Is Donkey Kong sexist?

[CrazyCajun777]

Being that there is a lot of conversation about sexism in games I thought it might be fun to talk about an old classic, Donkey Kong. That's right we are going back to the days to when Mario was "jumpman" and Princess Peach was "Pauline" or even "Lady." Now first of all, I would like to say that this discussion falls apart rather quickly if you look outside the game itself. In the official story line Pauline is jumpman's girlfriend, so everything I'm about to say is changed. However, I would like to talk about the subject as it is presented in the game itself, without outside information.

So what happens in the game.
Note: I choose this game because it is one of the first representations of the "damsel in distress" story line in video games.

1.) Donkey Kong carries off Pauline.

2.) Donkey Kong smirks.

3.) Pauline shouts "Help!"

4.) Jumpman jumps his way to victory.

5.) Jumpman gets Pauline and the two run together as a heart appears in-between them.

6.) Pauline is taken away once more by Donkey Kong.

7.) the cycle repeats until either Jumpman loses all his lives, or Jumpman truly saves Pauline and the game restarts.

Ok so let's go through the arguments.

1.) Donkey Kong is sexist against women.
In this story Pauline is being objectified. At the onset of the story Pauline is treated as an object. Jumpman and Donkey Kong battle over the girl. Here we see that Pauline is not being treated as a human being, but as property. The other characters in the game show no sign of really knowing much about Pauline. All we know for certain is that she has many features we might associate with beauty, pink dress, blonde hair, high heels. Jumpman and Donkey Kong are not treating her as a human but as a prize to be won. Donkey Kong lifts her over the shoulder and carries her off. Then strangely, as Jumpman meets Pauline for the first time in the game, he is in love with her now? We have no indication that he even knows this girl, but now at first sight he is "in love" with her? Why? Well we are left only to assume that it is because of all the classic indicators of beauty she possesses. This is female objectification as Pauline as no agency in the story and is treated simply as a prize to be won.

2.) Donkey Kong is sexist against men and women.
Once, Jumpman finally liberates Pauline from the clutches of Donkey Kong the heart appears between the two. This suggests that the two are in love with each other. We already discussed how Pauline is being objectified, but so is Jumpman. Why does Pauline now love Jumpman? As far as we know, he is some random hero saving the day, so why does she show interest in him? We have no indication that she knows him. The only thing we know is that he rescued her from the beast. Her "love" for him is coming from his utility to her. She is not measuring him by what kind of guy he is but by his usefulness to her. If women are being shown to be pretty objects for decoration then men are being shown as appliances, only as valuable as they are useful.

3.) Donkey Kong is not sexist.
The heart between Jumpman and Pauline symbolizes a reuniting of those who love each other. Pauline and Jumpman are not necessarily treating each other as sex object. For all we know, they are brother and sister. A heart is often a symbol of romance, but that is not the only definition. Further more, the heart is between the two of them. It does not favor one side or the other. This may be the start of a relationship. Jumpman does not throw Pauline over his shoulder and carry her off. No, he simply moves towards the much taller woman. Jumpman, even with a heart over his head, does not ever touch Pauline, and Pauline does the same. Further more, the two meet repeatedly only for Donkey Kong to take Pauline away again and again. Each level where they meet can easily be interpreted as their relationship growing with the final level ending with the two star-crossed lovers united at long last.

Welp, that's the best I could do. I'm not certain why I did this, but I hope you enjoyed it.

Thank you for your time.

 

[Plucky]

you know that the original plot for Donkey Kong was that Jumpman had DK as a pet and was abusing him right? the reason DK kidnaps Pauline was because he probably either feared for her safety and his own, causing potential structural accidents in the process. or for revenge against Jumpman because if "he loves Pauline" then to an Animal it's probably the closest they can perscieve as something they like, so ya, DK probably objectify Pauline to an extent but only as emotional torment against Jumpman rather than any sort of Gender targeting. the Structural incidents are shown by the skyscraper being stamped on, causing the Girders to form into the iconic slopes on 25m (the starting stage cutscene. only in Arcade and 94) whilst presumably causing the flames in later stages.

I just chalk it up to most of the story fluff being outside the videogame context, since the game itself could only express plot to an extent with sprites, heck, DK seems less animal-like with more of a cartoonish intelligence and is much more personified in Donkey Kong '94 than his Arcade rendition in the original, yet it obviously takes the same cues from it including characters, which alludes to humanizing the character. also for some reason, Jumpman is the villain in Donkey Kong Jr which formally puts his abuse in the view of a protagonist role without having to state to the original fluff.

So in short, inadvertently sexist due to graphical constraints but due to those constraints, pretty much defined a standard storyline plot, which also influenced later arcade games to come which is a legitimate Grandfather Clause. but nothing actually edgy enough to be outright sexist. Nintendo is one of those companies you wouldn't expect to be sexist.


Oh..only just read that you know that she's his girlfriend. still though, i think being old enough and has legit reasons for space limitations gives it enough leeway. the true crime is how the DK series evolved to it's apex with the debatable Mario vs DK then a few spinoffs before turning into Lemmings..

 

[Neverhoodian]

Ah, navel gazing. What fun.

Just to clarify, Pauline and Peach are not the same woman. While Mario and Pauline were boyfriend-girlfriend at first, their relationship now is "close friends" and business associates.

Also, it's kind of hard to gauge how sexist anything in the Mario universe is when the relationship between the protagonists and antagonists varies so wildly. We're talking about a setting where Bowser is a mortal enemy of Mario and Princess Peach in one game, then go-kart buddy and tennis partner the next. Similarly, DK and Pauline go everywhere from dangerous kidnappings to friendly co-hosts:

Spoiler

*Insert Stockholm Syndrome analysis here*​