Oct. 25, 2024

More than Saving Princesses. What Mario can Teach Young Boys in The Super Mario Bros Movie?

More than Saving Princesses. What Mario can Teach Young Boys in The Super Mario Bros Movie?

What if the resilient plumber in overalls could teach us more about life than just saving princesses? Join us as we uncover the powerful lessons of resilience and perseverance brought to life by Mario in the Super Mario Bros movie—2023's highest-grossing animated film. Throughout this episode of Fandom Portals, we explore how Mario's journey reflects the essential traits of determination, adaptability, and the power of community, making him a relatable role model for young men and boys. By examining key scenes and character interactions, you'll gain a fresh perspective on how Mario's steadfastness in the face of adversity holds valuable lessons for us all.

Picture Mario in the vibrant Mushroom Kingdom, teaming up with characters like Toad and Peach, learning to adapt to new challenges and using clever strategies to protect those he loves. This isn't just about mushrooms and go-karts—it's a story of courage and loyalty. We'll dissect Mario's ability to harness his strengths, embrace failure as a teachable moment, and the importance of a supportive network. See how these qualities translate into real-world scenarios, proving that resilience and perseverance are not just traits but skills we can cultivate and hone.

As we wrap up our October animation celebration, we're thrilled to share four actionable ways you can inspire resilience in yourself or those around you, all inspired by scenes from the movie. 

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Chapters

00:00 - Resilience in Super Mario Bros Movie

06:43 - Lessons in Resilience and Perseverance

20:11 - Building Resilience Through Adapting and Strengths

26:03 - Traits of Resilience in Super Mario

30:28 - Building Community Through Fandom Support

Transcript
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This movie became the highest grossing film of 2023.

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It features one of the most recognizable video game characters in history.

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If you're a millennial, you've definitely played a game featuring this character and, at the very least, you know who this guy is.

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But what can we learn from the character of Mario from the smash hit, the Super Mario Bros movie?

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On this episode of the Fandom Portals, we dive into exactly that question.

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Hello everybody, and welcome to the Fandom Portals podcast, where we dive into the fandoms you love and connect you with a community that loves them too.

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I'm your host, aaron Davies, and I'm a perpetual player to a teacher, a father, a partner, late night podcaster, procrastinator and also an animated film buff.

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We want to thank you, guys for tuning in to this episode, and this episode in particular is the very last episode of the October animation celebration, and what better way to do it than to look at the film, the Super Mario Bros movie, which ended up being the highest grossing film of 2023 and is currently at time of recording the fourth highest grossing animated film of all time.

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Okay, so we're not just talking about this film today.

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We're talking at it through a lens, because, after watching this film, I have found that the character of Mario, or at least the representation that they have in this film version of Mario, shows such great qualities and is such a great role model for young men, young boys, who watch the animated show.

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He practices resilience, persistence, and there's a lot that we can learn from this Italian plumber from Brooklyn, and I definitely think this is a episode that will make you feel like Mario is worth a bit of a rewatch, because, looking at some of the traits that this character has, it's really great to sort of analyze and see how his friends interact with him, but also the differences between himself and some of the other male characters that are in the movie as well.

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And not only that, but his influence on the other characters is really important to view for this as well, and there's a lot that we can learn from this.

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So by the end of this episode, I'm going to give you four things that you can do to build resilience in yourself or in your children or in people around you, if that's what they need, or at least to inspire that, just from some of the scenes that are from the Super Mario Bros movie.

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So obviously this is going to contain some spoilers.

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The movie came out last year.

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Most people have seen it having it be one of the most popular ones that came out.

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But again, as usual, I will offer a spoiler warning for everybody that wants to watch it themselves.

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So stick around to the end of this episode, guys, because obviously this is the end of Animation Celebration.

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If you get anything out of this show, we would really love and appreciate it if you could share it to a friend, maybe somebody that needs some assistance in this area, or someone who loves super mario bros, or your player too, if you're ever growing up playing this video game and that was your, luigi.

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So go on and send it through.

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Guys, there's a world of difference free to do, and uh, it, uh, it does everything for us, so thanks very much for sharing.

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If that is something that you're going to do, all right.

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So let's walk through the portal the Super Mario Bros movie and let's have a look at Resilience with one of the most famous characters the world has known, mario.

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Okay, so, first of all, the Super Mario movie obviously came out in 2023.

