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Game site Serious Games Source (so serious, it has serious in the title) picks apart "the most politically incorrect Nintendo game ever," Super Princess Peach as well as the size queen aspect of New Super Mario Bros.:
I would like to mention that a few months after Super Princess Peach was released, Nintendo launched another Mario platform game for the Nintendo DS: New Super Mario Bros. This game featured new superpowers for Mario, too. Rather than using his emotions, Mario was able to shift sizes, from tiny to enormous. I never thought about this until I wrote this article but Nintendo's choice of female and male superpowers for both games in nothing short of hilarious. One game defines women as emotionally unstable while the other one presents boys as being obsessed with their size. Why is Mario so worried about how big he can be? Who is he trying to impress? Has Luigi been recently dating somebody? Are the mushrooms an aphrodisiac? What is Yoshi's gender? I always thought Yoshi was male but he lays eggs. As you can see, sex in the Mario world can be quite a complex topic. That is why Nintendo should try not to oversimplify it with stereotypes.
Eh... So this is "serious," huh?
Super Macho World [Serious Games Source, via GSW]
