The Goomba. It’s the first enemy you’ll encounter in Super Mario Bros.. What is it? Is it a mushroom with feet, or a phallic symbol? Has Super Mario been fighting penises this entire time? If so, then the franchise has become a strange kind of sexual metaphor. Think of how to “score,” Super Mario has to ram his head against a box repeatedly, hoping that something will come out. To access new levels, he has to slide down a pipe. There’s pipes all over the place, and sometimes this discoloured, split-head thing pops up from the top and spits out a wad, then goes back isnide. To win, he has to drop a spitting turtle into hot lava. I’m sure the koopa paratroopas are metaphors for the clitoris somehow, but I can’t quite make it fit (Hi-yo!). The whole premise of the game is to rescue the princess from her would-be rapist, and then presumably fuck the shit out of her on a cold castle floor. If this interpretation of events is true, then the game is telling us, “Don’t be gay,” because if you so much as touch this penis-monster, you’ll die.
All I know is, if you’re like me, you’ve stepped on a million of these guys. They’re synonymous with the game itself as one of the most common enemies.
Only, it’s not the most common enemy. The most common enemy is the buzzy beetles.
They appear later in the game, and move faster than the goombas, making them deadlier somehow. Should you beat the game, you get the chance to play again, only this time the goombas will be buzzy beetles.
Which is kind of fucked up. Everything in Super Mario Bros. has an equal chance of killing you. Which is to say if you touch it, you die. Why does no one remember buzzy beetles, then? I even had to look up the name. Why is it “buzzy? Are goombas more fondly remembered because they’re your “first,” or is it because you never made it past level three? Do people just look at this thing and shrug, but freak out when they see a goomba?
Questions abound.
LiveJournal Tags: super mario bros.,video games
No comments:
Post a Comment