Pauline (Nintendo)

Pauline (ポリーン) is a character from the Donkey Kong and Mario video game franchises by Nintendo. She was created by Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto and debuted in Donkey Kong (1981) as the girlfriend of Mario who must rescue her after she is kidnapped and held captive by Donkey Kong at the top of a large construction site.

She is one of the earliest examples of the damsel in distress archetype in video games, a trope that persisted in the following decades. Pauline was replaced by Princess Peach as Mario's love interest in the Super Mario series, though she continued to appear as Mario's friend in the Mario vs. Donkey Kong series. In 2017, she reappeared as a supporting character in Super Mario Odyssey with a new role as the mayor of New Donk City, and she has since appeared as a playable character in various Mario spin-off games, such as Mario Tennis Aces, Mario Golf: Super Rush, Mario Strikers: Battle League, and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.

Concept and creation
Pauline was created by Shigeru Miyamoto and other developers for the 1981 arcade game Donkey Kong. She is the first female character in a video game with a speaking role, and is cited as an example of a damsel in distress in fiction.

Miyamoto initially planned to use the characters Popeye, Bluto and Olive Oyl from the Popeye cartoon, but when he failed to obtain the license, he created them as Jumpman (Mario), Donkey Kong and Pauline. Originally, Pauline was known as Lady (レディ) and the game introduced her as Mario's girlfriend. The name Pauline was given after the then-girlfriend of Nintendo of America's warehouse manager, Don James. It was then used in licensed products after the game's release including a collection of figures by Coleco and was eventually used for the NES version of the game, although print ads for the Game & Watch version of the game refer to her as Louise.

Captured by Donkey Kong atop a New York City construction site, the official artwork depicted her disheveled like the 1930s King Kong's Fay Wray in a torn dress and stiletto heels. Cartoonist Leslie Cabarga was hired to create the two-page Donkey Kong advertisement for print publications. His art style was influenced by the cartoons produced by Fleischer Studios. Despite not having prior knowledge of the game, he took inspiration for Pauline from the animated character Betty Boop and drew her in a similar style.

The sounds in Donkey Kong were produced by Hirokazu Tanaka, who attempted to use a voice synthesiser to create Pauline's voice with unsatisfactory results. Miyamoto said that although she initially had English voice lines, they were replaced by sound effects. She originally cried "Help, help!" and said "Nice!" when Mario jumped. Miyamoto explained that an English teacher was asked to listen to the voice lines due to pronunciation concerns and said that it sounded like she was saying "Kelp!", so voices were abandoned.

Super Mario Odyssey producer Yoshiaki Koizumi said that Pauline was chosen as the mayor of New Donk City because the development team wanted the setting to resonate with players and knew that Pauline was a familiar character. He said that she sang the game's theme song, "Jump Up, Super Star!" as she was being developed more as a character and was going to be interested in jazz. Kate Higgins provided the English voice for Pauline for both the song and the game, giving her full-sentence dialogue for the first time, expanding on the audible cries of "Help!" in Donkey Kong (1994) that are intelligible when using a Super Game Boy.

Appearances
Pauline debuted as Mario's love interest in Donkey Kong (1981), which was remade for Game Boy, where she was again a typical damsel in distress.

Reappearances of Pauline occurred in Pinball and Famicom BASIC. Outside of Donkey Kong ports and re-releases, she did not make any further appearances until her reintroduction in the Mario vs. Donkey Kong series. She would appear in all of its sequels.

In 2017, Super Mario Odyssey marked her debut in the Super Mario series. She is the singer of "Jump Up, Super Star!" and "Break Free (Lead the Way)". Initially a damsel in distress, Super Mario Odyssey changed her role. She is now the singer of the band The Super Mario Players and the Mayor of New Donk City. She serves as a supporting character, helping Mario with his quest.

In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, she, along with her band, appear on the New Donk City stage; by interacting with them, the player can add extra instruments and vocals to the music. Pauline herself is also featured as a collectible Spirit utilizing her Super Mario Odyssey artwork. In March 2019, Pauline made her debut in a Mario sports spinoff as a playable DLC character in Mario Tennis Aces. In September 2019, she made her racing debut in Mario Kart Tour. She is also a playable DLC character in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. She has also appeared as a playable character in Mario Golf: Super Rush and Mario Strikers: Battle League.