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It had a budget of about $100,000 US dollars.

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It did hit that billion $1.3 US dollars.

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In particular, it was created in combination with Illumination Studios and Nintendo, and it has an all-star cast Mario being voiced by Chris Ratt, we have Charlie Day voicing Luigi Jack Black as the amazing villain of Bowser, with other voices like Anna Taylor-Joy Keegan-Michael Key and Seth Rogen rounding out the ensemble cast.

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It has an IMDb rating of a solid 7.

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With 250,000 reviews On Letterboxd, it's sitting at a middling 3.3 out of 5.

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Directed by Aaron Howarth, this movie encompasses Mario and Luigi, the famous Nintendo characters, embarking on a whirlwind adventure through the Mushroom Kingdom.

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They're trying to defeat Bowser, and the whole movie is packed with these awesome video game references, easter eggs and nostalgia for all the fans of the franchise, and it is a simple but heartfelt love letter to everything to do with the Super Mario world.

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This was nominated at the Golden Globe for Best Animated Picture and also Best Original Song for the Song of Peaches sung by Jack Black.

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As mentioned before, it was the highest grossing film of 2023 and it did hit that billion dollars, so it is absolutely popular.

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But the way that we're looking at it today is through the lens of resilience.

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So when I first started looking at the term resilience and I'll go into a little bit of it here because I was very curious because it was a little bit confusing for me, because resilience and perseverance are two words that mean a very similar thing and I was wondering is Mario exhibiting resilience or is it perseverance?

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So let me just break those two terms down for you, just so you get a good idea of what we're talking about today.

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So throughout the film, mario has this unwavering determination.

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Even when he's confused or faced with overwhelming odds, he establishes himself as this symbol of resilience and he's got this drive not only to advance the plot of the story, but it also reinforces the importance of that perseverance in both personal growth and inspiring others, which we see happen at the very end of the film.

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So what is the difference between resilience and perseverance?

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Well, perseverance is a continued effort.

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It's the determination to reach that goal and work at it.

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Until you do so, you might persevere with learning a new skill and you really sort of need to keep up that momentum in order to stay heading towards that goal.

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It takes time for you to figure out how to do it properly and you obviously have to put in the continued process of working, and even if it stops being fun or easy.

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So that's perseverance, and resilience is kind of tied to perseverance, where it's that ability to be happy and successful, have a positive attitude after something difficult has happened, being able to push through some of those obstacles that happen whilst you're persevering.

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So when we're looking at those two traits, I found it really really interesting to be able to look at it through a lens of seeing those key differences between perseverance and resilience.

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So obviously, perseverance is that ability to keep going, stay committed, hit the goal.

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It needs a consistent approach and it also needs commitment to routine.

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So an example of this might be if you're studying for a test and perseverance means sticking to that study schedule, reviewing your material or pushing through frustration just to master that content.

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And then, when you're talking about resilience, if we're looking at it through the same example, resilience is that ability to change if you need to recover from setbacks, navigate through these challenges, and it requires that flexibility and that capacity to adjust.

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If we're talking about that same student studying for the test, then that student has to be prepared for the fact that if they get into that test and something comes up that they don't really know or they didn't study for, they need to be able to think on their feet, apply knowledge that they have in new ways and tackle unknown questions to be able to be successful and come out with a positive attitude on the other way.

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So those key differences is obviously talking about sticking to that predetermined routine or plan as part of perseverance and being steadfast and disciplined.

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And resilience, on the other hand, is like bending without breaking.

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It kind of allows for adjustments to creating that positive problem solving sort of space and it allows you to pivot when you're faced with unexpected challenges.

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And both of these are extremely important to balance when you're talking about going through achieving long-term goals.

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So obviously the long-term goal in the Super Mario Bros movie is there are a couple and you might say that Mario has one to obviously find belonging and be successful in his plumbing business and his goal, as the complication arises, is obviously after Luigi goes missing through the Mushroom Kingdom, his goal is to find his brother, that obviously growing to him, helping out the local toadstool community of the Mushroom Kingdom as well.

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So he kind of embraces these new goals as he goes through and some elements of resilience and also perseverance is also tied to community and partnerships as well, which we'll get into very, very soon.

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So now that we've kind of broken down.

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Resilience and perseverance.

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We will go through four examples of how mario from the super mario bros movie exhibits these traits and how we can learn something from this little Italian plumber that comes from Brooklyn.

