Super Mario as Transformative Icon for the Working Class
than working class immigrants ? Jeff Ryan compares Mario to another Italian hero of popular culture when he says , “[ Mario is ] as perpetual an underdog as that undertall Italian boxer from Philadelphia , Rocky Balboa . [ Mario is ] a world-beloved character with roots across three continents : Asian invention , American setting , European name [ ... ] A hero who is at once us , more than us , and so much less than us ” ( 5 ). At first glance , Mario , like Rocky , is an unremarkable working stiff from a family of immigrants , but his understated charm and determination toward greatness make him so endlessly easy to root for . The player can relate to the drive of both characters , and that player can also relate to their struggles .
Mario , as a cartoon character , may seem like a much less serious figure than the struggling prize-fighter Rocky . Yet , both the medium of the cartoon and the genre of comedy in general abound in such heroes . Comedy is a place in which traditional heroism might be reversed , where the pauper , not the prince , might become a hero by transforming his station in life through his own actions , sometimes actions that are ennobling , sometimes actions that are foolish . As noted earlier , Chaplin is a figure much like this one , such as when he portrays himself as his Tramp , whose activities elevate him as an individual with a persona that defies his station in life . This idea provides the audience , especially a working class or working poor audience , the idea that one can become so much more than they are if the avatar that that they assume reflects themselves and has the pliability to allow for enlarged and greater forms . As Paul Flaig observes in “ Life Driven by Death : Animation Aesthetics and the Comic Uncanny ,” such an audience , specifically the audience of the cartoon , seeks the idea of an avatar that creates such a transformative figuration :
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