In the video games of the Super Mario universe, Nintendo has primarily featured mustachioed men in overalls (mainly Mario and Luigi) or the occasional dinosaur Yoshi. But after forgetting the second time Super Princess Peach (2005), it is his star female character that the Japanese publisher puts in the spotlight Princess Peach Showtime!Available on Switch on Friday March 22.
The heir to the Mushroom Kingdom puts back her white gloves and pink dress to fly, fight, swim and solve puzzles. “The development is remarkable. In the main series games, Peach can’t do anything with her ten fingers, just gets kidnapped: she’s the famous damsel in distress stereotype. », recalls Fanny Lignan, lecturer at the University of Lyon-I and member of the Thalim laboratory.
No wonder: as old as fantasy itself, the archetype of rescuing a young woman is present in Greek (Perseus or Andromeda) and medieval (Tristan and Isolde) mythology. We find it in fairy tales and then in one of the greatest sources of inspiration for Mario and Peach’s father, Shigeru Miyamoto: director and producer Walt Disney (Snow White, The Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella).
“She’s waiting for us to take her”
Peach is not the first Nintendo character to play this role. From an arcade machine Donkey Kong (1981), Shigeru Miyamoto envisions a dynamic based on a triangular relationship: the hero’s mission is to rescue a certain Pauline kidnapped by an ape named Enormous. Saving the princess is both the goal of the game but also the ultimate reward for overcoming all obstacles.
Pauline, Popeye’s fiancee, inspired by the comic figure of Olive, is passive to the point of caricature. “She is placed on the beam. She is not attached, she can leave, but she does not move. She is kindly waiting for someone to come and pick her up.”Wonder by Fanny Lignan, who edited the work Gender and video games (Presse Universitaires du Midi, 2015). In 1985, Peach takes up the torch in platform games Super Mario Bros.., a true milestone in the history of console video games.
Peach (commonly, in the early years, called Princess Toadstool in English and Princess Mushroom in French), however, turns out to be more sophisticated than Pauline. The princess being sequestered in a castle by a dragon is linked to a recurring medieval fantasy in the cartoon. Its name, which means “peach” in English, is colorful. Despite admitting to forgetting her origins, Shigeru Miyamoto reports that she is associated with a female gender and the pink color of her puffy dress. “In Japanese, the shade of peach blossoms (Momo Iro) The most common way to qualify pink is without using it pinky, which comes from English Pink,” says Pierre-William Fragonese, a researcher at the Institute of Contemporary Arts at Kyoto University of the Arts and author of the book. Inventing Pink (PUF, 2023).
For academics, this Japanese pink, both elegant and old, differs from the American Barbie: “Peach is imagined as a stubborn, clever woman, too KawaiiIn other words, cute in Japanese. Pierre-William Fragonese continues. She has the trappings of a storybook princess, yet not the sexiness of Barbie, while approaching the style of American actresses of the 1950s and 1960s. » It is with these characteristics that Peach, with her high-pitched voice and her micro-crown on her head, has risen to the rank of iconic video game character.
pink force
The popularity of the princess Kawaii Nintendo allowed him to release himself in numerous games derived from the Super Mario universe, viz Super Mario Kart (1992), Mario Party (1998) or Super Smash Bros. (1999). In these titles open to multiplayer games, the princess is integrated into a gallery of characters with whom she is on the same level, including Mario and Bower. “In sports other than platform games, he plays tennis, golf, he drives a cart or a large motorcycle…”, Fanny lists Lignan.
However, when it comes to main series games, cartoons are tough. A princess is condemned to make a cake Super Mario 64 (1998) or to carry like a sack of potatoes on Bowser’s shoulder New Super Mario Bros. (2006). Some exceptions remain, viz Super Mario Bros. 2 (1988) where Peach is a playable character with the power of levitation.
Since the 2000s, Shigeru Miyamoto has wanted to give his princess more autonomy. In 2005 an entire game was first dedicated to it – even if it was this one Super Princess Peach, doesn’t quite get rid of its label as a delicate little creature, capable of growing plants with its tears. Recently, in Super Mario 3D World (2013) or Super Mario Bros. wonder (2023), she stopped catching, and in Super Mario Bros., the movie (2023), she teams up with Mario to save her brother.
“Shigeru Miyamoto said that he was very attentive to the evolution of American films that featured more and more female fighters, active and passive women. In this way he wanted to give the pitch “agency”, i.e. the ability to influence its environment”.observes Pierre-William Fragonese, also a video game critic for the magazine. PC Duck.
with Princess Peach Showtime!, the crowned head is part of this takeover. He alternately becomes a detective, musketeer or kung fu ace. However, Fanny Lignan regrets that the title’s ambitions, intended for less experienced players, are not the same as canonical Mario episodes. And if Nintendo’s mascot is largely responsible for saving an entire empire, Peach should be content to save the theater.
“Peach is still a heroine, she’s active, she changes, she takes on different personalities and roles, there’s progress”Fanny recognizes Lignan, though stresses it out “Some (of these roles) is doubtful both in substance and form”.. Because surely, if she no longer cries to water the plants, Peach will not completely forget her princely ways, fighting with ribbons, even going so far as to transform into a mermaid. If it moves with confidence now, the candy pink tornado doesn’t deny its origins.
