Comments on: EarthBound and Feminism

By: GiegueStrikesBack

GiegueStrikesBack — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 00:48:13 +0000

Very interesting! I guess this is a good way to look at it, but for mani’s sake, please keep the fetus theory out of it :/

By: NessBound2

NessBound2 — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 01:21:26 +0000

Cool! I wish more people in my school liked EB!

By: Mister Crosser

Mister Crosser — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 21:25:08 +0000

In japanese class, I’m allowed to make my own illustrations. I made one for the sa in hiragana. Sa as in Mr. Saturn

By: Duder

Duder — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 06:41:29 +0000

Wow James your a damn good writer. What a lot people need to understand is that he was writing towards an audience as most college professors suggest to do. In this case the audience was feminists or students of feminism. When writing essay you often need to be biased in order to receive a good mark.(We all have to do it).
Yet in this case I think EB was a bad choice. The game is in itself a parody. It satires three main things; American culture, western values and typical role playing games. For all we know Itoi purposely injected sexism, to indicate the sexism in American culture. I think this is the case because these injections are, as you know, not very subtle.

By: Thenumber1Yoshi

Thenumber1Yoshi — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:23:55 +0000

You know I’m suddenly reminded of one of the changes made from Mother 2 when they localized it to be in English for Earthbound I remember hearing somewhere (though I think it was Chuggaconroy’s Let’s Play) that when she first meets Ness she says if he didn’t come she would have cried while we all know that in the English version she says she would have had to try to bust out on her own, so I think that might have been one change to keep some feminists off their case.

I skimmed through the thing, but I didn’t think I saw that particular bit about that one change or fact about the Japanese version anywhere, it wouldn’t have hurt to have had it in there somewhere, of course if you did mention it (sorry its just I don’t want to read something that long just to check if one thing is in there) I’m sorry. But still this can’t help but remind Me of how differen the Japanese and English version’s of the dialouge when she first meets Ness in the cabin are (you know the whole saying she would have cried in the Japanese version and saying she would have had to try to bust out on her own in the English one)

By: ToXiXXX

ToXiXXX — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 14:33:02 +0000

How could you bring something as great as earthbound into something as twisted and paranoid as feminism?

I’m against feminist for the sole fact that they rally for equal outcome ass opposed to equal opportunity, and when the outcome isnt what they expect they have a one sided sexist rally against men being the primary cause for it.

Misogyny, You better believe it.

By: TheMindGamer

TheMindGamer — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 05:18:22 +0000

Honestly, I didn’t like it at all. Not because I disagreed with it (I did, though) but because it felt a bit forced. Granted, the stance itself was quite interesting but the methods used to achieve the points were less than spectacular. All the corner-cutting and lack of completely examining all the information bothered me. The essay merely forced the games content to mean what it wanted to say and anyone who knew enough about the subject would find flaws easily. This left me less than impressed. This felt more like propaganda than an honest analysis. =\

By: Luis

Luis — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 23:58:28 +0000

Thanks for answering, James. I gave you my points about why I don’t agree with your essay. This doesn’t mean I don’t like the way it is written. It is actually quite good.

I just wouldnt judge this particular game so severely because (at least) it does give some role to the femenine characters. Paula is a very important character and she is not what you would expect for an RPG femenine character at all. Ness mother and sister also help Ness on his quest. I could go on, but you already know what I mean. By the time this game was made, other games payed absolutly no attention to the femenine characters. Think about Super Mario World.

I don’t like feminism much. In my opinion (and I don’t need anyone to agree with me about this) it is just as bad as machism is. Not beter nor worse. If you remember Platon (I don’t know his name in English, sorry), you know what he said about balance. Neither the white hores nor the black one must run more than the other. So when boys and girls can be treated equaly, let’s forget who is male and who is female.

By: Zade

Zade — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 01:53:42 +0000

As an English Major and a Feminist, I’m doubly disappointed with this essay, disagreeing both with the content and the form. I wonder what grade it got…

As far as my own classwork goes, I mentioned EarthBound in an essay I wrote on how Monty Python influenced world culture, but it was an off-hand example.

By: Viewtiful_justin

Viewtiful_justin — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 15:58:12 +0000

I’ve never heard the fetus theory before. That’s fairly interesting, even if it has been debunked.

The report was intellectually incomplete, for sure. I think the fact that the person who really defeats Giygas is Paula, with her prayer, is significant, and it doesn’t get discussed. If anything, the woman in this game is the most powerful one of all, much more so than the men and their weapons.

I think maybe the absolute opposite argument could be made and well supported.