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Just Doing My Duty
May. 28th, 2014 12:16 amI've mostly been quiet on the way the internet is eating itself over this whole Guy Says He Hates Women, Shoots Up Women, And Then We Have To Convince People That Misogyny Might Be A Problem thing, because I felt I had nothing useful to add. But then ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gwalla pointed me to this excellent article, which makes a lot of good points. I'm not going to go over what he's saying because, y'know, he already wrote the article, but there is one small, stupid, petty thing right in the title that I realized has bothered me for years, which is a tiny symptom of the whole big mess, and as long as we're confessing things I want to get it off my chest.
Why the hell does everyone imply that Mario is saving the princess solely so that he can bang her?
Look, I get it. This is the internet. Rule 34, off-color jokes, Grimdark Mario, I-Can't-Unsee-It searches on DeviantArt. But here's the thing: I grew up with Mario. I was introduced to him as a kid--hell, Super Mario Bros. came out the same year I did. And while he doesn't talk much, he's got a pretty definite personality and characterization. And part of that characterization is that he is a Good Guy. Not a Nice Guy--I'm not talking about the term that disparages the very disparageable group of dudes mentioned in the above article. He's not just WAITING for the princess to notice how great he is. He is a fucking GOOD GUY. He is thrown into this world that has just been taken over by hostile dragons; the princess has been kidnapped and her subjects are suffering. This is bad.
So he goes to save her. Not because she's hot and he might get see her naked, but just because it's the right thing to do. Hell, he probably isn't even doing it for the completely nonmetaphorical and quite literal cake. He's doing it because somebody's gotta save the kingdom.*
So call me silly, but he's always been kind of my hero for that.
And so it pains me to think that something I saw as heroic--yes, it's a silly story, but it's still heroic--read to other people as doing something with a selfish ulterior motive.
I guess it's because we often project aspects of ourselves onto characters, and it's annoying when you're projecting the unselfish motives onto a character and somebody else projects a baser image. And because I rather like rescue narratives but get frustrated by how often the rescuee is considered a prize rather than a person being, y'know, RESCUED. I'd like to disentangle those two ideals. And for me, starting this game as a naive little kid, Mario was a good place to start.
BONUS THOUGHTS: It occurs to me that I also have an image of Princess Peach that is slightly skewed from the normal perception of her as a Dumbass In Distress, due largely to a couple of factors. One, of course, is the greatest game in the world, Super Mario RPG, wherein she DOES start out as a Dumbass In Distress but then joins your party to wallop everyone with parasols and frying pans. The other is the Super Mario Adventures comic by Kentaro Takekuma (the one that ran in Nintendo Power back in the day). If you can track this comic down, DO IT. It is weird and funny and colorful and action-packed, and also possibly where the Marioverse's obsession with cake started, and more to the point Princess Peach/Toadstool is kind of a badass in it. She does get captured--while LEADING AN ARMY to battle Bowser. And she winds up ninja-ing her way out of prison, dressing as Luigi to rescue Mario (don't ask), and obliterating Wendy O. Koopa's tower in the process. Also, she's the one who uses the cape power-up. It ... may have colored my perception of her a bit.
*And also because he seems to be having a really good time despite the peril. You probably know my alternate theory, which actually seems to fit the whole franchise's tone better, is that Bowser, at least, and possibly everyone else, thinks that the princess-saving obstacle courses are just another form of weekend recreation with his buddies, like the tennis and golf and go-kart racing they do on other weekends. One weekend they're at the racetrack; the next one the game is Capture-The-Princess. Bowser isn't so much a villain as he is a game designer. I strongly suspect Mario enjoys these weekends, too. And Peach never seems particularly put out by them, either. Maybe they all just think it's a super-fun elaborate game.
