Super Mario as Transformative Icon for the Working Class
We ’ ve got to hold on to what we ’ ve got It doesn ’ t make a difference if we make it or not We ’ ve got each other , and that ’ s a lot For love , we ’ ll give it a shot (“ Living on a Prayer ”)
Romanticizing the experience of being working class is indicative of the media of this period , again , the era of the first appearance of Mario , something much less common in the 21 st century , as Diana Kendall notes in Framing Class : Media Representations of Wealth and Poverty in America : “ Currently , the predominant messages we receive from the media regarding the working class are that this class does not exist at all or that it comprises people who are uninteresting other than as sources of labor ” ( 175 ). Yet , in the 1980s , many of John Hughes films , like 16 Candles , The Breakfast Club , and Pretty in Pink valorized working-class characters and showed their ability to transform by attempting to elevate their position in a highly stratified society . Within the lyrics of “ Livin ’ on a Prayer ” or the character of Andie in Pretty in Pink is a hope in some essential virtuous humanity that lies within these characters to become more than they are for the sake of another person , that these working poor characters can adapt and survive .
The ability for silent characters to adapt is explored particularly well by silent film director , Sergei Eisenstein , who wrote extensively about his theory of the plasmatic characters of his own earlier era , that is , characters who have “ the ability to dynamically assume any form ” and who appeal to audiences of the working class who reside “ in a country and social order with such a mercilessly standardized and mechanically measured existence ” ( 21 ). Eisenstein is speaking particularly about the animation of Walt Disney in the United States .
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