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Dad hacks Donkey Kong for his daughter; Pauline now saves Mario

arstechnica.com

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Re: Dad hacks Donkey Kong for his daughter; Pauline now saves Mario

#11

Post by itafroma »

Karunamon wrote: post #8
itafroma wrote: post #4

Donkey Kong was highlighted as one of the first examples of Nintendo's overuse* of the "Damsel in Distress" trope in the first episode of Anita Sarkeesian's series on the portrayal of women in video games: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6p5AZp7r_Q Very cool to see a parent help try to correct that for their kid as they introduce them to video games. *changed wording for clarity

Overused? This is the first Nintendo game that ever used that trope. Mario wasn't even called Mario before this point, and there was no princess. It was just Jumpman (renamed to Mario starting with this very game, who got his name from one of Nintendo's landlords at the time), Pauline (who got her name from the wife of an employee, but just "Lady" in the J version), and Donkey Kong.

I'm not sure what you're taking exception to: I said it was one of the first examples (wasn't sure if it was the first, so thanks for clarifying that).

While in the video Sarkeesian goes through its overuse in general as mturmon mentioned, Nintendo did go on to overuse it themselves, with Donkey Kong being the first of many times Nintendo went to that well. The linked video goes through several examples.

Re: Dad hacks Donkey Kong for his daughter; Pauline now saves Mario

#12

Post by Karunamon »

Reposting and responding to a dead comment by lexarchy:

--

>This is a clever hack, but I question the motives of both the father and Ars Technica. Must we erase—or invert—all aspects of yin and yang, simply to appease the gods of equality?

You may have heard the French phrase vive la différence, which translates as "long live the difference", but do you know what it refers to? It means "let's celebrate the differences between the sexes." Nowadays it seems we are only allowed to celebrate their sameness, or their inversion. This makes me sad.

Vive la différence!

--

This kind of put into words an odd feeling I was having about the whole "war of the sexes" vibe that this seems to generate. I'm not sure the motives of the father or the site need questioned at all - it's a thoughtful gift to his daughter, and a very clever hack at that. Certainly worth covering in any case.

What I don't understand is how one of the most common storytelling tropes in history (we're talking Shakespeare and then some) has suddenly become uncool to use, or why we're making a harmless part of videogame history a political and social justice issue.

Re: Dad hacks Donkey Kong for his daughter; Pauline now saves Mario

#13

Post by mturmon »

itafroma wrote: post #4

Donkey Kong was highlighted as one of the first examples of Nintendo's overuse* of the "Damsel in Distress" trope in the first episode of Anita Sarkeesian's series on the portrayal of women in video games: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6p5AZp7r_Q Very cool to see a parent help try to correct that for their kid as they introduce them to video games. *changed wording for clarity

That's a nice link. (A little bit of "gotcha" media critique in that series, but generally well-deserved gotcha's -- her Lego two-parter is also worth a watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrmRxGLn0Bk)

Before watching that, I had not known that Nintendo tried to get the rights to the Popeye characters for video game purposes (see around 6:30 in the linked video). Besides the obvious King Kong character parallel, there is also a loose parallel to Popeye (Maiden = Olive Oyl, Mario = Popeye, Ape = Bluto).

Re: Dad hacks Donkey Kong for his daughter; Pauline now saves Mario

#14

Post by xk_id »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #5

I will harp on about the importance of code literacy and open source / free software till the cows come home but this is the best example I know: We would never vote up a article where "father writes bedtime story for daughter, Sleeping Prince rescued by Princess". Because it is commonplace because literacy is commonplace, as are pens and paper commonplace and as are the legal frameworks to be allowed to alter the pu…

hah :) so software is like interactive literature.

Re: Dad hacks Donkey Kong for his daughter; Pauline now saves Mario

#15

Post by mturmon »

Karunamon wrote: post #12

Reposting and responding to a dead comment by lexarchy: -- > This is a clever hack, but I question the motives of both the father and Ars Technica. Must we erase—or invert—all aspects of yin and yang, simply to appease the gods of equality? You may have heard the French phrase vive la différence, which translates as "long live the difference", but do you know what it refers to? It means "let's celebrate the differenc…

Sometimes one gets tired of the same old stories, lazily retold by deep-pocketed corporations as an easy gimmick to make money.

