After watching Anita Sarkeesian/Jonathan McIntosh’s FeministFrequency video Damsel in Distress, I've waited a long time for someone to make a throughout rebuttal regarding their rather condemning comments about patriarchy in Nintendo franchises. I can’t say I've been satisfied by what I've seen so far, so I guess I’ll have to do it myself.
As someone who have played Nintendo games since I was a little kid, having played through all the major Nintendo first party titles in the Mario, Zelda and other series, nothing in this video sounded more absurd to me than Sarkeesian/McIntosh calling Princess Peach a “ball in the game of patriarchy” between Mario and Bowser, followed by a clip of Mario and Bowser playing a game of (basket) ball, and her one sided portrayal of Shigeru Miyamoto as a damsel enforcer, for interfering with Rare’s development of Dinosaur Planet. Unfortunately, rebutting it all takes a bit more knowledge than what FeministFrequency had before asserting it all, so this article may reach some length. I am going to do a gender role analysis of not only female Nintendo characters, but also males, because unlike Saarkeesian/McIntosh, I think the context of where a trope is used can have great significance for how a damsel in distress is perceived, particularly when compared to the portrayal of the “hero” whose job is to save the damsel, and what royal/political role the damsel has. In fact, for most sensible people, I think this context completely dominates the “real-life patriarchal context”, (you know, the one where the young people these games are targeted at hang out with their CEO friends and observe that a majority of them are male, while disrespecting the authority of their teachers.) I will also comment on the progression of Nintendo’s ”quintessential stock character version of the damsel in distress”, which Sarkeesian/McIntosh, despite their lengthy focus on Princess Peach, failed to address adequately.
The kidnapping motive
We may as well begin at the hottest point. Sarkeesian/McIntosh’s summary of the Mario series is that it is a “game of patriarchy” between Mario and Bowser.
This is their subjective perception of the game. Can you really argue against someone’s subjective perception? What I can give you is facts that I have collected from playing the series, that went unmentioned in the Tropes vs Women videos, and then give you my own subjective perception. Then it’s up to you what perception is really most supported.
The Mario series mainly takes place in the “Mushroom Kingdom”. Now a kingdom can indeed be a patriarchy, (“a family, group, or government controlled by a man or a group of men”) but often it is not — a female queen rather than a king can easily be the top leader. (For a real life example, see the United Kingdom). This is the case of the Mushroom Kingdom — Princess “ball of the patriarchy” Peach is the top political leader.
Another interesting thing to note is that the majority of the inhabitants (so-called toads) of the Mushroom Kingdom, appears to be male. (Although the producer of Nintendo’s latest toad-starring game Captain Toad Treasure Tracker claim they are gender less and merely take on gendered characteristics, only in the more recent games have they begun having female characteristics.) Rather than a patriarchy, the Mushroom Kingdom has typically appeared as a male society controlled by a woman. And most importantly, it is portrayed as a good political system in the game.
And then there is the evil side, where King Koopa (Bowser) wants to kidnap Peach. His true motive is typically speculated to be either political or sexual, however he doesn't show affection for Peach in the games, nor is it typically clear how capturing her would practically increase his ruling power, as he already has a superior army to the Mushroom Kingdom’s. He just doesn't seem to really care about controlling it in a meaningful sense, as he prefers to live in his own lands. It seems like he just wants some status as the single supreme leader of the world, regardless of whether this power will bring any real change to his life style.
One game where a clue is given though, is the game Super Paper Mario, where there is an ancient marriage ritual that will grant Bowser some Chaos Heart magical power. Tellingly, he shows no interest for the bride, only the power of the Chaos Heart. So to me, in the remaining games, the kidnappings seems more like a symbolic capture, to convey that only Bowser is a ruler— which is why Peach in her capture (as portrayed in the first two Paper Mario games) simply is assigned her own room to stay away by herself and be guarded, rather than serving any sort of patriarchal role.
One could still try to argue that Bowser is in favor of a patriarchy, by inserting himself as a ruling male - but considering his highest ranked advisory is the female Kammy Koopa, who is even described as being the “real brain behind Bowser”, this argument doesn't hold much water. A patriarchy with a man that has no ruling competence, but in actuality must be controlled by a woman? that doesn't exactly sound much of a true patriarchy to me…
The rescuing motive
Seeing how Mario is supposed to be a “player in the game of patriarchy”, is even harder than trying to fit Bowser into this perception. First of all, he is a silent protagonist, meaning his motives must be judged by his actions and body language. Usually these few expressions can be observed: He is very joyful most of the time, both in the company of Peach and while advancing through platforming levels towards her rescue. He is shocked when he sees or learns that the princess is kidnapped, despite how often this occurs. He always return to a joyful, worry-less state shortly after her kidnapping though. He may show a slightly aggressive expression as he encounter Bowser, or whoever else that is cooperating with her kidnapper. But most of the time, he is simply blissfully happy.
Sarkeesian/McIntosh goes far in speculating on his motives though, when they call him a player in the game of patriarchy. Presumably, his motive for rescuing the princess is to receive the reward of either her affection, or to gain benefit from her royal power. However, very little from the games supports this idea. In the famous Super Mario 64, Mario receives a kiss on the nose and a cake for saving the princess. And he is thrilled merely by this minimal affectionate gesture, illustrating that he never expected anything more. In the next game, Super Mario Sunshine, the “reward” is that Mario and Peach continues their planned vacation on the Delfino Islands, with none of the photographs in the credits displaying anything romantic going on. In the Super Mario Galaxy games, Peach is refered to as a “special someone” to Mario, but in the ending of Super Mario Galaxy 2, the emphasis in the ending is only on the Luma, who is the child of Rosalina, being reunited with her.
