I looked up to my mom, who put in long hours at the bank and cared for two kids while my father traveled around the country for work. While the other girls played “House” at recess, I played soccer.
![princess peach mario kart princess peach mario kart](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/mariokart/images/e/e1/MK8_PinkGoldPeach_art.png)
Society spoon-fed me the princess narrative my entire life, but I never bought into it. I grew up in an era of generic Disney princess-related storylines, stories which run the gamut of problematic stereotypes involving a prince who rescues the woman from her terrible fate.
![princess peach mario kart princess peach mario kart](https://www.ubuy.vn/productimg/?image=aHR0cHM6Ly9tLm1lZGlhLWFtYXpvbi5jb20vaW1hZ2VzL0kvNjFRRzMrUVZQU0wuX0FDX1NMMTI3OV8uanBn.jpg)
To be fair, it wasn’t just Princess Peach reinforcing this worldview. What type of message are you sending your daughter when the only option is a beautiful, blonde, codependent princess who depends a man to rescue her? The problem isn’t inherently with princesses, but with this particular character. That aside, Princess Peach bothers me because she stands for cultural standards of beauty and demeanor that are ultimately pretty corny. I wouldn’t be the first to write about this speaks to an unrealistic fantasy in which a goofy-looking plumber can win the heart of a princess by saving her from certain doom.
#PRINCESS PEACH MARIO KART SKIN#
She has blue eyes, blonde hair, white skin and a poofy pink dress. My main issue was that the only clearly female character in Mario Kart was a stereotype of femininity. She could be powerful when played correctly. In Super Mario Kart, her character had good acceleration and a strong offensive move. Like so many others, I ignored the cookie-cutter formula in favor of following the hero’s journey. But video games of the past weren’t exactly character-driven masterpieces. At the time Nintendo released Super Mario Kart, her sole claim to fame was that she was the subject of numerous rescue attempts.Įven back then, I understood the “damsel-in-distress” storyline is a lazy one. She’s a dainty princess that needs Mario and his crew to save her time and again. saga, with only few exceptions, Princess Peach has a one-note storyline. RELATED: Every Super Mario Game Where You Can Play As Princess Peach Princess Peach’s Problematic History But something didn’t seem quite right as I mulled my character options. So, in an era where little girls rocked T-shirts with block letters that read "Girl Power!" I wanted to be excited to see Princess Peach as a peer to Mario, Luigi and Bowser. Still, at the time, those other characters were generally believed to be males and referenced as such. Toads are canonically genderless and Koopa Troopas can be male or female. It’s wrong to say that this character lineup consisted of only one female option. For example, Bowser and Donkey Kong took longer to accelerate but had a faster maximum speed. The characters had different strengths and weaknesses. In Super Mario Kart, players could choose from Mario, Luigi, Bowser, Donkey Kong, Princess Peach, Toad or Koopa Troopa. 2, though players would eventually come to learn that game was never supposed to be part of the Super Mario Bros. In fact, you could even play as Princess Peach in Super Mario Bros. If you were a fighting game sort, you could play as Chun-Li in Street Fighter II or as Sonya Blade in Mortal Kombat. Metroid introduced players to Samus Aran, who represented a concept so novel it was a surprise twist at the end of the game. As a young girl who played video games in a time when there was a dearth of female characters, I felt as though I "should” play as Princess Peach.īack then, it was rare for a game to have a playable female character. It was a racing game with simple mechanics but was silly and absurd enough to hold my attention.īut frequently, while looking over the character selection menu, I’d encounter a small but gnawing internal conflict. , it’s perhaps no surprise that I’d find myself drawn to Super Mario Kart.
![princess peach mario kart princess peach mario kart](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/DjEAAOSwki1atasD/s-l300.jpg)
As a child in the era of Super Mario Bros.