Nontraversy!

Hey look, the news has picked up on another video game related non-contraversy! There's a new Super Mario game coming out and the Tanooki Suit is back. What the hell's a Tanooki suit? Well, way back in Super Mario 3, one of Mario's power-ups was this little raccoon costume that granted him the powers of a raccoon: flight and the ability to turn into a statue of an old man.

So Mario likes to dress up like an animal and hang around with like-minded adults
in a non-judgemental atmosphere. What's wrong with that?

Seriously Japan, what is up?

If you just said 'Hey, that doesn't make any damn sense' you'd be correct. But Super Mario comes from Japan, so it makes Japan sense. You see, in Japanese myth there's this magical raccoon dog with giant testicles called a Tanuki. Legend has it he once murdered an old woman, made soup out of her and fed it too her husband. In a brilliant move, someone at Nintendo thought that a psychopathic raccoon monster with giant balls would be a great fit for a Super Mario game and the Tanooki suit was born.

Anyway, someone at PETA apparently caught wind of the Tanooki suit's return and decided to get angry about it because he's wearing fur. Yup, PETA is upset that a cartoon plumber who's been stepping on turtles for thirty years is dressing up like a raccoon. They even went so far as to create a super-violent parody on their website:

Above: That's a skinless raccoon dog chasing a skin-suit-wearing Mario through the bowels of hell.
Thanks PETA, that aught to haunt my dreams.

Fun Fact: The average Fox News
viewer is, in fact, Helen Lovejoy. 

But are they really all that upset? Is it at all possible that PETA is exploiting the media's deep stupidity when it comes to video games? Like seriously, all you have to do is come up with some bullshit about how a new video game is in some way controversial and the news eats it up. Remember when Fox News made up some crap about Mass Effect's non-existant alien sex-simulator? Yeah, in typical Fox News style they even called the story 'SeXbox.' And then there was GTA San Andreas' Hot Coffee, and really anything related to Mortal Kombat.

For some reason news outlets are really good at missing the point with gaming. It'd be one thing if they just didn't get it, but it seems like there's an almost willful ignorance going on.

To put it into SAT analogy terms: The video game industry is to the media,
as the ocean is to medieval mariners.

Holy shit guys,
like really?

Part of the problem is that they treat it as a passtime for kids despite the fact that the average gamer is 37 and the industry pulls in about $10 billion a year (putting it up there with the film industry). So when some lunatic thinks she hears 'Islamic messages' in some shitty DS game she gets a platform for her crazy. Meanwhile someone makes a movie about a guy who sews people together (mouth to anus) so he can see how long it takes them to die and it's just another horror flick. I've got to think PETA knows exactly what they're doing, I mean sometimes they don't even have to try. Like the time the President swatted a fly in an interview and everyone looked at PETA to see if they would get upset. They didn't, they sent him some humane fly traps and soaked up some free media attention.

Look, even if you sometimes find yourself wondering what dolphins taste like, or praying to god that McDonald's will bring back the McRib in your lifetime, you have got to admire the way they ride the media like Muad'dib on a sandworm. Advantage: PETA.

Although PETA has been exploiting naked people for years,
when's someone going to call them on that?