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So what does Mario teach us about how to cultivate our resilience?

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So the first thing that he teaches us through this movie is to learn from his failure, and he does this by engaging in a few different sort of experiences, one of the first of which that I can think of is when he is going through the training montage with Peach.

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So he's made his way to the Mushroom Kingdom at this point and he is deciding whether Mario can help her or not in order to find the Kong army and, obviously, defeat or stop Bowser.

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So when Peach takes him to this brigade of different sort of challenges and that amazing montage occurs, with the holding out for a hero soundtrack in the background, we see lots of different video game motifs.

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Through this, mario begins to learn about different power-ups and the effects that they have on.

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He's constantly supported by Peach through this time as well, even though there's a little bit of wires cracking at the start.

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But he's very confident, he's positive, he adjusts to different sorts of changes.

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He doesn't give up.

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He reflects on his mistakes throughout and he tries and tries and tries to get through the very different phases and stages of this training montage.

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As he steps towards improvement, you can see that he sort of reinforces these lessons of perseverance through those setbacks that he has, of reinforces these lessons of perseverance through those setbacks that he has and as he's moving towards the top, it actually gets to the end of this scene and Mario hasn't been successful and one of the most beautiful lines in the movie comes at this point where Peach sort of reassures him at that moment after he says I didn't finish, I didn't complete the the obstacle course.

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And then Peach says to him you know what?

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No one gets it on the first try.

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And then obviously they joke because she was somebody who got it on the first try.

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But that sort of support was really great, but also that ability for him to learn through that failure.

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He was not successful at this time in going through the obstacle course, but that didn't stop him from moving forward and going through on the adventure to achieve his goal of finding Luigi and helping the Mushroom Kingdom in the first place either.

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So it was really really special to see that just sort of mashup of the video game elements, but also seeing him be so persistent, so resilient through that, and I think that's a really great message to teach kids.

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And it kind of reminded me as well, as you're playing the video game, of any Mario game.

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When're hitting that level it just sort of grinds you and you you need to do multiple attempts in order to get through it and that's what the video games are good for as well.

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There's a lot of people that say different kinds of video games would teach kids the wrong message, but I think that is one that it kind of does get right that ability to allow you to try new things in different ways, embrace that failure and treat it as a learning opportunity.

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You know, if you miss time, a jump as you're playing a game of super mario, then you learn obviously not to do that again so you can succeed past into the new point of the, the level.

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So throughout this movie there are multiple, multiple examples of mario obviously learning from his failures, uh.

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But we'll move on to the next uh lesson that we can learn from Mario in the Super Mario Bros movie.

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So we touched on it before, but it is the importance of those supportive relationships and building that sort of community around you.

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When you're going to take on a hard or difficult task, then it is very important when you're developing resilience, to have some support networks in place.

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Doing things on your own is obviously very, very hard.

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It is possible to do things all by yourself, but as you know from playing many, many co-op video games, then it's not always possible without that support.

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But also, you know, just in life, when you're talking about difficult events, it's really great to have somebody supportive to lean on or just to give you that word of encouragement when things get hard.

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It helps you when you're facing challenges to be more confident and feel like you can work together with those people, maybe even lead or follow in various different occasions, in order to overcome obstacles more effectively.

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And you know these relationships can be trusted friends.

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They can be family members, they could be emotional support people and in the form of Mario it obviously comes as his brother Luigi.

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They share this amazing bond and that was definitely prevalent to me at the very start of the movie.

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You know they're very supportive of each other, the way that they sort of interact and the way the animators really took care with their body positions in particular In some scenes.

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You can really see that that brotherly sort of bond is right there.

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They have a very close relationship.

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They're business partners with the Super Mario Bros plumbing and they support and encourage each other throughout.

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You know, when they're playing the advertisement and it's all finished, you can see that Mario and Luigi both it's like a tennis match of them giving each other compliments.

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You know, despite the fact that this was a financial strain on us, you did a really great job of this advertisement, Luigi.

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You know, mario's always sort of lifting his brother and Luigi follows suit, which is really great.

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In that sort of older brother, younger brother mentality you can definitely see that Luigi really idolizes Mario and Mario is super protective of Luigi.

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So it comes to a moment where they obviously meet Spike, who was a former employee, and this was the first hint that I got that Mario was very resilient as well because he obviously broke away from a toxic employee environment to start his own business, which is a venture that takes a lot of persistence to do.

