OMG. Really, PETA?

So, PETA has a burr up its collective ass about Mario’s use of the “Tanooki” suit in Super Mario 3D Land, the latest Mario game released by Nintendo.  I’ve avoided reading about this story since it first broke a couple days ago, mostly because I suspected it was puerile and pointless.  When I finally took a look, I was proven correct.

Their problem, it seems, stems from the appearance of the power-up more than anything else about it.  Mario, when he dons this thing, appears to be essentially wearing a life-size skin or costume that resembles a giant raccoon.  Because of this, they reason with their flawless logic, the game encourages abuse and skinning of raccoon dogs and other animals, presumably for the purpose of entertainment and/or fashion.

Mario obtains this power-up, which has been a part of the franchise since Super Mario Bros. 3 featured it in 1988, by beating up, mutilating, and skinning a tanooki… oh, wait, no he doesn’t.  He gets it the same way he did in SMB3, by catching hold of an in-game leaf that bestows the power-up.  It allows him to glide and thereby access otherwise impossible to reach areas of the game.

So, there’s no in-game brutalization of animals to villify this suit’s acquisition, which to my admittedly limited way of seeing things renders the first part of their charge invalid.

But, of course, the insanity doesn’t end there.  PETA went so far as to commission Super Tanooki Skin 2D, an apparently crude parody of the game, in which the player (a tanooki, I’m guessing; I refuse to play or go look for this thing) tries to get their skin back from Mario.

You did not misread that.  In PETA’s game, you’re apparently an animal, and you’re trying to reclaim your skin back from a man who did not take it from you.  The mere description of this “game” made me explode in partially amazed, partially horrified, laughter.

I can only imagine what those game sprites must look like.

What this means is that PETA has not only abandoned reason in their argument that the game encourages animal abuse and slaughter, but they’ve abandoned good taste (and possibly sanity) by having gone and supported the depiction skinless animals trying to take back their skins.  From someone who didn’t do it.  They’re depicting the thing they presumably are trying to guard against.

I have to ask the people at PETA, are pixelated images really worth this kind of publicity?  It’s a video game, morons.  It’s not real, it’s escapism, fantasy.  Get over it.

Finally, there’s the question of timing.  PETA’s been around since 1980.  The “Tanooki” suit has been a part of Mario games since 1988.  If this power-up is such a big deal, and so offensive to your delicate sensibilities, why didn’t you protest the damn thing back when it first came out, and you were already established as  an organization for puerile nagging and lame-ass publicity stunts animal rights?  Why wait until now, when it’s been part of the franchise for so long?

From a philosophical standpoint, I don’t have any real issues with PETA.  But when ideals are taken to this kind of absurd extreme, and the agency in question starts to become the thing it hates, it does nothing but make them look stupid (or worse: insane).  My advice to PETA on this issue: pick your battles a little more carefully.  Do your research on the game in question.  And for god’s sake, don’t depict skinless animals on a vengeance mission against a person who never harmed them.  That just makes you look like a crazy person’s collective.