In other media
Pauline appears as a regular character in Saturday Supercade in the Donkey Kong episodes within the Saturday Supercade show. Voiced by Judy Strangis, Pauline plays the role as Mario's assistant or partner and is often seen alongside him in the various episodes. The two work together to capture Donkey Kong throughout the series. Pauline can also be seen helping Stanley in the penultimate episode.

Pauline makes a cameo appearance in The Super Mario Bros. Movie where she serves as the Mayor of New York City, and is being interviewed during a flooding crisis. This incarnation of the character is voiced by Jessica DiCicco.

Reception
Pauline's history as Mario's girlfriend was noted by Mike Fahey of Kotaku, who commented that while Mario and Princess Peach have become "iconic" characters in gaming, "no one gives a damn" about what happened to Pauline. IGN commented that Pauline was the character that "started it all" by being the captive of Donkey Kong and likened her tight red dress to Jessica Rabbit. ABC described her as "the great forgotten character of the Nintendo universe" and charted Pauline's relationship with Mario, highlighting that Nintendo clearly illustrated their love in Donkey Kong by a pink heart but afterwards she was completely forgotten and later downgraded to Mario's friend. Christopher Hooton writing for The Independent noted that Pauline had been swiftly replaced by Princess Peach as Mario's love interest for over 25 years, while Pauline "has remained drifting on the fringes of Mario titles, her story only being advanced by the unrequited libidinous advances of Donkey Kong". Writing in Popular Culture Review, G. Christopher Williams and Brady Simenson considered Pauline's lack of nobility to be significant. Drawing parallels with the fictional King Kong filmmaker Carl Denham who seeks an actress in New York City and finds Ann Darrow, they argued that Mario, as a working class character, climbs up to reach Pauline as a method of social mobility, particularly as Pauline is depicted with a slightly higher social status.

Author Nathan Altice highlighted the similarities in Pauline's design to Fay Wray, the archetypal damsel in distress of King Kong, but also opined that her long dress, long hair and boots bore similarities to the 19th century Wild West. He also compared her attire and role as damsel to the silent film serials of the 1910s, particularly The Perils of Pauline. Ethan Gach from Kotaku described Pauline's role in the 1981 Donkey Kong game as "one of the earliest examples of the 'damsel in distress' trope that would haunt games for decades to come". He opined that although Shigeru Miyamoto had explained Nintendo's reliance on damsels by stating that the game has been designed for male gamers in arcades, it was actually the result of applying "outdated notions of identity and gender roles after the fact instead of at the start". Tim Mulkerin of Mic said that Pauline diverged from other love interests of Mario by being a "run-of-the-mill, absurdly-beautiful-yet-helpless human woman" rather than a princess, but thought that her conversion from damsel to empowered politician in Super Mario Odyssey was a "fun inversion of a tired trope".

After her reappearance in Super Mario Odyssey, her character was praised for overcoming the damsel in distress archetype to become a woman of power. Bleeding Cool wrote about how it was a "big deal" for Pauline's sudden return, feeling it was an injustice that she had been negated to merely a plot point until then, citing it as "one hell of a patriarchy-smashing comeback". Paste writer Holly Green included Mayor Pauline as one of the best new game characters of 2017, stating that her career and talent as a singer made her an aspirational figure, while also describing her as "one of the oldest and most overlooked characters in the Mario universe". Nadia Oxford of USGamer included Pauline in a list of best new Nintendo characters of the past decade, commenting that she admired the character for ruling New Donk City with a "perfumed iron fist". GameRevolution highlighted that following her appearance in Mario Tennis Aces, players responded positively to her sex appeal and noted that she had inspired a dedicated fanbase.

In 2013, game developer Mike Mika ignited a gender role debate on social media after writing about his game mod of Donkey Kong, which he developed for his daughter who said that she wanted to save Mario in the game and play as Pauline. After replacing the game sprites to make Pauline the player character, his progress was posted online and resulted in numerous comments, some of which were positive and some "downright disturbing".