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So we already meet Mario as a very resilient and persevering character and Mario sort of stands up to Luigi.

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In this moment he shows his protective nature.

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He reassures Luigi after the event with Spike by saying Luigi, you can't be scared all the time.

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He reassures Luigi after the event with Spike by saying you know, luigi, you can't be scared all the time.

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You know he's highlighting his role as that mentor, that older brother, the strength that's there as well.

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And through every interaction with Mario and Luigi you always see Mario between Luigi and the danger.

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In some instances, especially the one with the dog in the apartment after they go to try and repair the leaky faucet, you can see him actually holding a hand on the chest of Luigi as the dog is between them, snarling.

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He's very, very protective in that manner.

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And it is so awesome to see at the very end of that movie that that relationship is reversed when Luigi takes the manhole cover, protects Mario from the fire of Bowser, in an instance that obviously shows that Luigi is and has been watching Mario and his behavior through this whole time.

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That supportive relationship, knowing that both of them have each other's back, has allowed them to, you know, go through these challenges knowing that they have somebody there with them.

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There's even the line, the famous quote in the movie you know, as long as we have each other, everything's going to be just fine.

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That bond, that supportive relationship, is truly important and it's very influential.

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As I said, you know Luigi basically copies the same behavior that Mario has been doing for him his entire life, at the very end of the movie, when it comes at the most crucial point.

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So, developing that sense of resilience within yourself and following you know the model of having those supportive relationships, they really do matter when you're fostering those kinds of behaviors.

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Now one of the second characters that was a really sort of supportive member of Mario's community was Peach.

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Now, this is a really great representation of a female character.

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Obviously I don't want to talk too much in terms of how females should be represented.

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As a male myself, I feel like others can talk about that way more educationally than I can.

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But for me, as a father of a young girl, if she was to grow up and idolize this sort of character, especially the way she's depicted in this movie, I would not be upset.

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Now Peach is she's independent in this movie.

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If you're a Mario player, then you know on multiple occasions, through multiple games, you are Mario and you are tasked with saving Peach, who is essentially a damsel in distress.

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She's got no agency of her own and she's basically just a plot device, whereas in this movie she's, you know, the princess of the entire mushroom kingdom.

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But she's also so powerful in terms of her emotional strength and her support of her people and her loyalty, and she's also extremely supportive of mario when they meet as well.

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So back to the, the scene that included the, the training montage.

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She's very, very supportive through that moment as well.

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But also when Mario goes and tries to defeat DK in the Kong arena, she's the one that sort of uses her voice to remind Mario to use the power-ups when he's just been uppercutted into the stratosphere.

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So if it weren't for her words of support, her encouragement, her educational assistance, you might say, then Mario probably would never have grabbed onto the box that got him the cat suit in the first place and been able to obviously defeat dk in that manner.

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She goes, and she's probably one of the first people to um take on bowser during some of the combat sequences in the movie and she also fights alongside Mario, reinforcing that bond and demonstrating mutual support.

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I really liked in this movie that Mario and Peach were represented as close friends, instead of that sort of romantic relationship that may develop later if there's ever a Super Mario Bros 2.

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But in this movie, just to introduce the characters, I really liked that they didn't sort of rush into that dynamic.

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She was incredibly supportive of Mario during this time and having someone like Peach in the corner of Mario really helped him build that resilience through the tough times.

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There was a scene just as they were leaving the Mushroom Kingdom where Mario felt so comfortable to lean on Peach, where she asked you know, are you nervous?

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And he said are you scared?

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And he said yes, I'm nervous.

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And you know, being that vulnerable with somebody is really sort of amazing, and having somebody that you can trust that much to be supportive is also great too.

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So I encourage everybody that's wanting to try and build some resilience to really lean into those positive sort of role models and relationships that you can, you can foster, because it's very tough to do it alone.

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So definitely something that you can learn from mario is he is supported by an incredible cast of characters, and how can we go further without mentioning Toad, played by Keegan-Michael Key, the lovable young man?

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What a gem he's so supportive with his guidance in the games.

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Obviously that's a very big element of the game.

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You know Toad's always there offering you, helping hints, and they've traveled that through to the game as well.

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He's always helping him, guiding him, supporting him, always in the corner of Mario and even Peach, you know, toad is that amazingly supportive sort of guidance character and he's the loudest voice in support of all of them also.

