Culture on My Mind – The Italian Plumber from Brooklyn

April 7, 2023April 4, 2023 Michael Falkner1 Comment

Culture on My Mind
The Italian Plumber from Brooklyn
April 7, 2023

This week, I’m thinking about Mario. In particular, the voices of the character during the history of the Super Mario franchise.

Today marks the premiere of The Super Mario Bros. Movie, an animated theatrical movie produced by Illumination, Universal, and Nintendo. It’s the second American movie about the franchise, but it is the third overall following the live-action adaptation in 1993 and the 1986 Japanese anime film Super Mario Bros.: The Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach! (better known by its original title, Super Mario Bros.: Peach-hime Kyūshutsu Dai Sakusen!).

A digression: If you haven’t seen the 1986 anime, Kineko Video has a remastered edition with English subtitles on YouTube. Mario is voiced by Tōru Furuya, who also portrayed the character in Amada Anime Series: Super Mario Bros., Super Mario World: Mario to Yoshi no Bōken Land, the Satellaview games in Japan, and a Japanese commercial for Mario Paint.

Anyway, when the first trailer for The Super Mario Bros. Movie, fans complained about Chris Pratt providing the voice for the titular plumber and it got me thinking about the other American English voice interpretations over the years.

Charles Martinet (1992-Present)

The obvious one is Charles Martinet, who has provided the voice of Mario, Luigi, and various other counterparts since 1992. Martinet is a voice actor who literally crashed the auditions for the Mario voice. His guidance was to be an “Italian plumber from Brooklyn,” and Martinet had originally planned to channel the stereotypical Italian American with a deep, raspy voice. In fact, this is what American audiences knew from previous animated interpretations, but he wondered if this would be too harsh for kids. Instead, he toned it down to something more soft-hearted and friendly.

According to an interview with Kotaku, his babbling audition went something like:

“Hello, ima Mario. Okey dokey, letsa make a pizza pie together, you go get somea spaghetti, you go geta some sausage, I getta some sauce, you gonna put some spaghetti on the sausage and the sausage on the pizza, then I’m gonna chasea you with the pizza, then you gonna chasea me with the pizza, and gonaa makea lasagne.”

You read that in the modern Mario voice, didn’t you?

Martinet’s first role as Mario was 1992’s Super Mario Bros. pinball machine, but he was not credited for that work. His first credit was Super Mario 64 in 1996, and he has over 100 appearances to date as the character. That work is in addition to his library of film and television credits.

Peter Cullen and Saturday Supercade (1983)

Martinet wasn’t the first, though. The first long-form appearance of Mario outside of video games was in 1983’s Saturday Supercade, an animated series produced by Ruby-Spears Productions. Mario appeared in the Donkey Kong segments and was voiced by Peter Cullen, the famous actor behind Optimus Prime, Eeyore, Monterey Jack, and many other characters in his nearly 60-year career.

In an interesting bit of trivia, Donkey Kong Jr. was voiced by Frank Welker, who also voiced Megatron opposite Peter Cullen’s Optimus Prime in Transformers.

This version of Mario accompanied his girlfriend Pauline as they chased after the giant ape, and his voice was definitely gruff and authoritarian.

Larry Moran and Donkey Kong Cereal (1983)

Around the same time, Mario appeared in commercials for Donkey Kong Cereal. His brief lines were voiced by Larry “The Funny Voice Man” Moran. Moran was primarily known for commercials and gave Mario a higher and softer tone than Peter Cullen, though his “here we go” does sound very close to what Martinet brought to the table a decade later.

Donkey Kong Cereal was a Ralston Purina production that was sweetened corn cereal pieces in the shape of barrels. They later produced the Donkey Kong Junior and Nintendo Cereal System cereals, the latter of which I remember fondly.

Larry Moran died on December 28, 2017, at the age of 78.

Harris Shore and Donkey Kong/Donkey Kong Jr. Commercials (early 1980s)

Technically the first live-action version of Mario, Harris Shore brought a pretty generic version of the plumber to life in a series of advertisements for the Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. commercials of the early 1980s. Harris Shore would later move to film and television in small character roles and is still active today.

Lou Albano and The Super Mario Bros. Super Show (1989)

In 1989, Mario came to long-form live-action in The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! The series ran from September 4 to November 30, 1989, and featured live-action opening and closing segments that sandwiched an animated adventure based on the original Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 2. Mario was portrayed in the series (both live-action and animated!) by WWF Hall of Fame wrestler “Captain” Lou Albano, and he was accompanied by Danny Wells as Luigi.

This version of Mario is my Mario. Even though it had a very short run on television, Albano’s interpretation is the one that comes to mind when I think of the character. Albano was an Italian-American and definitely had the accent. His voice was gruff and raspy, but he knew how to lighten it just enough for a kids’ show in the late ’80s.

