Mario and Manhood: Select Player

In this second part we’ll talk about the types of guys that are predominant in the media’s portrayal of men and masculinity.

In the last post there was a description of men that turns out to be a pretty tall order for those who take it seriously. The story of Hosea presents a call to love the otherwise undesirable to the glory of God as an example of His love for us. Hosea’s righteousness as a man and as a husband ultimately came from God, but he does provide a good example of a man with integrity and faithfulness.

But what kind of examples do we have today? Unfortunately, positive examples of men seem to be in short supply. In pop culture, particularly on TV, there are two main images of how our culture views men. Here’s how they break down:

The Womanizer

This is the guy who cares about nothing other than taking advantage of women. He moves from one to the next with no sense of honor or commitment, the classic “hit it and quit it.” This type of guy rarely experiences the consequences of his selfish actions. He’s typically young, independently wealthy, smooth, lacking a moral compass, single (although sometimes perhaps not), and occasionally it will be revealed that he’s wounded or insecure in some way. This last point usually serves to explain the character to make it easier for the audience to relate to or accept him. The story will typically try very hard to show that this character actually has a heart of gold, despite spending the majority of their lives in meaningless pursuits.

Other adjectives that can describe this type of character are: sleazy, eternal bachelor, hedonistic, man-whore, the bad boy

Examples include: Charlie Harper (Two and Half Men), Joey Tribbiani (Friends), Barney Stinson (How I Met Your Mother), any guy from an Axe Body Spray commercial, Dave Lockwood (Ryan Reynold’s character from The Change-Up), we can also throw Duke Nukem in there

The Inept Suburbanite

This is the guy that everyone points and laughs at. This character’s masculinity (or lack thereof) is used for the purpose of comedy, not as a positive example. He is often domesticated and fumbles around avoiding his overbearing wife. His exploits include attempting to participate in a hobby without making the Mrs. too upset, or even allowing her to find out at all. This means that this character often partakes in the arts of lying and cowardice. Through his zany antics he often ends up looking like a complete fool. He’s typically being run over by his wife and kids. Nobody ever really takes this guy seriously.

Other adjectives that can describe this type of character are: henpecked, tame, clumsy, dweeb, idiot, incompetent, bumbling, whipped, emasculated, weak, useless

Examples include: The main male characters from King of Queens, Home Improvement, Everybody Loves Raymond, and almost  any family sitcom from the 90’s to the early 00’s, also Phil Dunphy from Modern Family, Peter Griffin, Homer Simpson, and Michael Scott (The Office)

So what about gamer culture? The reputation that gamers have is this: twenty and thirty something single guys who still live with their parents, work very little (if at all), and sleep on Star Wars sheets. This by no means describes every gamer, but this stereotype is not uncommon within the nerd population. But if you look at video games, many of the male protagonists more or less fit the same mold: the mighty hero. The interactive nature of video games allows for players to become someone that they’re not. Thus it makes sense that the examples of strong men are all in video games and action movies. The gaming medium produces characters that players want to be rather than characters that we will laugh at or look down on. When it comes to the types of dudes in video games, they’re usually different packaging of the same product. These protagonists can be categorized as follows:

1. The space marine. Examples: Master Chief, Marcus Fenix, Commander Shephard (assuming you choose the male version), Duke Nukem, the guy from Doom

2. The non-space marine. Examples: every Call of Duty game or military shooter

3. The plucky everyman in a challenging situation: Mario, Gordon Freeman, Isaac Clarke, Desmond Miles

4. The daring adventurer: Link, Nathan Drake

The male characters in video games that men get to be are the brave, strong heroes who will always kill the bad guy and save the girl. The way men are viewed by pop culture is either as the petty womanizer or an emasculated family man. So where’s the best example of manhood in our culture? Is there one at all?

