The Blatant Sexism of Cooking Mama and Science Papa
When VGCats’ Scott Ramsoomir drew the above strip back in February 2008, I laughed. Imagining Shigeru Miyamoto as a violent misogynist is amusing, what can I say. When Cooking Mama Ltd. announced that they were developing Gardening Mama just half a year later, the strip got a bit less funny. Then when they announced Crafting Mama in March, it got troubling. On April 21st, when Majesco filed a trademark for Babysitting Mama, it all got downright offensive. Given the popularity and growing familiarity of the Mama franchise, why not develop casual minigame collections on the Wii and DS based around activities that aren’t so explicitly gendered?
Now, Activision’s compounding the problem with their announcement of Science Papa, a rip-off of Cooking Mama Ltd’s minigame formula so explicit that it flat out lifts the brand name.
Here the minigames are brief science experiments judged by the Albert Einstein-haired 
Science Papa. Activision is openly taking advantage of the Mama franchise’s gendering. Babysitting, gardening, crafts, and cooking are the activities for Mama, science and math are for Papa, end of story.
The Lara Croft and Marcus Fenix archetype discussion, while true, is pretty tired at this point. At this point, the discussion about the mainstream gaming industry’s juvenile treatment of sexuality needs to start turning to all-ages software like Cooking Mama and Science Papa. This is sexism at its most basic, people. I thought we were getting past this bullshit as a culture already.
(Links: NeoGAF, Destructoid)
Related links:
Overpowering the Flavor: Cooking Mama World Kitchen and Cutscene Clutter
Now You’re a Killer, Just Like Mama!
Cooking Papa: Look at the World like a Game
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Tags: activision, babysitting mama, cooking mama, cooking mama ltd, crafting mama, gardening mama, john constantine, lara croft, Majesco, marcus fenix, nintendo, nintendo ds, science papa, taito, vgcats, wii
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I’d be more inclined to worry about sexism in this if Science Papa was actually from the Cooking Mama guys. If they actually went “Hey, let’s make a Mama game about science. Except Mama is a woman and women are only good for housework and popping out babies, so we should probably have her husband do it.”
Also, you suck are resizing images.
Photoshop Mama?
VGCats, huh. Mmm.
I’m in agreement with Roto, here. I mean, I guess it could be mildly offensive, but since it’s a different company, I dunno. I’m mostly flabbergasted that the other company is so blatantly riding on Cooking Mama’s success.
I don’t know. My girlfriend isn’t much of a girly girl, she certainly doesn’t think women just belong in the kitchen, but she found Cooking Mama to be charming and fun. I played the devil’s advocate and argued it may be a bit sexist, and she thought I was being a doofus.