Super Mario as Transformative Icon for the Working Class
Like Chaplin and Mickey Mouse before him , the character serves as a transformative figure for his prominent working-class background . Chaplin and Mickey Mouse , according to Kathy Merlock Jackson , “ function as universal characters who can adapt to any situation ,” and this observation could easily be made about Mario as well ( 440 ). Much as Mario transforms from a doctor to a tennis player to a painter , so too does Mickey Mouse become a steamboat captain or Chaplin adopt the role of a dictator . Again , Merlock Jackson offers insight as she notes , “ Whether a bricklayer , window repairer , floorwalker , drunk , fiddler , minister , or gold prospector , Chaplin ’ s Tramp tries to be serious and dignified , to do the right thing ; this provides the essence of his comedy . Mickey is equally determined and adaptable ” ( 440 ). The last part , “ determined and adaptable ” is of particular interest , as this statement sums up just about everything that makes Mario great : hard work and transformation .
Preceding the decade of the creation of this working-class video game hero , American media of the 1970s would portray a more naturalistic image of the working man in the rough and gruff form of characters like Archie Bunker . Bunker was no hero , and instead struggled with coming to terms with a changing and more progressive American cultural landscape , representing a character that was hardly “ adaptable .” The working-class man would continue to be presented as struggling in other ways in the lyrics of songs by musicians like Bruce Springsteen . Springsteen ’ s 1975 song “ Born to Run ” would open with a bleak vision of the prospects of the working American : “ In the day we sweat it out on the streets of a runaway American Dream / And at night we ride through mansions of glory on suicide machines .” In “ Whitman , Springsteen , and the American Working Class ,” Greg Smith observes of these lines :
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