Mario's Raccoon Suit Enrages PETA 491
redletterdave writes "PETA believes Nintendo's iconic plumber Mario takes a 'pro fur' stance" because he 'wears the skin of a raccoon dog to give him special powers' in the new handheld game released Nov. 13. PETA illustrated its disgust with Nintendo in an online campaign called 'Mario Kills Tanooki.' The page includes a side-scrolling Super Mario-style game called 'Super Tanooki Skin 2D,' where you play an angry, skinless tanuki that must chase a bloody raccoon-pelt-wearing-Mario across a 16-bit world and try to reclaim its fur."
More Specifically Aimed at Chinese Fur Farms (Score:5, Informative)
Re:More Specifically Aimed at Chinese Fur Farms (Score:4, Interesting)
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I think your comment applies to pretty much every organization that has been drifting toward extremism, both political and non-.
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Umm, no it didnt. Sorry.
Re:More Specifically Aimed at Chinese Fur Farms (Score:5, Funny)
I think by "sane people" the OP meant "people who would use attractive naked people to make their point".
Re:More Specifically Aimed at Chinese Fur Farms (Score:4, Insightful)
Couple of things:
A) I'm a vegan for ethical reasons
B) I think PETA are a bunch of self-promoting idiots whose campaigns are more often than not counterproductive
C) The campaigns they had portraying women as pieces of meat are downright offensive, and have caused them to fall out with many organisations that would otherwise have been sympathetic to animal welfare. In particular a lot of women's rights organisations despise them for it.
D) If you think this campaign is something , read up about their uses of photography of Auschwitz victims. I kid you not, these people figured it was a good idea to use pictures of burning corpses fresh out of nazi gas chambers as part of a political campaign. Now even if you do think the way the meat industry treats animals is comparable to concentration camps, any remotely sober person ought to realize that a stunt like that is only going to stir up a lot of anger and hurt.
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Re:More Specifically Aimed at Chinese Fur Farms (Score:5, Funny)
There were two good points on every poster.
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Might have the opposite effect (Score:5, Funny)
...if these sea kittens are tasty, then kittens must be tasty too.
Re:Might have the opposite effect (Score:5, Funny)
... then kittens must be tasty too.
Kittens?
Oh, you mean land salmon.
Re:More Specifically Aimed at Chinese Fur Farms (Score:5, Funny)
Though it turns out it's a bad thing to serve on a first date. Never understood why - I mean women love kittens, and love chocolate so the combination of the two should be perfect, right?
Re:More Specifically Aimed at Chinese Fur Farms (Score:4, Informative)
PETA used to be run by sane people, but then the crazies came in and scared the sanity away.
I don't think the sane people ever got to run it... It was pretty much bonkers when it started and then they got worse... To say that they 'drifted' towards extremism is a gross understatement; they ran there and then they pushed the boundaries. Here's a few signs that they're way off the deep end already:
1) The end justifies the means. Getting the point across no matter what.
2) Humans, the law, common sense - everything is expendable if it just 'saves' one animal.
3) It's okay to lie or blatantly abuse anything (nudity and famous people in particular) in order to gather followers.
4) They never make mistakes or correct errors, even if it kills people.
It's trivial to Google for these things. Arson and firebombing is cool. Gross vandalism is a hobby. Go vegan, even if it kills you - or your kids. And remember: "You can't handle the truth!"
Re:More Specifically Aimed at Chinese Fur Farms (Score:5, Funny)
This is PETA. They're not exactly known for their rational thought processes.
You must be crazy. Trying to get fish rebranded as "seakittens" so that people would stop eating them does nothing BUT scream rational thinking.
Re:More Specifically Aimed at Chinese Fur Farms (Score:5, Funny)
Sing Along!: (Score:5, Funny)
"Ask any mermaid you happen to see. What's the best tuna? Kittens of the Sea!"
Re:More Specifically Aimed at Chinese Fur Farms (Score:5, Funny)
Re:More Specifically Aimed at Chinese Fur Farms (Score:5, Funny)
You lying sack of crap. Anyone who has ever been subjected to the tyranny of a cat knows that they only have two emotions:
1) impatiently wanting something, and right this second, you filthy human scumbag.
2) "Oh, do you still exist? My mind must have wandered."
It's like having a girlfriend was when I was in highschool: an exercise in masochism.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go clean the litter box again...
Re:More Specifically Aimed at Chinese Fur Farms (Score:4, Insightful)
What kind of animal allows another animal that's 1/10 of its weight to hop on its back and make it follow orders, with only a small whip to use for enforcement?
