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Paper Mario, Paper Misogyny?
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September 12th, 2009Review, games and toysAlthough its not a new release by any means, I recently played Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, from start to finish for the first time. I love sitting down with a video game after a long day and zoning out into fantasyland. However, I never was able to really turn my brain off while playing
Paper Mario, and was kind of astonished by the level of misogyny incorporated into such a silly kids’ game.Of course, as usual, Princess Peach is in need of rescuing. She found some treasure map and then got herself kidnapped by trying to explore on her own (silly princess, adventures are for boys!). This we are used to and prepared for when we play any of the Mario games.
However, what is troubling is that this time Peach is being sexually harassed by the computerized security system, TEC, which has “fallen in love” with her after watching her take a shower. Yes, a cartoon video game character takes a steamy shower, which is observed by security cameras. TEC goes on to blackmail Peach into “teaching” it about love in exchange for sending Mario messages.
Sexual harassment isn’t in short supply in the game. By the time you reach chapter three and enter the Paper Mario equivalent of professional wrestling, the dialogue regarding female characters is ridiculous. The wrestlers disrespect their manager’s primary assistant, Jolene, regularly, and phrases like “that tart” and “cute blonde,” as well as “don’t worry your pretty little head” and “I need a shorty” are tossed around casually and frequently.
Additionally, the female playable characters are an embarrassment. The first character to join your party is a college-aged goomba named Goombella whose special talent is to reveal secrets about characters in the world (essentially through gossip) and “tattle” on enemies weaknesses in battle. Although she is a researcher, Goombella comes across as a sorority girl and is more annoying than helpful most of the time.
The second playable female character is a purple cloud named Flurrie. When we meet Flurrie, she is in hysterics over losing her pearl necklace and won’t come out of her dressing room until Mario retrieves it for her from some thieves. She’s big and busty (yes, a cloud with breasts which jiggle hypnotically when she chuckles, which she does often) with Pamela Anderson style pink fish-lips. Flurrie’s special ability is literally blowing her enemies away, although she later learns the ability to suck the life out of them with kisses.
One of the primary sets of minions in the game is the Shadow Siren Sisters: one old, withered and wicked; one fat, shy and stupid; and one young, sexy and ditzy. The little withered one is the brains of the operation, and verbally assaults her other sisters into doing her bidding. The large stupid one is the only one with any common sense, but no one ever listens to hear since she is essentially the big dumb oaf. The sexy pink one, Vivian, eventually bails on her sisters after being belittled for so long and joins your party.
The last female character to join the party is a special, unlockable party member that you have to earn by completing a special side quest. Ms. Mowz (points for being a Ms., by the way) is a constant flirt, and is very greedy and materialistic – prior to joining your party, Ms. Mowz is often run into in the game as she thieves around the world. She’s constantly coming on to Mario, and Goombella calls her a “floozy.” One of her special moves is called “Kiss Theif,” in which she steals items from enemy characters with a kiss.
Throughout the game, Mario and his crew have been collecting Crystal Stars, initially to unlock the thousand year door and find the hidden treasure, but later to protect the world from the demon that is actually behind the door. In the end it is revealed that the shadow siren sisters have been behind the entire charade, and that the all powerful demon is the Shadow Queen. The evil queen possesses Peach, needing a “pure young girl” to take human form again. So Mario battles Evil Peach, but Peach’s goodness shines through and weakens the evil queen so that Mario can defeat her.Once the game is over, Peach confesses to Mario “Maybe I should listen to Toadsworth and behave more like a princess from now on.” Translation: Maybe I should trust my male authority figures and be a good little girl, safe in my tower, rather than step out on adventures of my own in the future. She also tells Mario that being kidnapped wasn’t so bad since she had TEC. Can you say Stockholm Syndrome?
As Mario says goodbye to his team, nearly all of the female characters allude to being in love with Mario, but don’t dare come right out with it, what with Peach standing right there and all. First Vivian, then Mowz, and finally Goombella in an email to Mario hint about their true feelings for the little Italian – Flurrie is always portrayed more as a crazy aunt/older woman and therefore not a viable romantic option. Of course, throughout the game all of the female characters, despite being cartoons in a child’s themed game, were sexualized from their appearance to their dialogue to their attacks, so I suppose it should come as no surprise that they are all essentially the bunnies to Mario’s Hef. After all, who can resist a short, round, mustachioed plumber?
Although the game was pretty fun, I’d love to be able to veg out with a nice, easy, nostalgic game without so many gender-based stereotypes and microagressions I could throw the controller through the screen.
Tags: games, kids, misogyny, stereotypes, video games
7 responses to “Paper Mario, Paper Misogyny?” 
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Miss Wizzle September 12th, 2009 at 15:46
Right – there is an unnecessary amount of dialogue in the game, which you have to read, that includes lingo from the early 2000s. It’s like they forgot that Mario was originally a game for kids, not college freshmen. Maybe that’s the point – they were trying to recapture the youth of the original generation or something. Either way, it ruins any hope for nostalgia, and desensitizes kids to sexist jokes and language.
It was a bummer.
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Indivisible November 15th, 2009 at 23:14
I totally agree about this game. I loved the gameplay improvements but kept cringing at the dialogue. It was so weird because the first game was much better about female characters. Peach wasn’t captured because the entire castle was lifted into the sky. Mario was there too, and the only reason he wasn’t captured was because Bowser threw him out a window. Even then, Peach is pretty active in the game. She investigates, infiltrates, and bribes guards, passing necessary intelligence to Mario. None of this teaching a computer to love junk.
