GLAAD Media Awards Nominates Paper Mario After Nintendo Restores Mutant Representation

Ten video games have been received Nominations For the 36th Annual GLAAD Media Awards. This program celebrates media works that feature “fair, accurate, and inclusive representations of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community and the issues that affect their lives.” There are nominees for television, film, music, theatre, journalism, comics as well as video games.

One of the 2024 candidates for outstanding video games is a re-release Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door For Nintendo Switch. The original Japanese version of the GameCube title included a secondary character named Vivian who was transgender. The game contained dialogue about her challenges with sexism and her journey to understand her identity. However, the 2002 international translations of the game, including the English version released in the United States, erased this aspect of the character, and removed the language surrounding Vivian’s gender and pronouns. Last year’s Switch re-release brought back the original character lines and story arc for English-speaking players to finally experience.

The list of nominees also includes video games Dragon Age: Veil. BioWare has a long history of depicting queer characters and romantic options in their games, and it’s great to see them continuing that practice with the latest release. The horror film is Blumhouse’s first foray into gaming, the brilliant indie project Fear of lightsHe also received a nod. Here is the full list of nominees for the game:

• Sandwich caravan (A toast to the studio plane/Dear villagers)

• Dragon Age: Veil (BioWare/Electronic Arts)

• Terrible illusion (Beautiful Hell Place / DreadXP)

• Dustborn (Red String Games / Spotlight by Quantic Dream)

• Fear of lights (Cozy Gaming Friends / Blumhouse Games)

• Life is Strange: Double Exposure (Group Nine / Square Enix)

• The minds are beneath us (studio bourbon)

• Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (Intelligent Systems/Nintendo)

• Sorry we are closed (Mode Games/Akubara Games)

• Until then (Multi-color games / maximum entertainment)