For this week’s critical play I played a lot of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on the Nintendo Switch. This game was developed by Nintendo and versions of Mario Kart are available to play on many consoles like the Wii, DS, Switch, and Android. I grew up playing this game on all of these different consoles, so I wanted to play it this weekend and focus on the Battle mode while playing as my favorite character – Princess Peach.
In Battle mode, my friends and I had to use in-game offensive items to battle in a closed arena where the last person with the most balloons at the end of the game wins. I chose to focus on this game over Mario Bros because of the option to play as a strong female character who’s purpose in the game is not just to be saved. Playing this game as a feminist means learning how to take on a competitive female role depicted as an autonomous individual rather than a damsel in distress and overwriting the role’s history of oppression based on sex difference.
As Shira Chess’ book explains the often-misconstrued definition of feminism, playing as Princess Peach is all about advocating that women are equal to men. Exploring and taking advantage of the characteristics and abilities of Princess Peach in battle mode actively disrupt the traditional traits given to her such as being royalty, calm, and peaceful, which aren’t usually seen as suitable for competitive games. While playing battle, I felt that the ability to hold and use every game item equally successfully shared the idea that strength and competence are not tied to the gender of the character. In fact, being able to take on the role of her pink, princess-like aesthetic while also being one the speediest characters that can easily defeat and play offensively against its other, larger male opponents yet is an example of playful feminism. As we learned in Chess’ piece, this juxtaposition plays into a structural paradigm of Princess Peach being a damsel in distress and pushes the boundaries by allowing her to have a more interactive storyline of whatever the player chooses to embody her role as. While playing as Peach and winning multiple rounds of battle by using aim when shooting turtle bombs and speed when dodging exploding items, I was able to write leadership, bravery, and intelligence into her female which defied the traditional expectation of a princess needing to be saved by a lead male character.
I would improve this game by expanding the range of female representation as a character options. I understand the current playable female characters like Princess Daisy, Rosalina, Pink Gold Peach, and Baby Princess Peach are constrained to the characters involved in Mario history, but these options have mainly only expanded to different versions of Peach and Daisy, rather than introducing new strong female playable characters. I found it limiting that each female character fell into the very light, light or at most medium weight class which largely affects the attitude of competition and harshness of the character while playing. While it has its advantages of speed and agility, its strength when bumping into other characters affects its image in an ability and strategy-based challenge like Battle mode and other games like Super Smash Bros.