The Bible’s view of manhood is both unique and challenging. Hosea’s story is a great example of what real man is called to. God places dignity and an important mandate on the shoulders of every man. He doesn’t call men to philander around from one woman to the next, but to pursue a deep and meaningful commitment to one woman. He doesn’t view his created man as a mindless moron capable of only folly, but he endows each man with a purpose and a mission. As you can see from Hosea’s story (and Mario’s), committing to one woman fully and faithfully is a very challenging task, one that can only be taken up through the God-given strength given to a man.

So take Mario’s and Hosea’s example and man up, pursue a life of Godly manhood just as God has gone out of his way to pursue you.

Questions:

What messages (positive or negative) do you see from culture about what a man is?

Who’s your example of true manhood?

What other categories of guys do you see presented by pop culture?

Next time we’ll talk about the ladies and how they fit into gamer culture.

Mario and Manhood: Another Castle

Any life-long gamer has likely seen this screen. Having Mario fruitlessly chase the princess through castle after castle is probably just a clever plot device to extend the game and reuse some textures, I’m sure. But at the time that game was awesome enough to override any major criticisms. Unfortunately for us all even in recent years, Princess Peach has continued to make a habit of not only getting captured, but being moved constantly from one castle to another. In fact, Princess Peach is overall quite useless. Let’s review what Princess Peach is terrible at:

1. Not being captured easily. Shouldn’t a kingdom have a well-defended border? Does security not notice a giant dinosaur-turtle sneaking in and out? “Hey where ya going with that princess-shaped duffel bag, sir? Ah, you’re good, carry on.”
2. Being a wise and effective leader of Mushroom Kingdom. Let’s face it, there’s Goombas, Piranha Plants, and flying duck/turtles all over the place.
3. Keeping a stable and secure economy. I think even the least educated economists would agree that storing the kingdom’s gold in bricks and underground sewage areas is problematic at best.
4. Enforcing a drug-free society. The shroom-heads are everywhere, they’ve even renamed the kingdom. Sure, even Mario benefits from the funkadelic powers of the mushroom, but is that really how to maintain a high quality of life? What about the children, Princess? WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN????

Despite these obvious character flaws and her propensity for never being in the right place, our brave hero Mario continues to pursue the princess. Thinking back on this vicious cycle and Mario’s determination, I couldn’t help but think of the Biblical story of Hosea. God commanded the prophet Hosea to pursue a prostitute named Gomer and to love her in spite of her past life on the streets. So Hosea took her as a wife and they had children together and raised a family. But eventually she went back to her old ways ran off to other men. Hosea remained faithful and pursued her even though he had to literally buy her back from someone else.

Does this sound familiar? The connection between Mario and Hosea is that they both pursued a woman who was running away, or being pulled away as the case may be. Princess Peach and Gomer were always with another person, always in another place. But in both cases, this is the picture of true commitment in a relationship. They represent what it looks like to love and pursue the woman unconditionally, regardless of her situation or her faithfulness.

(Now, all metaphors fall apart at some point, so clarification is in order. It’s not exactly fair to say Princess Peach is the same as a prostitute. Gomer kept leaving because of her sinful nature, while the princess was just being taken by Bowser. So let’s just say that Bowser represents the princess’ sinful nature, to salvage the comparison.)

Hosea and Mario are just shadows of a deeper story. As is often the case with prophets, God commanded him to do this as a symbol for all of his people. The message is that God’s people are sinful and adulterous, worshiping other Gods and relying on themselves instead of him. We are all Gomer and Princess Peach: sinful, adulterous, useless. Yet God is faithful and will pursue and love us anyway. That’s the good news. We are undeserving of anything, yet God sent Jesus to rescue us from our sin and ourselves. So next time you get stuck in the grind of a Mario game, wondering why in the world can’t the Princess stop being such a useless tool, remember that you’re just as bad, but there’s one who will stop at nothing to come to your rescue.

Questions:

Have you ever tried to pursue something or someone that continually eluded you?

How have you run from God trying to work in your life?

Use these questions or any other thoughts to discuss in the comments! We’ll talk more about masculinity in the next post.