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Japanese video game company Nintendo announced that a character originally called "Blackie" has been renamed "Spike."
"The Super Mario Bros. Movie," based on the internationally famous Mario Bros. franchise from Nintendo, smashed box-office records both for video game adaptations and animated films, making it the biggest opening of 2023 and the second-biggest three-day domestic animated opening (behind "Finding Dory").
Characters such as Mario, Donkey Kong and Princess Peach have been at the forefront of video game culture for decades, but the new film has numerous references to more obscure aspects of the franchise’s history as well. One of them is a character, Foreman Spike (voiced by Sebastian Maniscalco), who originally appeared in the 1984 video game "Wrecking Crew" and is depicted as a muscular, White construction worker with black facial hair.
His original name, "Blackie," as Western audiences have noted, translates to a racial slur for Black people. Merriam-Webster noted the "usually offensive" term indicates "a person belonging to a darkly pigmented race : a black person" or various birds.
A screenshot from the trailer for "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" (Illumination)
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Nintendo’s official Twitter account noted in late April that the name has been officially changed for all audiences but did not specify the reason.
"The name of the character ‘Blackie’ that appears in the family computer software ‘Wrecking Crew’ will be changed to ‘Spike’, which is the same as the name in Europe and the United States," the official Nintendo account tweeted. "In addition, the name in ‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie’ released on April 5, 2023 is also ‘Spike’."
Gaming news website Polygon commented on the name change, appearing to express mock concern that some may object to the change as an example of cancel culture.
Chris Pratt voices Mario and Anya Taylor-Joy plays Princess Peach. (Universal Studios)
"Given the enormous box office success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie, it makes sense that Nintendo would want to be proactive in amending Spike’s frankly insensitive name before it sparks a controversy," Polygon wrote. "'Blackie' is an incredibly unfortunate name — for so many reasons — so it’s an unambiguously good call on Nintendo’s part to change it. Surely no one will complain in bad faith about how renaming poor ‘ol Blackie is somehow an act of ‘erasing history’ or how their childhood has somehow been retroactively ‘ruined’ because of this common sense decision, right? Right!"
Culture website Bounding into Comics also commented on the change, noting various ways in which it was likely not meant to cause offense when the character was made in the 1980s.
A view of the classic Nintendo video game "Donkey Kong." (iStock)
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"Blackie would seem to be based on the character’s black beard — maybe even an attempt to evoke the pirate Blackbeard," they wrote. "As 'ラ' (Ra) is used for both English’s 'r' and 'l,' it may be possible the character’s name was intended to be something akin to 'Brakey' or 'Breaky'— fitting for a demolition worker, but pure speculation nonetheless."
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