kanji is understandably mortified.

* Oh, hey, the Protagonist gets to look like a shithead, too! Though at least in this case you get a choice in the matter (not so much in the anime, sadly.)

Yosuke asks the Protag if he wants the 'ladies' (and Naoto) to participate in the pageant. You get to choose between three dialogue prompts.
Your choices are:
1: "Not really." (The sane, decent human being option.)
2: "Of course I do." (The immature, jackass option.)
...Okay, I have to put this last one in bold print.
3: "Enter the pageant, dammit." (The holy fucking shit, are you kidding me, these ladies actually LIKE this guy option?)

Of course, the Protag suffers no repercussions for being an asshole. The Protag can treat the women like objects here, and it doesn't change the fact that they all desperately love him (if your iteration of the Protag has seduced them), or at least truly value him and believe he's a wonderful friend.

* Kanji Tatsumi, clearly wanting to join the other male characters on the Jackass Wagon, then makes a speech in attempt to convince Naoto to participate in the beauty contest, in which he begs him/her to participate so that in seeing him/her in a feminine outfit Kanji can confirm an attraction to women and s/he can "make him into a man."
...Not fucking kidding, those are the words from his mouth.

...There's some homophobia for you. Society has pressured Kanji into feeling so guilty for finding masculine features attractive -- regardless of whether he's actually gay or just into androgynous features -- that he'd dare say that sexist drivel. "Hey girl, you needs to wear a bikini, whether you believe you're a boy or not, because my sexuality is at stake!" ...Yes, the whole thing is fucked up to all hell, and manages to feel disrespectful of Kanji's sexuality and disrespectful of Naoto's gender identity all at once.

* Rise, Chie and Yukiko, clearly wanting to join the men on the Jackass Wagon, decide to reap vengeance on the men by forcibly and unilaterally signing their names into the Crossdressing contest. This is at least certainly deserved karmic comeuppance for Yosuke, and arguably Kanji too -- as Kanji eventually saw the contest as his chance to force Naoto to attempt to arouse him or some shit.

...But the Protag? Yu might have 'deserved' it, but if you chose the choice in which Yu actually shows a basic degree of empathy as a human being and in which Yu expresses disapproval for Yosuke's shenanigans, he's still coerced into participating. That's fucking awful; just as Yosuke shouldn't coerce the undeserving ladies (and Naoto) into putting on a peep show for the entire school, Rise, Chie and Yukiko are equally unjustified in signing up the Protag to crossdress against his will.

Of course, the Protag has the choice through dialogue prompts to either express interest in crossdressing (which of course, leads Yosuke -- and Kanji too, of all people -- to express transphobic disapproval of the Protag for losing his 'manly pride' in agreeing to crossdressing), or he can express disinterest in crossdressing (in which case the crazy teacher's rules still forcibly coerce his participation.) As Yosuke says: "We all end up in the same boat, without our consent..."

* Actual reactions to Kanji wearing a dress:
- Laughter, a girl's scream, "That's so creepy!" "This is wrong on every level."
Kanji is asked by the announcer what his 'best feature is'; his answer is earnestly, "My eyes?", which evokes more laughter and jeers.
Later, Kanji says: "What is with this?" He's genuinely surprised and disturbed that everyone is laughing at him.

* Actual reactions to Yosuke wearing a schoolgirl's outfit:
The announcer: "She's pure disappointment from the moment she opens her mouth."
The audience: "Holy crap!" "Dude...it's terrifying."

* Reactions to the Protag wearing a dress:
The audience: "Senpai, why would you do this!" "N-no more!" "Whoa, I thought he was cooler than that..."

* Teddie, clearly wanting to join every character except Naoto Shirogane on the Jackass Wagon, wins the Crossdressing Contest, unilaterally declares to change the rules of the ladies' contest to require them to wear swimwear, and somehow gets away with it.

...You know, despite the fact this is a high school.
The teacher, Ms. Kashiwagi, begins celebrating. "This is great! I love the direction this is going!" uuuuggghhhhh

* The 'real' Miss Yasogami Pageant (that's how it's referred) begins, and it's also a disaster.
...Poor Naoto in particular sounds like she's about ready to die of a heart attack the moment she gets on stage.

* Did I mention that in addition to sexism, homophobia and transphobia, Persona 4 has a happy helping of prejudice to dole out against the overweight?
...The only no-name, NPC contestent for the beauty pageant who's not the crazy teacher is Hanako, an overweight girl.
...The 'joke,' of course, is that she is ugly and fat and has an obnoxious voice, and she is so oblivious that she'll participate in a beauty contest.

* As Chie walks on stage in her swimsuit outfit, she looks like she's going to die of fright, while keeping her arms crossed in front of her bikini top, which generally suggests to me that she fucking does not want to be doing this in front of hordes of cheering adolescent boys. Yosuke winks, says "Ooooh" and is amused. The crowd cheers.
...Yukiko is equally horrified. The only one having the slightest semblance of fun is Rise.

* Naoto does the sane, smart, intelligent thing and refuses to participate in this mockery of a competition, teacher's coercion and Teddie's misogyny be damned.
The audience is very disappointed.

* After Naoto nonetheless 'wins' the contest, Hanako is miserable and in tears. This scene is played for laughs, with Hanako snorting as she cries; you're supposed to be laughing at her because she's fat and she is heartbroken to have lost the contest.
...In a final dosage of Douchebaggery, Rise decides to rub salt in the wound, telling Yukiko and Chie "At least we easily beat those two" as Hanako engages in her emotional breakdown.

...The overweight: They're not real human beings with feelings! Not at all!!!


So, holy shit: This entire sequence somehow manages to simultaneously offend virtually everyone, and pretty much everyone with the singular exception of Naoto has at least one moment where they come off appearing like a gigantic fucking asshole.

...The teacher should be sued, the school district should be sued, Yosuke is an awful human being, Teddie is an equally awful...creature...the Protag is either an awful human being too or he's a decent guy who's forcibly coerced into crossdressing because the women are more than willing to sink to Yosuke's level, Kanji's struggle with his sexuality is played for laughs at his expense because Kanji would clearly not be respected if he sunk so low as to be gay, but then Kanji uses said sexuality struggle to justify objectifying Naoto, the entire school is filled with transphobic assholes who think crossdressing is disgusting, the contest is basically all about insulting transsexuals outright, underage high school girls are coerced to wear revealing swimsuits in front of whistling male classmates, and everyone laughs at the fat, ugly girl when she has a mental breakdown upon being told she isn't beautiful.

...And all of this happens in the context of a completely tertiary, unnecessary sequence that's unrelated to the main plot and is just there as a 'reward' for gamers; a 'humorous' interlude between plot events. The transphobia, homophobia, and sexism is all played as just natural, everyday events; there is no condemnation of the students, the teacher or the school for engaging in this behavior. Rather, it's a reward for the gamer; this is what the game expects you to sincerely enjoy watching, because the game assumes you're a heterosexual male who'd enjoy watching women, fat women, crossdressing, femininity in men, masculinity in women, and homosexuals relentlessly mocked.

...I sure as fucking hope this wall of text proves we never have to seriously waste pages upon pages debating whether Persona 4 has fucked up elements in it.