Also, the female party members were much less gendered. Bombette body slammed and exploded. Bow beat people up. Watt was so androgynous you only knew she was female because you were told. Suchie was a nanny, but very tough. It was just such a let down in Thousand Year Door.
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I ran across this post on a Google Image Search for Ms Mowz. While I’m also bugged by some of the gender stereotypes in this game (especially Flurrie, Lord) I do think a couple of things have to be said: first, that Gombella’s “tattle” abilities are actually a callback to the abilities of your first party member in the original Paper Mario, who was also a Goomba, and who was male. All of her abilities are the same as his, including Tattle. Goombario definitely doesn’t have as much to say about characters’ appearances and love lives, though.
Second, I don’t really know what you mean about Marilyn having common sense because her only dialogue in the entire game, other than “uh… guh…” is the words “The three….” And, maybe you’re aware of this, but did you know that the Shadow Sirens were originally male characters in Japan? … and yes, they looked exactly the same. Crossdressing ghosts.
Third, I don’t think TEC fell in love with her after having seen her take a shower. He says “when I first saw you”, which wouldn’t have been then — the shower is just needed to trigger the event of him opening the doors. As he dies near the end of the game, we get a pan of his cameras on Princess Peach’s face, and I took this to be the first time he saw her, clothed. It’s ambiguous, but I never interpreted it as “I saw her naked so I love her.”
Finally, regardless of the male wrestlers’ comments, you do have to admit that Jolene is a very competent female businesswoman — while she originally takes the job to help her brother, she continues even after he’s rescued, and after Grubba is gone runs the whole show singlehandedly. Not only that, but she sets up a mad Xanatos gambit to uncover Grubba’s corruption, which actually works. I thought this was pretty cool.
I actually didn’t think the second game was much worse than the first one in terms of gender. While your female party members are less obviously sexist, most of the female NPCs are awful stereotypes, and Bow is pretty bad as a “bratty little rich girl” character. Have you played Super Paper Mario yet? In that game, Peach is a playable character who joins you on your adventure, and your “party members” are (mostly) androgynous sprite characters. Plus the game really bites into sexist, male video game nerds in the character of Francis. You might like it!
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Miss Wizzle March 3rd, 2010 at 12:33
Thanks for the tip, I really enjoyed playing the game, but it was like I was also being constantly insulted by it. In response to some of your points…
I understand the value of Goombella’s “Tattle” ability, but since she’s supposed to be some sort of student it would have been nice if the technique could have been called something less childish, like “Research” or something. Was it called “Tattle” before?
As far as Marilyn having common sense, she always noticed what was going around her while the other two bickered – such as recognizing Mario. Still not great, though.
Peach in the shower was totally unnecessary. I like my childhood cartoon characters to keep their clothes on; even implied nudity sexualizes them. Which is obnoxious.
Also, you’re right on about Jolene. She was probably one of my favorite characters, but she was treated like a piece of meat or a child by the other characters. She didn’t bother me, but the treatment of her did.
I’ll have to check out the other game and see how it compares. Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts!
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Coneha July 5th, 2010 at 00:37
At first I couldn’t really tell if this was a serious article or not. Oh. My. Goodness.
“Although the game was pretty fun, I’d love to be able to veg out with a nice, easy, nostalgic game without so many gender-based stereotypes and microagressions I could throw the controller through the screen.”
I’m guessing the author of this article has actually played a Mario game before? You know, Mario being “nostalgic” and all?
So what I don’t really understand is: What were you expecting? REALLY? The game is pretty much based on extreme stereotypes that are simplified to the point that they are HUMOROUS and innocent.
Just like no one playing the game expects all (or any) Italian(s) to really become plumbers, don ridiculous mustaches, or speak in exaggerated Italian accents; no one really expects the females in their lives to fit the ridiculous and exaggerated stereotypes in the game either.
Honestly, I think the author of this article and those who commented so far are missing the entire point of WHY Mario is so charmingly nostalgic. It doesn’t take itself so seriously.
It overly stereotypes the Italian and the female characters in a way that is unrealistic and ENTERTAINING, because it makes things more fun, and because the stereotypes used are so absurd that no one is going to take them seriously anyway. Its really very harmless and nothing to get so worked up about that you want to “throw your controller through the screen”; and anyway, if these types of things bother you, and you’ve played other Mario games before and know what to expect.. it’s pretty obvious that you should play something else.
Its only my opinion, but I really like things better this way. To me, a Mario game just wouldn’t be the same without Mario’s silly accent or the ridiculous way Peach is always getting kidnapped, and really, Peach just wouldn’t be Peach without her ludicrous fluffy pink dress or that annoyingly high pitched voice of hers. THAT is what makes the game nostalgic and entertaining for me.
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I can agree with you to a point, but there were a lot of things in this game that were not part of that charming “nostalgic” simplicity. Like Goombella being a college student, for one. I just don’t understand the need to rely on sexist tropes in order to create interesting characters.
I’m not angry really, just disappointed.
See there’s this thing about microaggressions against groups of people that the majority of people are never socialized to be aware of when they are a part of the power structure. Once you learn how to recognize these microaggressions, you can’t really avoid them or turn them “off” again. And when everything in your life from the books you’re assigned in school to the commercials you see on tv to the games you choose to play in your free time are continually perpetuating those degrading stereotypes about you, it gets nauseating.
So for little Johnny who sits down to play Paper Mario, it’s a fun silly game. But for little Trudy, it still carries those messages about women being stupid, bratty, and either oversexualized or just disgusting. Even if Johnny and Trudy don’t notice, the messages are there and they convey messages about what they can do as an individual, and how they can expect to be treated by the world.
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Alethea Joy September 12th, 2009 at 14:26