The deep-pocketed corporations always win in the end, but in the cracks, something different can flourish.

Re: Dad hacks Donkey Kong for his daughter; Pauline now saves Mario

#16

Post by healsdata »

Karunamon wrote: post #12

Reposting and responding to a dead comment by lexarchy: -- > This is a clever hack, but I question the motives of both the father and Ars Technica. Must we erase—or invert—all aspects of yin and yang, simply to appease the gods of equality? You may have heard the French phrase vive la différence, which translates as "long live the difference", but do you know what it refers to? It means "let's celebrate the differenc…

If you'll take his word at face value, the father didn't really have any motives aside from making his daughter happy.

"My three year old daughter and I play a lot of old games. Her favorite is Donkey Kong. Two days ago, she asked if she could play as the girl and save Mario. She's played as Peach in Super Mario Bros. 2 and naturally assumed she could do the same in Donkey Kong. I told her we couldn't in that particular Mario game, she seemed really bummed out by that. So what else can I do? I'm up at midnight hacking the ROM, replacing Mario with Pauline."

Re: Dad hacks Donkey Kong for his daughter; Pauline now saves Mario

#17

Post by fpgeek »

xk_id wrote: post #14
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #5

I will harp on about the importance of code literacy and open source / free software till the cows come home but this is the best example I know: We would never vote up a article where "father writes bedtime story for daughter, Sleeping Prince rescued by Princess". Because it is commonplace because literacy is commonplace, as are pens and paper commonplace and as are the legal frameworks to be allowed to alter the pu…

hah :) so software is like interactive literature.

Exactly. I remember the days when Infocom called their text adventures interactive fiction.

Re: Dad hacks Donkey Kong for his daughter; Pauline now saves Mario

#18

Post by railsdude »

itafroma wrote: post #4

Donkey Kong was highlighted as one of the first examples of Nintendo's overuse* of the "Damsel in Distress" trope in the first episode of Anita Sarkeesian's series on the portrayal of women in video games: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6p5AZp7r_Q Very cool to see a parent help try to correct that for their kid as they introduce them to video games. *changed wording for clarity

It's nice to see the difference between someone who sees something wrong and actually does something about it just because and someone who asks the Internet for money and deliver a video 9 months later.

Also, for something that took 9 months and loads of money, there isn't really anything new there that hasn't been said before.

Re: Dad hacks Donkey Kong for his daughter; Pauline now saves Mario

#19

Post by Karunamon »

itafroma wrote: post #11
Karunamon wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overused? This is the first Nintendo game that ever used that trope. Mario wasn't even called Mario before this point, and there was no princess. It was just Jumpman (renamed to Mario starting with this very game, who got his name from one of Nintendo's landlords at the time), Pauline (who got her name from the wife of an employee, but just "Lady" in the J version), and Donkey Kong.

I'm not sure what you're taking exception to: I said it was one of the first examples (wasn't sure if it was the first, so thanks for clarifying that). While in the video Sarkeesian goes through its overuse in general as mturmon mentioned, Nintendo did go on to overuse it themselves, with Donkey Kong being the first of many times Nintendo went to that well. The linked video goes through several examples.

It's kind of hard to overuse something the first time you do it...

That said, I think that the "overuse" and the reasons for it in this case is in the mind of the beholder. Are we just calling this into question because it's now hip to call anything and everything to question on the grounds of some percieved slight to gender "equality"? Or are we having a larger conversation about the overuse of specific tropes in general in media?

Re: Dad hacks Donkey Kong for his daughter; Pauline now saves Mario

#20

Post by GuiA »

mturmon wrote: post #15
Karunamon wrote: post #12

Reposting and responding to a dead comment by lexarchy: -- > This is a clever hack, but I question the motives of both the father and Ars Technica. Must we erase—or invert—all aspects of yin and yang, simply to appease the gods of equality? You may have heard the French phrase vive la différence, which translates as "long live the difference", but do you know what it refers to? It means "let's celebrate the differenc…

Sometimes one gets tired of the same old stories, lazily retold by deep-pocketed corporations as an easy gimmick to make money. The deep-pocketed corporations always win in the end, but in the cracks, something different can flourish.

Donkey Kong was written by Shigeru Miyamoto, a junior developer who came from a product design background.

How's that for deep-pocketed corporation? :-)

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