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So all three of those characters really able to support Mario through that resilience building strategy of fostering those supportive relationships.

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All right, the third one that I wanted to talk about that I learned from the Super Mario Bros movie was that it's important when you're developing resilience, to be adaptable.

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Now, we did talk before about perseverance and resilience and the difference between those.

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Obviously, perseverance being something that needs to be maintained regularly.

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It often involves a consistent approach and strong commitment, routine and plan.

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Now, this sounds very counterintuitive to the value of being adaptable, but if you are resilient, resilience is talking about when things are thrown your way that you don't expect.

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When those setbacks are happening, you need to navigate those challenges and be adaptable.

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And the main way that he learns to be adaptable during this movie is when he first enters the Mushroom Kingdom.

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So obviously when him and Luigi go through the green pipe in Brooklyn and they travel all the way through to the Mushroom Kingdom.

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They separate each other.

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That is an event, that is a setback, that is a challenge.

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That is not something you usually have to persevere through.

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Mario then has to pick himself up with a positive attitude, move himself forward and be adaptable.

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Once he gets there, he's overwhelmed by his new environment.

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Everything is new to him.

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He finds that friend in Toad and, instead of panicking and retreating, he quickly assesses his surroundings and he starts to learn about that new world.

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He learns about the new rules he finds that help to help him navigate in this unfamiliar territory and he's able to be able to not be that static hero but a character who learns to adjust and grow through those challenges.

00:20:44.890 --> 00:20:49.366
He grows himself and he learns about the different sort of power-ups he can use to help him in his journey.

00:20:49.366 --> 00:20:50.890
He makes new friends.

00:20:50.890 --> 00:20:59.749
He was able to also extend his connections, which enabled him to reach his goal of rescuing Luigi in the end.

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It's also prevalent during the finale of this film, where, you know, mario finds the power-up that allows him to fly and he's being chased by the massive bullet.

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Him having learned the different things about the world enabled him to fly and is being chased by the massive bullet.

00:21:11.392 --> 00:21:23.648
Him, having learned the different things about the world, enabled him to have a new tool set that made him come up with the plan to feed the bullet into the green tube that sent him into the mushroom kingdom in the first place, therefore saving everybody from the destruction that it would have ensued.

00:21:24.371 --> 00:21:38.385
So making sure that you are adaptable is extremely important when it comes to resilience, as it improves your ability to problem solve, and doing so with a positive attitude is something that Mario does throughout this entire movie.

00:21:38.385 --> 00:21:42.705
You know they're faced with a challenge when they go to the Kong arena through Cranky Kong.

00:21:42.705 --> 00:21:43.969
He's faced with that challenge.

00:21:43.969 --> 00:21:53.364
You know you can have my army as long as you beat my son in this challenge, and he faces that with the utmost confidence and he's able to do that because he is extremely adaptable.

00:21:53.364 --> 00:22:07.978
He feels like he is able to overcome this situation because he has been given some tools before and he feels like, because he's made those patterns, he is then able to also do that in this new challenge in the arena with DK.

00:22:07.978 --> 00:22:11.173
So that's definitely something that you can take into your.

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Your own sort of life, in your own well-being, is being adaptable in sort of situations that really feel like they're challenges in new environments, whether it's starting a new job, a a new school, whatever it is.

00:22:21.751 --> 00:22:36.319
You know you have gained tools in your previous experiences that can help you with these new sort of tests, and that is the key to building that resilience and, obviously, committing, and through perseverance, you're able to do that as well.

00:22:36.319 --> 00:22:46.549
But that challenging sort of element, those setbacks, those things that really knock you on your butt, those are the ones that you really need to be adaptable for getting yourself up, and the positive attitude helps as well.

00:22:46.549 --> 00:23:02.173
Okay, so the fourth and final thing that the Super Mario Bros, and especially Mario, has taught me about being resilient and it's probably one of the most important ones to remember, which is why I left it to last is harnessing your strengths.

00:23:02.173 --> 00:23:07.343
So it's really awesome to be good at something.

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It's something usually that we're proud of, it's something you enjoy doing.

00:23:11.152 --> 00:23:15.843
When we're talking about harnessing these strengths, we can look at Mario in the first place when we meet him.

