Mario the Capitalist

"You're not listening to my theory!" She said, inflecting her words with an irritating little twinge of self importance. "The goal of Super Mario is to collect coins, right? So it teaches kids to be capitalists."

My friend Nate was playing Super Mario 64, she was sitting on his bed, part of a circle of strangers passing around a bong. I was watching the game, but when I heard that escape her lips I turned and stared for a second. I didn't say anything, but what I should have said is as follows-

Hey, dumb bitch, you've just insulted one of the biggest influences on my childhood. Setting aside the silliness of this pretentious stoned philosophy you're trying to spin, let me entertain your argument. For one, while the acquisition of "wealth" may play a big part in Mario's games, the coins serve a different purpose in the game than they do in our world. While you might collect coins to restock the half-gallon of eyeliner you must have applied to achieve that curious, hookerish appearance, Mario collects coins to earn points, thereby unlocking levels, and bringing himself closer to defeating Bowser and rescuing Princess Peach. So you see, while we humans use our money to selfish ends (that is, buying things for ourselves), Mario is completely selfless. When was the last time you saw Mario buy a piece of sweatshop clothing or starve a local business by shopping at a huge, evil superstore? It appears you do both, although I've never seen Mario spend a single coin. Period.

Even then, the coins don't have that much of an influence in the overall score a player achieves. In the original Super Mario Bros., for example, a coin is worth 200 points. Stomping on a Goomba, though, gives you 500 points, and while collecting coins sequentially grants you no more points than collecting them one at a time, bouncing from enemy to enemy increases the points the next enemy grants, eventually resulting in a 1-Up. Where you earn the most points, though, is in speed; however much time you have left out of 400 seconds is multiplied by 50 when you reach the end.

So you see, Mario does not preach capitalism. Rather, the disciples of Mario learn speed, efficiency, and heroism. The goal of a game is not to earn as much money as possible, it is to rescue the Princess, and that is where your pro-capitalism musings fall apart. In actuality I probably would have muttered about half of that, but it gives me a little sense of vindication to write it anyway.