An Elephant, but if you push it too far it will crush you like a grape.
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Trainability (and/or compliance) and intelligence are not the same thing. Elephants are typically incredibly smart, but can be compelled to obey orders with minimal threat. It's actually easier to train an elephant than it is to train a horse, probably because they are more intelligent, rather than less.
The same can be said of humans once they're "broken."
Horses, like people, have a broad range of intelligence amongst individuals. Just because you spent (I'm reading into your post something you didn't actua
Re:More Specifically Aimed at Chinese Fur Farms (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:More Specifically Aimed at Chinese Fur Farms (Score:5, Informative)
That's an unfortunate URL to post on /., as it will probably receive few click-throughs due to fears of actually being a link to Goatse.
Just sayin'.
Re:More Specifically Aimed at Chinese Fur Farms (Score:5, Insightful)
PETA is NOT a "pro-animal" group, they're an anti-human group. They've got a pretty good track record of showing themselves as having learned everything they know of animal behavior from cartoon animals, and who think that animals couldn't possibly ever actually like people, whether the animal in question is domestic or wild.
In fact, often, PETA has proven to be more inhumane to animals than animal exploiters, since at least the exploiters usually know how their charges behave, what their needs are, and what would happen if one simply opened all their cages.
Besides, who said a raccoon suit had to actually be made from a real raccoon? Ever heard of fake fur?
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Re:More Specifically Aimed at Chinese Fur Farms (Score:5, Insightful)
There are members of PETA who work hard to uncover and stop animal abuse such as the undercover steer abuse video. The leaders of PETA, especially their marketing team, are batshit crazy and I've never seen anything to contest that view. As far as responses people give about PETA, few, if any, of them are serious. When people see a statement from someone they view as batshit crazy, they either feel the need to offset the crazy (with their own form of crazy) or just find it fun to mock them. I think most people on /. are in category two. Though, who knows, we could hear a story next month of a /.er found in the middle of a sea of dead kittens and I'll have to eat my words.
Re:More Specifically Aimed at Chinese Fur Farms (Score:5, Funny)
holy @#@%, Tanuki is a real animal? Today I learned....
Re:More Specifically Aimed at Chinese Fur Farms (Score:5, Informative)
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The fictional ones have balls the size of watermelons.
Huh, I always wondered why Peach put up with Mario's odd fascination with magic outfits and such...
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No. It's just an animal native to Japan. It really does have very large testicles. Badgers aren't tanuki. Tanuki are tanuki. There are animals at the zoo you can point to and say "look at the tanuki over there," and the zookeeper will not butt in to correct you. Tanuki do not refer to badgers, although there's other local dialect names for the same animal, same as lynx/mountain lion/cougar. Or garbanzo/chickpeas. Or a million other examples.
They have a place in stories, the same way Mickey Mouse or
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Minor nitpick... a lynx is very different from a mountain lion/cougar/puma. Mayhaps you conflated the two four-letter feline names?
Re:More Specifically Aimed at Chinese Fur Farms (Score:4, Insightful)
It looks just like a raccoon to me. The PETA site refers to it as a raccoon dog. What's the difference between a raccoon dog and a raccoon anyway? Skinning them alive does seem like a cruel process. I would much prefer that they skinned them once they were already dead. I can't really side against PETA, as much as I dislike them, on this.
Re:More Specifically Aimed at Chinese Fur Farms (Score:4, Insightful)
Skinning them alive does seem like a cruel process. I would much prefer that they skinned them once they were already dead. I can't really side against PETA, as much as I dislike them, on this.
Wait, I missed the part where they have footage of Mario skinning the tanooki alive.
Re:More Specifically Aimed at Chinese Fur Farms (Score:5, Insightful)
I really wish that PETA would change its top leadership. For some reason, they think that any publicity is good publicity. It isn't when the name of your organization has "Ethics" in it. I expect an organization that talks about the ethics of animal treatment to also have high ethical standards when it comes to debating the ethics of animal treatment. If they want to talk about Chinese fur farms, fine, then please talk about Chinese fur farms. Don't bring a videogame into the discussion where the main character dons a fucking costume of the animal in question.
It's stunts like these that turn me off of organizations in which I should theoretically have a great interest. Greenpeace, the same goes for you. I wish I would donate to more than three non-profits, but publicity stunts like these make it really hard to do so.