00:23:15.843 --> 00:23:24.202
He's obviously started his own plumbing business, so he's honing those strengths in craftsmanship, in plumbing, and he starts that entrepreneurial sort of track.

00:23:24.202 --> 00:23:28.915
He's tackling these problems, which include building a customer base and it's not going so well.

00:23:28.915 --> 00:23:31.392
Obviously at the start of the movie he's not getting so many calls.

00:23:31.392 --> 00:23:51.419
But he's able to then innovate and think outside of the box when Brooklyn is in danger and he goes under the manhole cover and he knows that the other plumbers are looking in the wrong spot and he and Luigi are able to go down and turn the situation around using that resourcefulness that he has developed through his strength in plumbing.

00:23:51.419 --> 00:24:02.534
And that sort of ingenuity followed him through to the mushroom kingdom as well, when he's obviously got this courageous ability to face his fears.

00:24:02.534 --> 00:24:05.373
So another strength of Mario's was obviously his incredible courage.

00:24:05.373 --> 00:24:10.515
After he's separated from Luigi he's able to courageously go forward and meet the challenges ahead.

00:24:10.515 --> 00:24:18.823
But that courage and that creative problem solving also helped him during his battle with Bowser.

00:24:18.843 --> 00:24:48.153
There was a really poignant moment in the movie where you know all of these sorts of things come to a head and Mario's beaten, he's battered, he's bruised, he gets knocked into one of these shops and he's hiding behind one of these tables and you know, the music swells to a dull sort of chorus and Mario begins looking at himself in the reflection of a broken TV and as he looks in it, you know he starts to reflect on all of the different sort of things that he's been through before and one of the main voices he hears is Luigi and protecting Luigi.

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Being able to be there for his brother, and that sort of courage and that loyalty is a big strength of his and it fired his reserves to be able to go through and be that responsible older brother, drawing on the strengths that he has of protection in order to to drive him through the next obstacle, get back on the horse, so to speak, and go out and help Luigi defeat Bowser in the very end of it as well.

00:25:11.557 --> 00:25:29.217
He uses his problem solving that he developed through various different challenges, using the power-ups and the environmental features, as a strategic sort of element that enabled him to really sort of kick it to the to the main villain of the story and his strength with teamwork and his bond with his brother.

00:25:29.217 --> 00:25:35.365
Those strengths he was able to utilize in order to defeat Bowser in the end, as there was a lot of combo attacks, which was really awesome to see.

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As a player one and a player two of the Mario games, you saw both of them sort of enacting the beat down on Bowser, which was really great to see in those moments.

00:25:44.634 --> 00:26:03.268
So that resourcefulness, that strategic thinking, emotional resilience is another strength as well that Mario sort of has to overcome these challenges and instead of applying popular or expected methods, he kind of embraces these unique abilities that he learns from his experience and gathers from his known strengths.

00:26:03.669 --> 00:26:14.289
We all have things that we are really good at and if you take some time to sit and reflect on those things that you're really good at, those are the things that can help you move through these situations.

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So you might be really good in social situations and talking to people and that really can help you, you know, navigate through some various different challenges in life.

00:26:22.769 --> 00:26:26.607
Or maybe you're physically strong that can help you in various different ways as well.

00:26:26.607 --> 00:26:32.640
And you know, if you're not physically strong, then just like Mario was in the DK arena, you know he wasn't physically strong.

00:26:32.640 --> 00:26:39.095
He was facing a counterpart that was miles above him in that regard and he tried to face DK on his own terms.

00:26:39.095 --> 00:26:51.893
He tried to lean into his I won't say weaknesses, but it definitely wasn't a strength of his in that sort of situation and there was even a scene where you saw Mario sort of slapping DK on the face and it just looked like he was mushing Plato, so it definitely wasn't effective.

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Mario needed to come up with some other form of attack and he was able to lean into his strength of agility, his resourcefulness with the power-ups and then overthrow that foe and be successful in the end as well.

00:27:03.997 --> 00:27:23.246
So to summarize all of the traits that build resilience that I learned from the character of Mario as we're coming to an end of this podcast is in order to cultivate that resilience, it's really important to be able to one cultivate that resilience.

00:27:23.246 --> 00:27:25.711
It's really important to be able to one learn from failure, embrace them as a learning opportunity.

00:27:25.711 --> 00:27:27.797
Two, make sure you have those supportive relationships.

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They definitely matter Friends, family, loved ones, brothers, sisters, all of it.

