Popular Culture Review Volume 29, Number 2, Summer 2018 | Page 224

Super Mario as Transformative Icon for the Working Class
athan Cohen , whose theories on identification with media characters is drawn on heavily by video game scholars , says that , “ While identifying with a character , an audience member imagines him- or herself being that character and replaces his or her personal identity and role as audience member with the identity and role of the character within the text ’’ ( 250-51 ). The authors of “ Identification with Video Game Characters as Automatic Shift of Self-Perceptions ” draw on Cohen ’ s research when they say :
While playing as a soldier , [ gamers ] would experience themselves as more courageous , brave , loyal , patriotic , and strong [ ... ] Playing a first-person shooter and identifying with such a game ’ s protagonist would change their self-perception in a way that they experience themselves to be more similar to how they want to be or to be exactly as assertive as they wished to be . ( Klimmt , et al . 325 )
Further , they believe that “[ c ] ontrolling a character or fulfilling a role while playing video games shapes players ’ self-concept [ .... ] Video games would , thus , appear as a self-transformation machine with which players can temporarily enter states that detach them from ‘ normal ’ self-perceptions ” ( 335 ). So , players who control Mario put themselves in his perspective and identify with his attributes , including his transformative nature . This identification occurs even though Mario is not an exaggerated interpretation of the player ’ s self , as one may create when playing Skyrim or Fallout .
According to a study entitled “ Player – Avatar Identification in Video Gaming : Concept and Measurement ,” identification is not so much about embodying a character who is supposed
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