The live-action side of the show acted as a parody of sitcoms, which were extremely popular in the late ’80s and early ’90s. These segments routinely featured guest stars and slapstick humor, while the animated segments took a deep dive into the video game world. This series also gave birth to The Legend of Zelda – “Excuuuuuse me, Princess!” – which ran in the animated slot on Fridays. Mario and Luigi’s animated adventures ran Monday through Thursday.

While Albano was primarily known for his wrestling, Danny Wells was a prolific actor who was best known as Charlie, the bartender on The Jeffersons. He died in November 2013 at the age of 72.

Lou Albano died in October 2009 at the age of 76.

John Lenahan and The Super Mario Challenge (1991)

The Super Mario Challenge was a game show that was produced and aired in the United Kingdom from September to December 1991. It was hosted by American illusionist and entertainer John Lenahan and featured kids who played the first three Super Mario NES games for large gold coins which determined the winner of the overall competition.

Lenahan was dressed in overalls and a ballcap to look the part of Mario, but he played the character straight with his own voice. Technically, he wasn’t portraying Mario, but I’ll count it anyway.

I know Lenahan best from his time at Podiobooks.com. He wrote and podcasted his first novel, Shadowmagic, on the site before it was picked up by The Friday Project/Harper Collins in the UK. Shadowmagic was followed by the paperback of The Prince of Hazel and Oak in April 2011 and Sons of Macha in March 2013.

Walker Boone, The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3, and Super Mario World (1990-1991)

Mario got a lot more gruff in 1990 and 1991 when Walker Boone took over for The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 and the Super Mario World animated series. It was a huge shift for me since Boone’s Mario lost the softer playful elements that Albano brought. I watched some of Super Mario Bros. 3, but I didn’t tune it for Super Mario World.

Super Mario Bros. 3 is technically the middle part of the 1990s animated Mario trilogy produced by DiC Entertainment. This one aired alongside Captain N: The Game Master on Saturday mornings and focused a lot more on the various elements from the game of the same name. It ran from September to December 1990 and was followed by Super Mario World in the same timeframe during 1991. Super Mario World changed the setting and added characters based on the SNES game of the same name, but it only ran for 13 episodes.

Boone’s acting career lasted for just over thirty years. He died in January 2021 at the age of 76.

Ronald B. Ruben and Mario Teaches Typing (1991)

In 1991, we got Mario Teaches Typing, a PC and Macintosh game in which actor Ronald B Ruben did a really bad Italian impersonation. The educational game spun off from Super Mario World and used that game’s popularity and themes to help kids learn to type. This seems to be Ruben’s only voice credit aside from the video game M.U.G.E.N in 1999.

Nick Glaeser and Mario is Missing! (1993)

Similarly, 1993’s Mario is Missing! was an educational game for PC, Mac, and the NES and SNES systems. Mario had lines of dialogue in the PC version, and they were lighter in tone than Walker Boone’s but sounded pretty generic. Which, if we’re being honest, was the name of the game in 1990s computer gaming.

In this game, Mario was voiced by Nick Glaeser, an actor who has a handful of credits to his name.

David Plaschon and Mario’s Time Machine (1994)

In 1994, Mario was voiced by David Plaschon in Mario’s Time Machine. It’s another educational game on the same platforms as before, and the voice is very similar to Nick Glaeser’s work. This game received terrible reviews and is usually noted as one of the worst among the educational Mario games released in this time period. The only other credit I could find for Plaschon was as a producer for an Aliens video game in 1995.

Marc Graue and Hotel Mario (1994)

Also in 1994, Mario was voiced by Marc Graue in Hotel Mario. This game was one of the four developed for the short-lived Philips CD-i platform that featured Nintendo characters. The other three were Legend of Zelda games. This Mario was back to being gruff and raspy, though somewhat balanced between Albano and Boone. Marc Graue also provided the voices for Luigi and Bowser in the game, and he continues to work to this day providing voices for television and video games.

The Parodies

Before we get to the last (and potentially most infamous) Mario voice, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the parody versions over the years.

The Simpsons: Dan Castellaneta voiced Mario in the episode “Marge Be Not Proud” (1995). Hank Azaria voiced him in The Simpsons Game from 2007.
Futurama: Maurice LaMarche voiced Mario in the episode “Anthology of Interest II” (2002).
Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy: Seth McFarlane voiced Mario in the short “Super Mario Rescues the Princess” (2008).
Family Guy: Seth McFarlane voiced the plumber in the episode “Lois Comes Out of Her Shell” (2012). McFarlane voiced Luigi while Mike Henry took on Mario in “Boopa-Dee Bappa-Dee” (2013). The character returned for “Encyclopedia Griffin” (2015), but I couldn’t figure out who voiced him.
The Pete Holmes Show: Pete Holmes voiced the character in several “Realistic Mario” shorts, circa 2014.
Robot Chicken: Mario was voiced in multiple appearances by Adam Talbot, Seth Green, and Matthew Lillard.
Mad: Mario appeared multiple times in the first three seasons (2010-2012) and was voiced by Kevin Shinick.

