Nintendo's 'Captain Toad' Will Teach Boys To Be Men

In Nintendo's Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, the male and female protagonists-Toad and Toadette-take turns rescuing one another. That's a big deal. The old damsel in distress myth is not just turned on its head; it's also reinvented in such a way that it fits more relevantly into a 21st Century understanding of gender.

After all, according to last year's 'Breadwinner Moms' Pew analysis, 'A record 40% of all households with children under the age of 18 include mothers who are either the sole or primary source of income for the family.' That's up from just 11% in 1960. Many economists, cultural studies scholars, and internet entrepreneurs have observed that the old gender roles are no longer steadfast.

Certainly some readers will now immediately navigate away from this page. They came to read about video games. They wanted a simple review of Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker. In the world of game journalism, reviews are about mechanics and graphics and controls and difficulty and fun. Not politics. Not feminism. Not critical thinking.

Disappointed, some readers will probably mumble 'white knight'-a pejorative used especially among gamers on internet forums to insult males who are concerned about gender representations in video games. Some readers will dismiss this post altogether. They don't understand that from a parent's perspective, narrative stereotypes matter.

Nintendo, however, seems to get it. Nintendo understands that parents are concerned about the kinds of stories our children encounter. It's not as simple as the game-haters vs. the game-fanboys.

Things are more complicated for me. While I don't think violent games cause moral corruption, I also don't think all games are innocuous. The narrative matters. There's a difference between a good game and bad one and the actual gameplay is not the only criteria that needs to be assessed.

For example, one thing I'm concerned about is the damsel in distress trope. In particular, it seems problematic that Princess Peach has been kidnapped in 12 out of 19 games in the Super Mario series (according to the Geek Feminism Wiki).