Trouble In Super Macho World?
Over at Serious Games Source, which is the sister site to GameSetWatch that deals with games for training, education, and other cultural shenanigans, Gonzalo Frasca has posted a piece discussing the questionable gameplay themes in Super Princess Peach for the Nintendo DS.
The piece does a good job of explaining how the game's arguably sexist concepts were toned down for the West (as previously discussed on GSW), but my favorite bit is an afterword: "On an incidental note, I would like to mention that a few months after Super Princess Peach was released, Nintendo launched another Mario platform game for the Nintendo DS: New Super Mario Bros. This game featured new superpowers for Mario, too. Rather than using his emotions, Mario was able to shift sizes, from tiny to enormous."
Frasca notes: "I never thought about this until I wrote this article but Nintendo’s choice of female and male superpowers for both games in nothing short of hilarious. One game defines women as emotionally unstable while the other one presents boys as being obsessed with their size. Why is Mario so worried about how big he can be? Who is he trying to impress? Has Luigi been recently dating somebody?" This line of questioning could go far!
Comments
i see his point, but i think the game is done so "over the top" that even the youngest player "gets it".
also, shouldn't the guys be the ones upset because we're not in touch with our own feelings [in touch enough to use them as super powers]. she is showing off Akira-like powers... much more powerful then Mario growing twice the size.
at least the Princess is out of the castle and saving the day.
Posted by: heavyness | November 16, 2006 10:10 AM
I can see what they're getting at, but what happens when we stop considering Princess Peach as the Embodiment of Woman and instead think of her as a character? As they point out, she's a blonde who dresses all in pink, with the friggin' name "Princess Peach". Why -shouldn't- she be a bit of a ditz and have emotion powers?
She's not Samus Aran, she's not Cate Archer. She's a sheltered member of the ruling class, and let's not forget the trauma of years of repeated abductions. I think she's remarkably stable, all considered.
Posted by: Shih Tzu | November 16, 2006 12:17 PM
game news must be slooooow, if this is what you get out of those games.
Posted by: mindchamber | November 16, 2006 3:06 PM
That's pathetic... It's all how much you want to read into things. And if you need to read into stuff like that, well, you have way too much time on your hands.
Posted by: jd | November 16, 2006 6:28 PM
Oh my god. How the hell is that sexist? I swear to god, these liberal bastards will never shut up. If people believe this stuff who knows where the human race will be in fifty years? Man and woman will probably both have baby's to make everything "fair".
Posted by: NETCHRIS | November 17, 2006 8:49 AM