OK first of all, let me say that I do agree with all of this week’s readings that state that most of the games are created by men and for men. I say this because I am definitely not a game lover, the only games that I ever played were Mario Bros 1 and another one (I do not even remember the name) and it was because I would play them with my dad, but I never really played them by myself and it is not that I liked dolls either (I never liked dolls), it was simply that I preferred to play “real games” with real people. To proof that games where not designed for females let me say that it took me 2 hours to finally get to actual game part where you finally see some action in Super Mario Bros 2 game, I just could figure out how to select a player and how to go in trough the mini door and once I was in the game, no matter how many times I tried, my characters would always end up dying before the first cascade.
Now to the gender stuff…
I think that Super Mario Bros 2 definitely follows gender stereotypes due to the following…
Mario is short and fat. He wears a typical red shirt and blue overalls depicting that he is a “hard working” and “always busy” man and he has a big mustache (typical of a macho man). Males are often stereotyped as aggressive and I think that Mario has some aggressiveness or rudeness in this attitude. I believe this, because I choose Mario as a character, Mario puts his hand up and his tongue out, as if he was saying “yeah it’s me losers” or something along those lines. When he is walking, Mario has his hands to the side as if he was simply too cool to move his hands as he walks, and when he dies, he can really show that he is not to good at expressing feelings because his cheeks blow up but he never screams (men usually hold feelings in and that’s why he has his cheeks blow up).
Luigi follows male stereotypes just as Mario does. He is a little bit taller than Mario, but he still has that really big nose and wears the same blue overalls that Mario wears, he has the macho mustache as well and wears a different color shirt than Mario (its green). When walking, he also has his hands to the side (too cool) and when he is picked on he acts rude like Mario and pulls out his tongue as well. Like Mario, Luigi also never screams and if he dies his cheeks also blow up holding back feelings. When Luigi jumps, he jumps higher than Mario and makes weird fast movements that allow him to suspend himself in the air longer and further when the walks and jumps.
I think that Princess just couldn’t be any more feminine in this video game. First of all, why do the rest of the characters have names and she is just called Princess?? It appears that on the original game (I believe its Japanese) she was originally named Peach for her sweetness (yeap female attribute) but when the game was translated, she was simply named Princess. Princess loves pink and obiously wears a pink dress with a crown (aww all females want to be princesses) and I wouldn’t be wrong if his girl was wearing some pink high heels as well (they are not visible, but a dress and high heels go hand in hand). Princess is tall and thin with long hair, makeup and a tiny waist that gives her the illusion of having big breasts (typical of female models). Princess is really girly. She screams when she it’s chosen as the player as if saying “OMG I can’t believe you picked me,” she gets all excited like a cheerleader when she jumps pulling her hands up, legs to the sides and screaming (yeap, girls love to scream). When the walks and jumps, she jumps as much as Luigi does, now I am not sure why, but do girls usually love jumping or something? When she is walking he has her hands right next to the dress and it makes her see as if she has holding the dress not to get dirty and if she dies, her cheeks turn red and she screams as if wanting someone to save her.
Toad has a weird personality. I think he is supposed to be a man with a female personality aka a drag queen (we is wearing white pants and a vest with his torso showing as if he wanted to show off his six pack or something). He is small and fat like Mario and jumps as low as Mario does, however I think he runs faster. His female personality comes in when he is picked on (because he screams), when he jumps (Hands up, legs to the side and a big scream) and if he dies, he shows his feelings just like Princess does.
Schleiner, Females and Games…
Schleiner believes that games are usually male centered and females only appear as trophies (Schleiner 222). This is true because if I remember correctly, in Super Mario Bros 1, Princess didn’t appear until the end, when she was rescued and married by Mario (she was the trophy to Mario’s quest I guess). Super Mario Bros 2, changed the roles a little bit and allowed Princess to be one of the players, allowing males to have “a safe zone to experiment with genders” and allowing females to see themselves as players hoping to get more women engaged in video games (Schleiner 223-224). Now, the character Toad plays a mix gender, which might be suggesting that males can be feminine as well. Close the conclusion of her article, Scheleiner states that having “bad girls” in video games could in fact be beneficial for girls and I see where she is going (Schleiner 224). I think that the purpose behind bad girls in video games is not to develop harsh and aggressive girls, but to develop girls with more confidence in herself and her actions. Games like Super Mario Bros 2 teach girls that you can wear a pink dress and run in high heels and still be adventurous in a game, however since I didn’t get to the end due to my bad video games skill, I am not sure what type of trophy Princess would get.
Works Cited
Schleiner, Anne-Marie. "Does Lara Croft Wear Fake Polygons? Gender and Gender-Role Subversion in Computer Adventure Games." Leonardo 34.3 (2001): 221-226. Web. 7 Oct 2010. <http://www.jstor.org/pss/1576939>.
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