Another day, another article accusing a video game of "stale, retrograde gender stereotypes" because it's low-hanging fruit and makes for good social signaling to others of a similar political bent who don't actually care that much about games, but find they make an easy target. Everyone knows video games are super sexist, after all.
In this case, the game is Nintendo's first major mobile title, Super Mario Run, and the author is the New York Times' Chris Suellentrop, who writes:
Super Mario Run begins, as does almost every Super Mario title, with Princess Peach becoming a hostage who must be rescued by Mario. Just before her ritual kidnapping, Peach invites Mario to her castle and pledges to bake him a cake. Upon her rescue, she kisses Mario. The game also includes a second female character, Toadette, whose job is to wave a flag before and after a race, like a character from “Grease.”
By failing to update Super Mario for a contemporary audience, Nintendo is lagging far behind the Walt Disney Co., one of its closest American analogues. Disney’s film “Frozen” subverted and reinvigorated the fairy-tale princess movie; “The Force Awakens” gave us a female Jedi. Super Mario Run doesn’t even try.
The problem with this argument is that Super Mario Run does, in fact, try. Both Princess and Toadette are playable characters in the game. They're simply unlockable characters. As with many mobile games (and non-mobile games, for that matter) Super Mario Run has rewards for completing certain benchmarks. Like many, many other games, these rewards include unlocking various characters.
Suellentrop acknowledges this, noting that both female characters are unlockable after completing certain tasks, but complains that this is negated by them then feeling like "prizes"---though he notes this is also true of playable male characters.
I'm a little confused why this is considered problematic. In video games, completing tasks and getting rewards or prizes is often the point. It's not degrading. It doesn't symbolize "winning" a human being as a prize. It's simply an unlock in a video game that gives you more choices for play, including two female characters. It's a reward for playing, not some objectification of women (or men.)
Suellentrop also complains that when you beat Bowser as Peach, "you’ll discover that neither Mario nor a kiss is waiting for her as a reward." Again, I fail to see how this is somehow terrible. Perhaps Peach isn't after a kiss to begin with, or Mario for that matter. Indeed, as you'll see in the below video, Peach rescues Toad and both jump for joy. Is kissing sexist? Is not kissing sexist? I'm at a loss.
A game in which you can play male or female characters and rescue male or female characters hardly sounds like the "retrograde" sexist game this article describes. In fact, it sounds so unlike the critique that I can only assume the entire Op/Ed was written to stir moral outrage rather than present a fair analysis of the game.
Stirring moral outrage can be a fine thing when actual injustice occurs---a person wrongfully accused of a crime they didn't commit; children starving in war-torn regions of the world---but it's just clickbait here, and not even very good clickbait.
Suellentrop isn't letting his daughter play the game thanks to its backwards, sexist gender politics. That's his prerogative, of course, but it's a shame nonetheless. Super Mario Run is actually a very family friendly game, and it wouldn't take much to unlock Peach and Toadette.
I for one am glad we have these choices in Super Mario Run, and I'm baffled by the outrage. If Peach wasn't included at all, I could understand the frustration---other Mario games have no female playable characters and my own daughter has justifiably complained about that. But this is not the case with Super Mario Run.
If Super Mario Run teaches us anything about gender, it's that it doesn't matter if you're male or female. Everyone can beat Bowser just the same.
