Super Mario Brothers: A Freudian Hellscape

Who doesn't love Super Mario? Since 1983, the Mario brothers have been the face of the video gaming industry. No matter how violent, mature, or artistic games get, Mario will always be the smiling face we think of when we hear the phrase "video game".

But what the hell is Super Mario about? Why is a plumber murdering turtles and dragons in a land of castles and princesses in the first place?

What if the whole thing is about.....sex?

Not just sex, though...Some of the most twisted, repressed sexual frustrations ever presented in popular culture. The dark subconscious of the adolescent mind. The Freudian hellscape of the dream world.

To begin this exploration into the darkness of the plumber's subconscious, let's first examine our protagonist.

Mario

Just who IS Mario? Let's take a good look:



This is Mario, pre-mushroom. He is small in stature, almost like a child. He wears overalls and a baseball cap, not terribly unlike the average pre-pubescent child of the 1980s. But he is not quite a child; the pubic moustache embracing his upper lip shows signs of a desire to mature-to move past the infant reliance on the mother. What we see in Mario is the trappings of pre-pubescence, with an awareness of one's own sexuality; someone who is arrested in a child-like state of repression, but with a buried need to mature sexually.



But then comes the mushroom. When Mario takes the mushroom, he becomes Super Mario (named after the super-ego). He is realized as a functioning adult, but he is still defenseless. Physically, he has matured, but emotionally he is still fragile, and the slightest bit of damage can cause him to revert to his child-like state. He is abducted by adolescence; forced to grow before he is prepared. He is the repressed individual.



With the fire plant, Mario finally finds release. He has grown physically, but is unafraid to release the orgasmic fire that threatens to consume him from within (most likely through masturbation, or possibly nighttime ejaculation). He is the fully realized sexual being; conquering all of the obstacles in his path with confidence. However, a strong enough force can still revert him to his child-like state.

But just what is it that could cause our repressed adolescent to shrink into his impotent state of repression?

The Enemies, Or: The Freudian Nightmares

Okay, I know what you're thinking. This is all pretty much elementary school level stuff, right? There's nothing REALLY sexual going on in Mario; it's all just a bunch of 12-year olds snickering about Mario getting "bigger" when he takes "shrooms".

You think that's where this crazy sexual subconscious stuff stops? Well, with the bad guys, things start getting pretty fucked up. If you found the last section to be uncomfortable and titillating, you should probably stop reading right now.

Now hand me that chapstick and pull down your brain-pants, because I am about to blow your mind.


The Goomba is the most overtly sexual of Mario's enemies. It's design is based off of the shiitake mushroom, yes, but it's flesh-colored center and slightly darker tip imply something more akin to a very angry phallus. Furthermore, in dream analysis, mushrooms generally signify unhealthy pleasures. Why do these walking phalluses threaten the repressed Mario? I think the most likely explanation is that they represent other males as competition; Mario fears the competition of larger penises in his quest for sexual satisfaction. They are the confident, sexually active, but mentally inferior males who threaten to separate Mario from possible sexual conquests. But more disturbingly, they are temptation for the repressed Mario to give up his chaste ways. If this is Mario's dream land, than maybe they represent the jocks from his high school years, or a sexy gang of rival plumbers.



The Koopa is an oddity among Mario's enemies. At first glance, he seems non-threatening, almost frightened and confused, as though uncertain as to why he is being sent out into the kingdom to murder a hyperactive plumber. However, if we look at the Koopa as a symbol, and not a character, the mystery fades. Look at the phallic nature of the Koopa. Really drink it in. He is even more blatantly phallic than the Goomba. Even more frustratingly, he cannot be truly killed (except by a fireball, which-remember-represents orgasmic release), signifying that he is somehow a part of Mario's psyche, and not simply an external disturbance. The turtle in dream analysis represents "self-protection, hiding, withdrawing, fear of social interaction or showing one's true self". Koopa represents Mario's own fear of social interaction, which in turn serves as an obstacle in his sexual quest. Alternately, at the very least, Koopa is some sort of stimulus that causes Mario's withdrawal from society, perhaps a bad memory. The phallic imagery might demonstrate that that bad memory is an incident of molestation or sexual abuse from an older male. Is Mario's past more dark and troubled than we ever imagined?


This is the most disturbing sexual symbol in the entire gang, and if you don't believe me, just compare it's appearance to any other enemy in the game. The piranha plant is an eyeless monstrosity, desperately gnashing at an escape route from the phallus it is trapped in-a phallus trapping a phallus. The darkness and depravity on display here is mind-boggling. The design of the piranha plant is similar to that of H.R Giger's alien.

What was the imagery being implied in Giger's alien? That of homosexual oral rape. The phallus being consumed by something that is both an orifice and a phallus. This evokes painful emotion because it represents to us the betrayal of a father figure. Remember when I said that the Koopa implied an instance of sexual abuse in Mario's past? Well, the piranha plant shows us a little more clearly what the circumstances surrounding that abuse were.

The horror.

And finally, there's Bowser. With him, we get the answers we've been seeking. Bowser is the ultimate proof of Mario's Oedipal complex. He is the full realization of the Koopa; the cause of Mario's social insecurity. He is the father figure, depriving Mario of the loving sexual relationship with the mother figure (Princess Toadstool) with his own advances. It is the goal of Mario's sexual quest to destroy the father figure through the use of fire (symbolizing the phoenix-like total destruction of the father to make way for the new male figure) and an axe (symbolizing the castration of the father, allowing Mario exclusive access to the mother).

But why is Bowser-the father figure-so closely associated with the Koopa? Because there is some sort of memory linked with him that causes Mario to shrivel. He is the demonic phallus, a sort of masculine form of vagina dentata. What does this mean?

Mario was raped by his father.

More to come.