Mario gets a political makeover with Ayres exhibit

Originally published May 14, 2008 in The Orion.
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For two weeks, Chico State had its own arcade with classic Nintendo games.

Groups of people wandered into Ayres Hall to scope out the games as senior Ryan Fitzpatrick hosted the reception for his bachelor of fine arts culminating exhibition Thursday. The exhibition, called "Eeprompaganda," included three well-known Nintendo games with a political twist.

Fitzpatrick reprogrammed the beloved "Super Mario Brothers" and turned it into "Super Democracy Brothers: The Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism." Instead of Mario and Luigi hopping over pipes and fighting creepy creatures, players were able to choose from President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to fight Iraqi men.

The two men run around the desert, encounter men in turbans and hop over oil bins with Exxon Mobil labels. Every time Bush acquires a token, he grows taller and becomes a cowboy. The detail on the game is impeccable. The blocks the players jump on are decorated with U.S. flags.

Senior Ama Stewart had trouble picking a favorite video game, but ultimately chose "Super Democracy Brothers" because the war in Iraq is an important and timely issue, she said.

"It's a great way to get people who aren't political to see our country in a different way," Stewart said.

Republicans were not the only political party portrayed in the exhibit.

Another game in the Mario series dealt with universal health care. "Dr. Mario" was transformed into "Doctor Democrat." The words "Hillary Care" stretched across the top of the screen and players became Dr. Hillary Clinton. The object of the game was to arrange pills into a medicine container, similarly to "Tetris."

The third game in the exhibit was called "Minuteman Civil Defense Headquarters Presents: Border Stampede," inspired by the "Millipede" video game. As the game began, the words "use your binoculars to stop the invasion," flashed on the screen.

The issue in this game was immigration, and players were presented with two lands. On top, the screen was covered with desert land and cacti. The lower half was a bright green land. Scorpions, snakes and little brown men scurried down the screen and shuffled around the cacti. The player received points for every shot. If the player was unsuccessful, the game ended with the statement, "the border has been overrun."

The war in Iraq, health care and immigration are all controversial, but the games were created in good taste. The games did not show a preference for one political party, but they hinted toward changing the state of affairs.

Fitzpatrick was afraid people would miss the comical aspect of the exhibit and find the games offensive, he said. He made sure his exhibit statement was visible so people could read about his intent. In the statement, he wrote about his curiosity with American culture symbols and the influence they have on thinking.

He came up with the idea of using video games as a way to deliver his message after discovering the game Fitzpatrick said. The U.S. Army uses the game as a recruitment tool, and it is available free online.

Fitzpatrick was also influenced by political talk shows on AM radio, he said. Instead of focusing on content, hosts work to elicit responses from listeners.

"They dumb down the issues to a ridiculous level," he said.

Depicting issues through video games is a way to mock the simplification used on radio shows, he said.

However, the process of reprogramming the games was not simple, Fitzpatrick, said. The name of the exhibit is a combination of the acronym EEPROM and the word propaganda. The acronym stands for "electrically erasable programmable read-only memory." Fitzpatrick spent a year altering the memory chips of Nintendo games. The game system ran the games as if they were the originals.

The altered games had the nostalgic feeling and entertainment factor of the original games. Gallery viewers were not hesitant to play the games.

Senior Tamara Webb attended the reception and played all three video games, she said. She admired the way the games contained context regarding political issues.

"I've never seen a gallery so full at all times."