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http://www.aolnews.com/2010/03/09/petas-euthanasia-rates-have-critics-fuming/ [aolnews.com]
http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=peta+euthanasia [lmgtfy.com]
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Re:More Specifically Aimed at Chinese Fur Farms (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:More Specifically Aimed at Chinese Fur Farms (Score:5, Funny)
After which they still won't sleep with you.
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My usual response when someone is introduced to me as or says they are a vegan or vegetarian...
"I like vegetarians. They're really good with a little bar-b-cue sauce."
Cheers,
Dave
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"Eat healthy. Eat vegetarians."
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In 2010, one Virginia PETA facility took in 1553 cats and had 1507 euthanized (46 were dealt with in other ways, such as adoption, reclamation, being shipped to other facilities, etc.)
http://www.virginia.gov/vdacs_ar/cgi-bin/Vdacs_search.cgi?link_select=facility&form=fac_select&fac_num=157&year=2010 [virginia.gov]
[Alternatively, search for 'virginia department of agriculture and consumer services online animal reporting' and it shows up quite high. Disclaimer: This is the source data from an anti-PETA site, so
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vegan female friends
I am increasingly suspicious that PETA is run by a bunch of trolls whose true goal is to get attention, so that crazy vegan chicks will sleep with them.
Re:More Specifically Aimed at Chinese Fur Farms (Score:5, Insightful)
If they could care less about animals, that means they DO care about animals.
-Your friendly neighborhood grammar Nazi
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Screw PETA, support the ASPCA. They've been around a long time and unlike PETA they're not batshit insane.
Re:More Specifically Aimed at Chinese Fur Farms (Score:5, Insightful)
From TFA: "By wearing tanooki, Mario is sending the message that it's OK to wear fur. "
I remember playing Mario games when I was younger, and I did not get any hints or ideas that wearing fur was OK. This is completely ridiculous. With this logic, I should get the idea that eating red mushrooms will turn me into a giant. Or eating a flower will give me the ability to shoot bouncing fireballs at people (I wish!). Or that I should pull out turnips from the ground and throw them at people.
Re:More Specifically Aimed at Chinese Fur Farms (Score:5, Funny)
Re:More Specifically Aimed at Chinese Fur Farms (Score:5, Funny)
I'm surprised they didn't go with the more straightforward "Mario jumps on turtles to kill them."
Biggest attention whores in the world (Score:3)
They make Cindy Sheehan look positively introverted. They'll hijack anything, offend anyone to get their word out in the press, and even on Slashdot apparently.
Remember, PETA is one of the most prolific animal killers in the country, hires out their animal-killing expertise to pounds across the country, and even kills animals obtained under the pretense that they'll be adopted out.
PETA, yeah, as long as wanton killing is considered ethical.
Re:More Specifically Aimed at Chinese Fur Farms (Score:5, Insightful)
They should go to China and stage a protest. Perhaps they could take tents and camp out in a park.
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And what is their opinion on Mario wearing a frog suit?
Re:More Specifically Aimed at Chinese Fur Farms (Score:5, Funny)
And what is their opinion on Mario wearing a frog suit?
That nobody gives a rat's ass about the French...
Re:More Specifically Aimed at Chinese Fur Farms (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:More Specifically Aimed at Chinese Fur Farms (Score:4, Funny)
PETS (People for the Ethical Treatment of Statues) added that Mario is sending the message that it's ok to pretend to be a statue.
Re:More Specifically Aimed at Chinese Fur Farms (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't be the only person in the world who it never occurred to that Mario was wearing actual fur, can I? I always assumed he was putting on a costume, not wrapping himself in actually animal parts. I mean, do they think he's crawling inside the dead husk of giant, man sized frogs as well?
Re:More Specifically Aimed at Chinese Fur Farms (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't be the only person in the world who it never occurred to that Mario was wearing actual fur, can I? I always assumed he was putting on a costume, not wrapping himself in actually animal parts. I mean, do they think he's crawling inside the dead husk of giant, man sized frogs as well?
It's actual fur in the same sense as Mario is an actual Italian from the Apennine peninsula
Most likely the the harm in the game is negligible compared to the harm of rampant anthropomorphisation - Tanuki is an animal which will bite, when cornered, not some happy, smiling little dude willing to share his skin with a plumber.
Same thing as violence against people in games (Score:5, Insightful)
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35TbGjt-weA [youtube.com]
Someone tell them about Mario 3 (Score:5, Informative)
Because they're about 11-13 (depending on which region you're talking about) years late on this one.
