Popular Culture Review 29.2
However , his theory should be explored in depth to consider how it applies to silent film icons like Mickey Mouse and Chaplin and how Mario continues that tradition into today . Garin is correct to say that Mario is a transformative and easily adaptable figure in the lineage of silent film stars , but Mario echoes them further than Garin realizes as a specifically transformative hero of the working class , a group who greatly desire the freedom of form that he represents .
This freedom of form is obviously present , but it is also important to understand how Mario has such wide-ranging appeal . While Eisenstein writes that the plasmatic is a character who is able to be plugged into a variety of scenarios , his writing also confronts how this versatility is translated into a literal pliability of the bodily form . An example that he offers is Walt Disney ’ s Silly Symphonies where Mickey Mouse ’ s “ arms shoot up far beyond the limits of their normal representation [ ... ] repeated by the necks of ostriches , the tails of cows [ ... all ] shot to meticulously coil to the tone and melody of the music ” ( 10 ). He compares this to older stories such as Alice ’ s “ episode of expanding and shrinking height ” in Alice in Wonderland ( 11 ). This note on changing height may have already made you think of Mario . An essential gameplay mechanic in most Mario side-scrolling adventures is that Mario begins as a shorter version of himself , almost half a man so to speak , but when he gets a Super Mushroom , he appropriately becomes Super Mario , a taller and stronger version of himself capable of taking more damage and of smashing bricks . This image of Super Mario jumping up to break the bricks above him that were previously holding him down has a similarity to the “ glass ceiling ” metaphor often used for the oppression of women in the workplace . It is not a stretch to imagine Super Mario ’ s breaking of a ceiling as an overcoming of oppression either , given his obvious association with the working class .
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