(Also, when Mario stomps on Goombas or whatever they don't die, they just teleport to the Goomba-Reinflation Center. That's why Bowser doesn't just flatten Mario by sending a hundred thousand Goombas at him at once. There are only about 50-100 Goombas total in the Koopa Kingdom. I HAVE THOUGHT THIS THROUGH.)
gwalla pointed me to this excellent article, which makes a lot of good points. I'm not going to go over what he's saying because, y'know, he already wrote the article, but there is one small, stupid, petty thing right in the title that I realized has bothered me for years, which is a tiny symptom of the whole big mess, and as long as we're confessing things I want to get it off my chest.Why the hell does everyone imply that Mario is saving the princess solely so that he can bang her?
Look, I get it. This is the internet. Rule 34, off-color jokes, Grimdark Mario, I-Can't-Unsee-It searches on DeviantArt. But here's the thing: I grew up with Mario. I was introduced to him as a kid--hell, Super Mario Bros. came out the same year I did. And while he doesn't talk much, he's got a pretty definite personality and characterization. And part of that characterization is that he is a Good Guy. Not a Nice Guy--I'm not talking about the term that disparages the very disparageable group of dudes mentioned in the above article. He's not just WAITING for the princess to notice how great he is. He is a fucking GOOD GUY. He is thrown into this world that has just been taken over by hostile dragons; the princess has been kidnapped and her subjects are suffering. This is bad.
So he goes to save her. Not because she's hot and he might get see her naked, but just because it's the right thing to do. Hell, he probably isn't even doing it for the completely nonmetaphorical and quite literal cake. He's doing it because somebody's gotta save the kingdom.*
So call me silly, but he's always been kind of my hero for that.
And so it pains me to think that something I saw as heroic--yes, it's a silly story, but it's still heroic--read to other people as doing something with a selfish ulterior motive.
I guess it's because we often project aspects of ourselves onto characters, and it's annoying when you're projecting the unselfish motives onto a character and somebody else projects a baser image. And because I rather like rescue narratives but get frustrated by how often the rescuee is considered a prize rather than a person being, y'know, RESCUED. I'd like to disentangle those two ideals. And for me, starting this game as a naive little kid, Mario was a good place to start.
BONUS THOUGHTS: It occurs to me that I also have an image of Princess Peach that is slightly skewed from the normal perception of her as a Dumbass In Distress, due largely to a couple of factors. One, of course, is the greatest game in the world, Super Mario RPG, wherein she DOES start out as a Dumbass In Distress but then joins your party to wallop everyone with parasols and frying pans. The other is the Super Mario Adventures comic by Kentaro Takekuma (the one that ran in Nintendo Power back in the day). If you can track this comic down, DO IT. It is weird and funny and colorful and action-packed, and also possibly where the Marioverse's obsession with cake started, and more to the point Princess Peach/Toadstool is kind of a badass in it. She does get captured--while LEADING AN ARMY to battle Bowser. And she winds up ninja-ing her way out of prison, dressing as Luigi to rescue Mario (don't ask), and obliterating Wendy O. Koopa's tower in the process. Also, she's the one who uses the cape power-up. It ... may have colored my perception of her a bit.
*And also because he seems to be having a really good time despite the peril. You probably know my alternate theory, which actually seems to fit the whole franchise's tone better, is that Bowser, at least, and possibly everyone else, thinks that the princess-saving obstacle courses are just another form of weekend recreation with his buddies, like the tennis and golf and go-kart racing they do on other weekends. One weekend they're at the racetrack; the next one the game is Capture-The-Princess. Bowser isn't so much a villain as he is a game designer. I strongly suspect Mario enjoys these weekends, too. And Peach never seems particularly put out by them, either. Maybe they all just think it's a super-fun elaborate game.
(Also, when Mario stomps on Goombas or whatever they don't die, they just teleport to the Goomba-Reinflation Center. That's why Bowser doesn't just flatten Mario by sending a hundred thousand Goombas at him at once. There are only about 50-100 Goombas total in the Koopa Kingdom. I HAVE THOUGHT THIS THROUGH.)
