Super Mario as Transformative Icon for the Working Class
In their launch trailer for the original Nintendo Wii , “ Wii Trailer 1 ,” customers are sold on one of the bestselling consoles of all time not just by the strength of a game lineup , but even more so by the way that the Nintendo Wii promised to make them move . The advertisement shows the actual games only in brief flashes , focusing the majority of its time on the cartoonish way that players swing their bodies around to become the characters on their screens . Players are shown taking on multiple roles just like Chaplin , Mickey Mouse , and , of course , Mario have done . The movement of the player makes them swing a racket like a tennis star , fly a plane like a pilot , wave a baton like a classical conductor , and even move like Mario himself . When a woman flicks her wrist with the Wii Remote , this image is instantly followed by an image of Mario flicking his own wrist to send a fireball at his enemy . Just as Mario is a figure who aspires to other lives , represented by his varied roles , so too do players aspire to other lives , including Mario ’ s own .
This isn ’ t the first time that Nintendo has used an advertisement to emphasize how players want to be Mario , but also in particular , how they want to move like Mario . In a commercial titled “ Nintendo School ’ s Out ,” the audience sees a classroom full of elementary school students who are bored with their humdrum daily life . They watch the clock desperately , and the audience later finds out that it is so that they can rush to the nearest store to purchase a new Mario game . The catch , though , is that during this rush to the store , all of these children have the miraculous ability to run and jump like Mario himself . They jump from the top of one building to the next or from the top of one subway train car to another , just like Mario does while jumping from platform to platform in his games . They do this throughout Hong Kong until they finally reach the store , and when they do , all of them are
217