I realize I’m jumping into this thread late, but this is an example of Sarkeesian’s major blind spot in her otherwise great video series. She ignores the origins of many of the characters she talks about.
Ms. Pac-Man was created by a group of college kids who wanted to create a sequel to Pac-Man. As they didn’t own the Pac-Man character, what they were doing was legally gray to say the least. So they created a “new” character the simplest way they knew how.
That says nothing about Sarkeesian’s analysis about how maleness is assumed unless feminizing characteristics like bows, lipstick, and certain colors are applied.
Sarkeesian is analyzing specific phenomena that manifest in details. Saying that there is a background story doesn’t undermine that analysis. Indeed, it often confirms it.
Why is the origin relevant in general, and why is this origin relevant in particular?
Y’know what’s funny? I agree with you; I always used Peach because of her long (controllable!) jump. But EVERYONE I played games with – mostly boys, but I only had a brother and my cousins were all boys at that time – haaaaaaaaaated Peach. Every damn time, they’d go on and on and on about how the digging/picking up was wayyy more important and she was the slowest at it, so she sucked. And who cares about her floating jump? A GOOD player wouldn’t need to use that anyway so Peach is the shitty character for shitty players.
But really, the main factor was she was a girl. I’m not reading too much into it, either; for ANY game that had a girl playable character, they’d say shit like, “hey, you gonna pick the giiiiiirrrrrrrrrrllllll? HAHAHA!” or talk about getting stuck with the GIRL.
I could either show how awkward and hurt I was or I could join right in so they wouldn’t make fun of me for feeling hurt and sad (which I still was, but at least didn’t show it).
Peach was totally the best character. I only use her when I play
But Peach was only in SMB2 because it was not originally a SM game. They needed two more playable characters and there are only four non-enemy characters in the original SMB.
You will notice that Peach goes right back to getting kidnapped and needing rescue in SMB3 and beyond.
She was a necessary character in Super Mario RPG and IIRC in games like Paper Mario she had a more active role even while she was captured. (I only played the first Paper Mario but I understand a later version had her in some creepy shower scene, so I can’t speak to that.) She’s also playable in games like Mario Kart.
Er, I’m not saying her portrayal in the Mario word is perfectly gender equitable, but she seems a lot more active and useful than a lot of other female characters, so I’m not sure she would be my first go-to point in an argument about sexist tropes in video games.
[QUOTE=zweisamkeit]
But really, the main factor was she was a girl. I’m not reading too much into it, either; for ANY game that had a girl playable character, they’d say shit like, “hey, you gonna pick the giiiiiirrrrrrrrrrllllll? HAHAHA!” or talk about getting stuck with the GIRL.
I could either show how awkward and hurt I was or I could join right in so they wouldn’t make fun of me for feeling hurt and sad (which I still was, but at least didn’t show it).
[/QUOTE]
You know, I’ve heard a lot of stories to this effect, of geek girls getting marginalized within geek culture, and it makes me aware of how fortunate I have been over the years to know some just tremendous nerd boys. Even in high school our Magic parties were minority female and I don’t remember ever feeling like I was patronized or marginalized for being a girl. I had to tolerate a high level of sexism among my all-male housemates in college, but never in the context of gaming or nerd stuff. In fact the PS2 game ‘‘Champions of Norrath’’ was called rather matter-of-factly ‘‘Champions of Weasel’’ in that household, because it’s the first RPG I ever played and I fell passionately in love with the genre and played it constantly.
I don’t do MMOs and I’m guessing that’s one of the main reasons that discussions of sexism within geek culture is a largely academic issue to me. In my real life, I know some fantastic nerd and geek men who have never made me feel out of place, and I’d say the same about the geek men on the Dope.
Real talk about Peach: she probably is the “lowest tier” character, with the caveat that you can beat the game with anyone. I always tend to default to Peach, because a controllable jump sounds extremely good in theory, but I almost always end up doing better when I choose someone else in frustration after dying. I’ll grant that this may just be playstyle, though.
That said, in Super Mario 3D World I play Rosalina almost exclusively. I don’t think I could have beaten Champion’s Road without her completely overpowered spin attack. My only complaint about her is that she’s extremely slow so if I’m replaying an easy stage to farm powerups I usually grab Toad instead.
Yeah, she wanders around and sends Mario items to help him out. I don’t recall any of the shower scenes being creepy. I think it’s just part of your routine every time you play as her to take a shower when you wake up, but being an E rated Nintendo game it’s completely non-sexual. It’s probably less exciting than taking a real shower.
Maybe the computer was peeping on her once? I really don’t remember, but it’s possible.
In Super Paper Mario she gets an absolutely amazing scene where she gets pissed at and attacks some guy for trying to treat her as a character from a dating sim, though.
The first paragraph is about SMB2, by the way, not 3D World. Peach feels more viable in 3D World, even though she still suffers from being slow.
I always play Peach. Peach isn’t overall a horrible female character comprised solely of stereotypes and misogyny, but Nintendo is pretty shitty for so often making her the Ur video game damsel in distress. Ok, so she was playable in Mario Kart 64. Great. Oh way, my sister and I liked to play each other. Guess one of us had to be a dude. I was so happy when I saw that more recent installments in the Kart sub-franchise included Daisy, Rosalina, and various baby characters, koopa kids, toadettes, etc. Plus they’re in the Party sub-franchise too, to varying degrees.
Yes, it’s called the MARIO franchise so I don’t expect every game to stray too far from Mario rescuing Peach from Bowser, but I would like to see more of it. 3D World did a great job of that, especially because female inclusion was so low in 3D Land.
Full disclosure - I am not a gamer and know nothing about the woman being pitted.
But “link” is a squishy thing. Something can be a highly correlated marker and not be the cause. Heck, I could link being on insulin with having diabetes. A link of course could be reverse causation: those most prone to aggressive behaviors are most attracted to violent games. And that makes lots of sense. Such would be a finding even if the gaming was an outlet that reduced the frequency of their agressive tendencies turning into violence.
In any case, is there something different about videogames than anything else in culture? To the degree that strong women images sell we will see more strong women images. Disney has discovered the power of the strong woman trope. Okay, sure, extant sexist belief systems in popular and corporate cultures will require firm proof that the market forces will support it or the marketing machine will not be brought to bear upon it. But the solution does not seem to impose more content from above or even to hire more game designers with ovaries … the solution is to demonstrate that the market exists and is ripe for … exploiting. If it does.
If you consider retcons, strictly speaking there was only one girl, but also one other non-dude. 
Apparently Nintendo has recently decided that Toads are not sexually dimorphic, and their society has no concept of gender. The way they look is essentially a personal fashion choice modelled after actual binary gendered societies around them.
This is all, bafflingly, in spite of the fact that they’re called Toad and Toadette and look pretty obviously gendered.
Girls wear pink! And have braids! I mean, have a pink Toad and say it’s a he or that they are sexless. Fine, but don’t shove shorthand “girl” cues and say they’re all neutral. Or whatever. At least they got it right with Daisy and Rosalina not wearing pink.
Just in case anyone hadn’t figure it out yet, I got the guy mixed up with someone else, and read his post in that light.
Sorry dude.