Here there is talk of “a binding force defying time and space” who will reunite you with someone important to you, yet the relationship between Mario and Peach is completely neglected, while this mother-child relationship is solely focused on. One may ask, is this game really portraying a cynical game of patriarchy, or does it attempt to portray the social bonds between people, which motivate them to care for each others? Despite not gaining any patriarchal gains for his efforts, Mario is always motivated to resuce the princess again and again. It may seem unrealistic that someone would act so caringly in the context of real life, but that is kinda the point of fictional stories — they let you see into a world where people’s kindness and caring for each other surpasses what is realistic in real life. Trying to fit the story into a completely opposite “patriarchal” perspective, looking for ulterior motives in all males, can end up making laughably little sense, as I find Sarkeesian/McIntosh’s conclusions to do.
The damsel herself
The biggest question in regards to the Mushroom Kingdom though, is whether Peach is really as much of a “quintessential stock character version of the damsel in distress” as FeministFrequency makes her out to be. With all the time spent arguing how she is, it is interesting to note how much also speaks against this. (Something Sarkeesian/McIntosh mostly neglects to mention).
For starters, they completely ignores the Paper Mario series of games. These are the most story intense of the Mario games, and the first three of them all have Peach as a playable character. In the first two games, Peach is acting out the very role of assisting in her own rescue, like Sarkeesian/McIntosh complains about the lack of: Her (male) guards are portayed as completely incompetent in keeping track of her, as she sneaks around in the fortress, performing tasks that contribute towards her rescue. As usual, Mario is silent the whole game, while she has lots of dialogue that expands on her character.
And did you know that Princess “stock damsel” Peach is also one the strongest characters in what’s recently the world’s most watched competitive fighting game? And that one of the top players Armada dominated as her in double team fights for 3 consecutive years? In that case, it is not something you learned from watching FeministFrequency, because they never touched on this aspect of Princess Peach. Whether this was something they failed to uncover in their $160,000 research, or an intentional omission in their portrayal of her as a powerless damsel, remains to be answered. I’d definitely call it a very noteworthy omission, because of how seemingly detailed their portrayal of Peach’s image is. It may even be a bigger omission than that of the Paper Mario games. While Sarkeesian/McIntosh does mention that Peach appears in the Super Smash Brothers games, they brushes these games of as unimportant, because they “fall outside of the core Mario platformers series”. This I find interesting — do they consider the core platformer games more canon, despite having far less story than the Paper Mario games? Has it to do with them being less well known? Super Smash Bros. Melee far outsold the typical core Mario game, being the most sold GameCube game with over 7 million copies. And on the Wii, Mario Kart Wii is the most sold game, (excluding Wii Sports which came with the console). Here Peach is indeed a playable character, so the dismissal of these games’ importance by FeministFrequency can neither be explained by the size of their influence, nor their story depth. So why do FeministFrequency places such an importance on a game being in the “core series”?
Who ends up as the ball in this game of Peachriarchy?
Now let’s take a closer look at this core series. In the first Damsel in Distress video, released Mars 7th 2013, Sarkeesian/McIntosh emphasizes that there are 14 core Mario games, and that Peach is kidnapped in 13 of them. Yet in the 3rd Damsel in Distress video, released August 1st 2013, when they bring up the core Mario games again, and mention how many of them Peach is kidnapped in, this time they don’t mention the total number of core games. For the uninformed, this may not seem like a huge difference from the previous video— but there is a significant difference. More than 7 weeks earlier, Nintendo announced the next core Mario platformer game, Super Mario 3D world, where Peach is a main playable character. Again, since the Damsel in Distress videos is a very long, seemingly in-depth analysis of Peach as a playable character, with the lack of her as a playable character in the core series, I find this omission extremely noteworthy. It makes me seriously question Sarkeesian/McIntosh commitment to honesty in their portrayals.
Something they do discuss however, is the game Super Princess Peach. This a game where Princess Peach is solo-starring the main role, on a quest to rescue the kidnapped Mario and Luigi. Sarkeesian/McIntosh does not appreciate the game however, since Peach has the ability to use her emotions to trigger strong powers. Sure, rage and sadness is a lot less heroic than the typical hero’s motivation of courage. But at the same time, it does lay a bit closer to reality than say, Mario’s completely unrealistic constant blissful joy. One may ask what sort of emotions FeministFrequency would rather prefer— Princess Peach acting like an emotion-suppressing, professionally trained Navy SEAL, like so many unrealistic male characters? In a game series so lacking of nuanced character portrayal, where the creator would rather reduce the amount of story to focus on the gameplay, my opinion is that Peach’s expressiveness must be compared to her series’ fellow shallow characters, and I’d say that her characteristics actually playing a part as a core gameplay mechanic, was a nifty way of adding at least a tad of depth to her. Yet there will always be fans who expects more from a game, I guess.
Now this cunning and intelligence that Sarkeesian/McIntosh crave from the female characters are admittedly not Peach’s strong point. That’s something I’ll discuss in the next part, about the Legend of Zelda series. Later, I will take a closer look at Shigeru Miyamoto’s role in expanding the video game market to entice female players.
