Ball’s in your court, Nintendo
January 10, 2019 1:27 PM   Subscribe

Yes, it’s true: Wario is kind of an anti-Semitic caricature. This is not to say that Wario should be canceled—he rules too hard, and is too integral to the continued existence of the Mario Tennis and Mario Party franchises. There is another solution. Rather than expunging Wario from the Mario universe, Nintendo needs to acknowledge the possibility that he can reasonably be interpreted as Jewish, accept that as part of his identity, and give him some appropriate clothing and activity options in future games. If Mario’s Italian background can be a thread of his decades-long tapestry, there is no reason the same cannot be true for Wario’s—likely patrilineal, let’s be honest—Jewish heritage. The Case for a Rabbi Wario
posted by Cash4Lead (5 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: This essay is not doing the things it wants to do and it's doing some other things instead that will not go well. -- restless_nomad



 
Bayonetta is in the new Smash, and she's gotten me thinking, what's going on over at Nintendo that they saw this incredibly sexed-up nun/witch character in a game full of bizarre religious themes and thought, oh, Nintendo needs that. Because that's how that happened, kind of, Nintendo liked the first Bayonetta so much they became producers on the second game, which was an exclusive with them. So if there's room in nintendo's heart for a sexy nun, maybe there's room in there for a radical rabbi wario. This was a great article, thanks for posting it.
posted by Rinku at 1:35 PM on January 10, 2019


I don't get it. I thought Wario was supposed to be evil Mario. Wouldn't leaning into his apparent Jewishness just make this connection way, way, WAY worse?
posted by chrominance at 1:39 PM on January 10, 2019 [1 favorite]


I never read Wario as Jewish, it seems more anti-semitic to do so (esp. since the only basis are negative traits). I thought he was just a greedy sciattone in sharp contrast to the clean and professional Mario.
posted by TwelveTwo at 1:45 PM on January 10, 2019 [2 favorites]


I never read Wario as Jewish, it seems more anti-semitic to do so. I thought he was just a greedy sciattone.

Yeah I never read him as anything other than an Italian stereotype.
posted by aspersioncast at 1:49 PM on January 10, 2019


Did Nintendo confirm Wario is Jewish or did the essay author just assume his ethnicity by calling upon negative Jewish stereotypes? Because um...
posted by Young Kullervo at 1:51 PM on January 10, 2019


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