Pauline (Japanese: ポリーン, Hepburn: Porīn, pronounced [poɾiːɴ]) is a character from the Mario and Donkey Kong video game franchises by Nintendo.

Miyamoto explained that an English teacher was asked to listen to the voice lines due to pronunciation concerns and said that it sounded like she was saying "Kelp!

[15] Kate Higgins provided the English voice for Pauline for both the song and the game,[16] giving her full-sentence dialogue for the first time, expanding on the audible cries of "Help!"

Pauline debuted as Mario's love interest in Donkey Kong (1981),[17] which was remade for Game Boy,[18] where she was again a typical damsel in distress.

Ultimate, she, along with her band, appear on the New Donk City stage; by interacting with them, the player can add extra instruments and vocals to the music.

[citation needed] Pauline makes a cameo appearance in The Super Mario Bros. Movie where she serves as the Mayor of New York City and is being interviewed during a flooding crisis.

[30] IGN commented that Pauline was the character that "started it all" by being the captive of Donkey Kong and likened her tight red dress to Jessica Rabbit.

[33] Writing in Popular Culture Review, G. Christopher Williams and Brady Simenson considered Pauline's lack of nobility to be significant.

Drawing parallels with the fictional King Kong filmmaker Carl Denham who seeks an actress in New York City and finds Ann Darrow, they argued that Mario, as a working-class character, climbs up to reach Pauline as a method of social mobility, particularly as Pauline is depicted with a slightly higher social status.

He opined that although Shigeru Miyamoto had explained Nintendo's reliance on damsels by stating that the game has been designed for male gamers in arcades, it was actually the result of applying "outdated notions of identity and gender roles after the fact instead of at the start".

[37] After her reappearance in Super Mario Odyssey, her character was praised for overcoming the damsel in distress archetype to become a woman of power.

Bleeding Cool wrote about how it was a "big deal" for Pauline's sudden return, feeling it was an injustice that she had been relegated to merely a plot point until then, citing it as "one hell of a patriarchy-smashing comeback".

[40] GameRevolution highlighted that following her appearance in Mario Tennis Aces, players responded positively to her sex appeal and noted that she had inspired a dedicated fanbase.

After replacing the game sprites to make Pauline the player character, his progress was posted online and resulted in numerous comments, some of which were positive and some "downright disturbing".