00:27:34.063 --> 00:27:37.656
It's really important to go through those challenges with some allies.

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There is a lot of co-op games out there that you can learn this from.

00:27:40.067 --> 00:27:42.834
Co-op games are always more fun when you're playing them with somebody else.

00:27:42.834 --> 00:27:46.148
It's a life lesson and it's definitely a skill that we can all have.

00:27:46.951 --> 00:27:50.288
The third one was to be adaptable in the face of challenge.

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That's the very most important thing to developing that resilience being flexible through challenge.

00:27:55.727 --> 00:28:01.967
Unexpected things are going to happen, as they did to Mario in his adventure through the Mushroom Kingdom.

00:28:01.967 --> 00:28:08.442
And, last but not least, you absolutely need to harness those strengths.

00:28:08.442 --> 00:28:10.788
Your strengths are unique to you.

00:28:10.788 --> 00:28:17.972
You've learned to get through every sort of challenge that has led you to this point so far, and you're good at a variety of things.

00:28:17.972 --> 00:28:25.307
So lean into those, make a list if you need to Find those things that you're good at, and make sure that you're really proud of those things as well.

00:28:25.307 --> 00:28:28.900
You know, not everyone is good at playing the guitar.

00:28:28.900 --> 00:28:29.342
You might be.

00:28:29.342 --> 00:28:32.891
Not everybody is good at marathon running, and you might be.

00:28:32.891 --> 00:28:38.593
Those are all strengths that you are able to use in able to develop that resilience.

00:28:38.833 --> 00:28:55.287
So I really, really do hope that this episode of the Fandom Portals podcast has entertained you, given you some advice, maybe highlighted some things that you're already doing, or at least made you look at the Super Mario Bros movie in a different manner.

00:28:55.287 --> 00:29:09.056
Now, it was really fun to watch this movie as well, because I probably could have picked a variety of different things to talk about the characters in there, and on the surface the movie kind of looks just like a love letter to the Nintendo art form, which is definitely is.

00:29:09.056 --> 00:29:25.576
But if you look at those characters, you can really dive deep into some of the traits that make them really relatable, and I'm not sure if that's what drew so many people to watch this movie and have it make 1.3 billion US dollars worldwide, but I definitely think, at least subconsciously, you know, some of these characters are really likable.

00:29:25.576 --> 00:29:27.851
They have traits and values that are really awesome.

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If my son grows up to be a lover of Mario from this movie, I'll definitely be really pleased with that, because I think he's a really good role model.

00:29:35.086 --> 00:29:47.678
I'll probably do another episode on Mario in the future, probably something in the vein of different sorts of masculinity, because obviously there's Mario and then there's Bowser and DK that show varying forms of masculinity through the episodes.

00:29:47.718 --> 00:29:50.828
So if you're listening to this and that's something that you're interested in, you can email us.

00:29:50.828 --> 00:29:54.397
The email address is in the show notes, below.

00:29:54.397 --> 00:29:56.769
It's fandomportals at gmailcom.

00:29:56.769 --> 00:30:01.982
Or you can contact us on social media, that is, at fandom portals, on instagram or threads.

00:30:01.982 --> 00:30:06.034
We're active on both and we love to hear from all of you.

00:30:06.414 --> 00:30:14.357
So that's what's in the future for the fandom portals podcast, and this has been the last episode of october at time of recording.

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This has been a celebration of animation that we have done all throughout october.

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So that's four episodes that we've done, all to do with animation.

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This is this is the final, final one.

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So if you listen to all four, thank you so much for sticking around for this little mini series.

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It's something I probably want to do every year.

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If we're lucky enough to, you know, stay around for an entire year, that would be absolutely awesome, and one of the ways that we'll be able to do that is if you guys like the show.

00:30:39.557 --> 00:30:45.669
So if you do, make sure you you share this with a friend.

00:30:45.669 --> 00:30:47.036
You can share some of our posts on social media if you like.

00:30:47.036 --> 00:30:58.596
Definitely send us an email if you've got a question or if you have a comment, or if there's anything that you've learned from Mario, or even just you know, contact us and tell us about some great times that you've had playing this amazing Nintendo franchise game.

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So that's all from me, aaron, for this week of the Fandom Portals podcast.

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I want to thank you guys, as always, for tuning in, and we'll see you next week with another episode.

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We'll catch you later, thank you.