There’s a teacher in New York by the name of Remy Elliott (certified as Jeremy William Elliott) who decided that it would be a good idea to do a video on her TikTok account in which she assigned various gender identities to Nintendo characters, such as Mario and Princess Peach.
According to her TikTok presentation, “Mario came out so long ago most people forgot”. Not only that, she claimed that Luigi is demisexual, Princess Daisy is bisexual and polyamorous, Toad is ready to come out as a trans-girl, and Yoshi completed transition to a male, complete with breast-removal surgery that left no scars.
As I read about this, it became apparent to me that the presentation was a joke, which was something that Remy did assert. But even so, to make a presentation like this when representing your school district as an educator seems like an insanely bad move.
But just in case you doubt where this piece of work stands in the culture war, Remy claims to have a trans flag, a bisexual flag, and a non-binary flag on her desk at her work, which would be at school. She did this to show just how accepting she was of these things.
The only reservation she had concerning what she shared with her students concerned her polyamory, because that “is not in the conversation”. But she did confer with administrators, who agreed that it would be appropriate with her to speak with students about her relationships.
I disagree. A teacher’s job is to teach, preferably on the topic of the class in question. It’s certainly no place for any educator to bring up personal matters, especially not personal matters of a sexual nature, and certainly not with students who are still minors. What’s even more vexing is that the school district’s administration, after hearing of Remy’s polyamory, approved the teacher to speak of it, rather than immediately shooting it down for the repugnant idea that it was, or at least recognizing the potential for controversy and bad press.
She said: ‘This is not a conversation that conservatives are having at all. They’ve decided… like, you can’t do this at all, there’s no place for it.
So, now we know what a depraved half-wit does when she ignores any voice of reason. She’ll upload a presentation to TikTok which bullshits about the sexual identities of Nintendo characters.
‘And that just shows such a lack of thought and care. They’re not understanding of the people. They’re children as people and where they’re at.’
And, no surprise, she’s of a mind that determines that it’s ageist to say that it’s wrong to introduce sexual deviancy to children.
Notice how she’s registered under the name “Jeremy William Elliott”? She is actually a he.
So yeah, we have yet another case of a man identifying as a woman, likely in an attempt to make it easier to approach children about sexual matters.
She added: ‘It’s also strange to point out that they have genders and sexualities, as being a cisgender heterosexual man is in fact a gender and sexual orientation.’
How he arrived at the conclusion does not follow. The fact that Mario is apparently straight does not make it unusual to talk about the genders and sexualities of Nintendo characters. In fact, there are some cases where mature, adult fans may prefer to speculate about this topic, to the end of coming to a better understanding of the characters in question. Putting aside, of course, the fact that the characters in question are seldom, if ever, sexualized in the official materials. What makes the matter unusual in Remy’s case is that he wished to publicly have the conversation as an educator, with dozens of ninth-graders presumably involved.
‘As part of my DOE employment, despite being primarily hired as an English Teacher, teaching our established and vetted sex education curriculum was not only something I was hired for, it was something I was trained and qualified in.’
That was a shitty move on the DOE’s part. After all, Remy can’t be counted on to present the sexualities of Nintendo characters in good faith. I’ve been a Nintendo fan for decades, so I can take issue with many of the claims that Remy makes.
For one thing, Mario and Luigi are evidently straight. This is presumably one of the reasons behind why they go after princesses Peach and Daisy. They want some of that vertical smile. For Toad to transition to a girl would be redundant for his franchise, because his sister Toadette is already a character in those games. Then there’s Remy’s assertion that Yoshi had “top surgery”. Yoshi is a reptile. Reptiles don’t have mammaries.
She added that she only ever spoke of her personal life ‘within reasonable limits.’
It’s great to know that Remy is willing to draw the line somewhere, even if that line should have been placed well before telling minors that Princess Daisy is “hella bisexual”. But, who knows? Maybe Remy will do another installment where she points at Samus Aran as being trans, and Link as being a closet fairy. Yoshio Sakamoto and Shigeru Miyamoto don’t seem to be in any hurry to represent the perversity of the moment, so perhaps Remy will step forward to help them out?