Blog 7, "It's me, Mario!"

For this blog, you are going to travel into the past and
“map the bit girl.” In other words, play Super Mario Bros. 2
and perform a gender critique. Describe how Princess, Mario,
Luigi, and Toad reflect and complicate gender stereotypes
The gender representations in Super Mario brothers 2 are generally reflective of society’s idea of gender roles but are complicated by the games limited ability to present a character in a detailed and complex manner using more than a few colors, and some form of audible dialogue. Mario and Luigi both play the stereotypical role of the Alpha male running headfirst into battle, not afraid of anything, even walking mushrooms and talking dinosaurs. They are determined to rescue whoever from wherever even at the cost of their own lives. Because they both have thick mustaches always wear their cheap work clothes, overalls, Mario and Luigi are portrayed as the working class. An integral part of the story is that Luigi and Mario are typical hard working males that, because of their male gender roles get caught up in something big. Toad complicates the gender role being that he is a mushroom from another world that acts like a male. Even though he is not human he is anthropomorphized as a type of human male. His round body and his pained expressions when digging for turnips are not usually associated with tough males who go on adventures or do battle with monsters. Further complicating the gender role is Princess. She wears a pink frilly dress that identifies her as female and plays a large part in the game by allowing the princess to fall slowly. Usually Princess is in danger but in this Mario adventure she is a trooper, she is part of the action, she is a playable character and not the stereotypical helpless princess in a castle. She is the tallest character and jumps the highest but is still depicted in a very feminine way, but doesn’t act in the traditional feminine way and this complicates the role of gender in Mario because they all look like different characters but all perform the same basic actions.
I think this game offers multiple gender subject configurations because the characters look different but perform in the same ways. The princess is both a femme fatale when she destroys bad guys in the game and also a positive role model because of the combination of her feminine appearance and tough actions.