Repository logo

Undergraduate Student Research

Permanent Link: https://digitalcollections.willamette.edu/handle/10177/1068

This collection contains student works of distinguished academic merit as determined by Willamette University College of Liberal Arts faculty.

Browse By

Browsing Undergraduate Student Research by Subject "Video Games"

Filter results by typing the first few letters
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The Princess and the Platformer: The Evolving Heroine in Nintendo Adventure Games
    (2008-02-12T16:29:05Z) Phelps, Katharine
    Female characters, even as a token love interest, have been a mainstay in adventure games ever since Nintendo became a household name. One of the oldest and most famous is the princess of the Super Mario games, whose only role is to be kidnapped and rescued again and again, ad infinitum. Such a character is hardly emblematic of feminism and female empowerment. Yet much has changed in video games since the early 1980s, when Mario was born. Have female characters, too, changed fundamentally? How much has feminism and changing ideas of women in Japan and the US impacted their portrayal in console games? To address these questions, I will discuss three popular female characters in Nintendo adventure game series. By examining the changes in portrayal of these characters through time and new incarnations, I hope to find a kind of evolution of treatment of women and their gender roles.