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Mario: Lost Decade (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Mario: Lost Decade (Score:5, Funny)
Thank you SO much for making me feel old, you bastard.
Well PETA... (Score:4)
Re:Well PETA... (Score:4, Funny)
I'm waiting for the porn site to go live....
I don't mind the raccoon suit... (Score:5, Funny)
But as a card-carrying member of PETF (People for the Ethical Treatment of Fungus), I'm outraged that Mario also stomps on giant, walking mushrooms.
So just wondering.... (Score:5, Funny)
And a better question, has anyone told PETA about the furry community yet?
They already know. (Score:3)
The definition of a Tanuki. (Score:5, Informative)
Are these people aware that a Tanuki is a MYTHICAL Japanese Raccoon Youkai (Spirit) with a magic shape shifting abilities that can normally talk like Humans? That is why Mario has his abilities in the game. He didn't skin an actual Raccoon dog, he gained the spirit energy of the Youkai including its Statue ability...
Re:The definition of a Tanuki. (Score:5, Informative)
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Actually, the tanuki is a real animal, just like the kitsune (fox) is a real animal. They're both real creatures that have been given magical attributes in Japanese myths. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanuki
This isn't to say that PETA isn't ridiculous.
They didn't have an issue 20 years ago ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Tanooki Mario is over 20 years old.
Why now ?
This does sound a little twisted (Score:2)
See? PETA serves a vital purpose (Score:5, Insightful)
They collect lots of idiots into conveniently concentrated groups, so we can efficiently ignore them all at once.
Steam (Score:3)
That was fun ... they should totally release that on Steam, maybe even XBL. I'm sure they could come up with some really cool achievements too!
DON'T FEED THE TROLL!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Turtles (Score:5, Funny)
Not to mention the number of turtles he's fucked up over the years. The man is a monster!
What about the turtles?! And Goombas! (Score:2)
PETA trol u (Score:2)
Conspiracy!!! (Score:3, Interesting)
I get the feeling time will prove Peta is a money laundering operation. They just do crazy shit on the side to make themselves think like they are a legitimate operation. There can't possibly be that many nut jobs to continue funding their actions.
Re:Conspiracy!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Never bet that there are not enough nut jobs.
PETA ... (Score:5, Interesting)
kills 85% of animals [petakillsanimals.com] it receives.
PETA [wikipedia.org] is launching a soft-port .xxx site and put out a gruesome comic book named "Your Mommy Kills Animals" targeted at children.
I have nothing but contempt for PETA. Even If I were a vegetarian/vegan, I would distance myself from that organization as much as possible.
Mario's long history of animal abuse (Score:4, Funny)
Showing my nerd (Score:3)
Peta are fuckwits. (Score:5, Informative)
Peta gives a bad name to actual animal welfare activists, you know the ones, the ones that actually find homes for abandoned animals instead of killing them.
Don't give an animal to a PETA "shelter" unless you want it dead.
--
BMO
I feel enlightened (Score:4, Insightful)
So the message is that something fun and lighthearted can be made from the skinning of live animals?
Not much of a game ... (Score:3)
or a political statement, really.
As a game where there is no win condition, it just sucks.
As a political statement, it's kind of catchy, but it's difficult to take PETA seriously anymore.
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No win condition? Not true. You eventually catch up with Mario and beat him up to take the skin back. The gameplay is lousy, and it was a stupid waste of time for me to play that long.
Headline is misleading... (Score:3)
And Mario is the problem? (Score:4, Funny)
God help them if they play Skyrim. I swear I'm swimming in wolf pelts, fur boots, and leather bracers.
PETA Concocts a spectacle! (Score:3)
That's like saying water's wet.
That's all PETA does.
Why the hell are you giving free slashvertisment to these rampant asshats?
Next step ... traumatizing children (Score:3)
I haven't seen it mentioned that PETA is putting up these billboards next to elementary schools:
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2011/11/peta-to-kids-would-you-eat-your-dog-for-thanksgiving/ [go.com]
Because, you know, the way to get people to agree with you is to be a complete asshole about it. After all, it worked for Al-Qaeda.
Fuck PETA (Score:3)
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PETA has really outdone themselves this time.
Yeah, side scrolling skinless animal is a pretty interesting concept.
I agree with PETA on a number of issues, but this ... this really is the sort of extreme that will lose more support than gain it.
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Lots of people adorn themselves with cow skin on a regular basis.