Bob Hoskins and Super Mario Bros. (1993)

The Super Mario Bros. movie from 1993 was the first live-action film based on a video game. The screenwriters envisioned a subversive comedy similar to Ghostbusters (1984) and The Wizard of Oz (1939), and their script was heavily influenced by Super Mario World and Super Mario Land, both of which were the most recent games of the Mario series at the time. Bob Hoskins played Mario and John Leguizamo played Luigi.

It credits an asteroid with killing the dinosaurs and splitting the universe into two parallel dimensions. The remaining dinosaurs cross into the new universe and create a world called Dinohattan. Mario and Luigi – the Mario brothers, literally Mario Mario and Luigi Mario – are eventually drawn into the parallel universe to rescue Daisy, the long-lost princess of the dinosaur land. The Mario Bros. meet Yoshi and Toad on their adventure, eventually defeating Koopa (who is de-evolved from human form into a T.Rex) and saving the princess.

Super Mario Bros. was a financial and critical failure, and even though Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto appreciated the effort, he felt it tried too hard to replicate the games instead of standing on its own. However, like most really bad movies, it has developed a cult following. After all, the fact that the film was made says a lot about how video games impacted pop culture.

The downside, of course, is that video game movies haven’t really performed well or been well received until recent releases and Super Mario Bros. is the first in that legacy. Werewolves Within (2021), The Angry Birds Movie 2 (2019), Detective Pikachu (2019), Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022) stand out as winners among critical reviews. Warcraft (2016), Rampage (2018), Detective Pikachu (2019), Uncharted (2022), and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022) are the top five worldwide financial performers to date.

Leguizamo liked the script, but Hoskins was unimpressed. The latter also didn’t want to get typecast in children’s films, having recently starred in both Hook and Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Hoskins later called the production a nightmare and admitted that both he and Leguizamo were drunk for most of the filming process.

This Mario is pretty much a cynical, blue-collar New York stereotype. It’s not a Mario I think of when the character comes to mind.

Chris Pratt and The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)

The entire legacy brings us back to the next interpretation. Mario’s lines in the trailers have been sparse, but what we have heard sounds to me like Chris Pratt channeling a little bit of Charles Martinet and a little bit of Lou Albano. The lighthearted attitude and the Martinet dialogue stand alongside the hard-working hero ethos of Albano’s Mario.

I understand modern fans being upset that Martinet didn’t get the role in this film. He’s been the voice of Mario for three decades. But long-term fans have experienced so many more versions of the character and (hopefully) realize that the legacy surpasses the actors.

He wouldn’t have been my first choice for the character, but I’m willing to see where Chris Pratt takes the plumber from Brooklyn. The trailer looks fun, but my expectations aren’t especially high given the genre. My only real hope is that the movie is well received and performs well so that maybe (just maybe) we’ll finally get a good adaptation of The Legend of Zelda.

Special thanks to the following for the information used in my research:

Culture on My Mind is inspired by the weekly Can’t Let It Go segment on the NPR Politics Podcast where each host brings one thing to the table that they just can’t stop thinking about.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

Culture on My Mind – More Than Musicals

April 3, 2023August 7, 2023 Michael FalknerLeave a comment

Culture on My Mind
More Than Musicals
April 3, 2023

This week, I’m back to the performing arts with the Theater and Musical Lovers YouTube Channel.

The channel and its associated Facebook group were established as an unofficial gathering of Dragon Con attendees who love theater, musicals, and the performing arts. Their goal is to create a community of fellow thespians and fans at the convention. This time, they assembled to talk about the larger world of stage entertainment and how theater goes beyond the musical performance. From magicians to ballet, Shakespeare to improv, there is far more to the stage than most people realize.

On March 27th, Gary Mitchel and Sarah Rose were joined by professional dancer Sorsha Masters and Atlanta-based improv artist Tim Millard to discuss their crafts, the highs and lows of live performance, and how anyone can get started.

Note: This video has been updated since the initial broadcast. Depending on security settings, you may have to click through below to see the video directly on YouTube. You should definitely subscribe to their channel for more updates.

The Theater and Musical Lovers Group will be hosting more of these panels. If you’re interested in participating or have some topic ideas in mind, head over to the group on Facebook and drop them a line.

You can find Gary and Sarah on the socials: On Twitter, they are Gary_Mitchel, SarahRose_KPK, and Daisuki_Suu; on Instagram, they are Gary_Mitchel and Daisuki_Suu; and Gary’s horror-themed podcast that he hosts with Erin McGourn is A Podcask of Amontillado. Of course, the Theater & Musical Lovers channel can be found on YouTube.

Culture on My Mind is inspired by the weekly Can’t Let It Go segment on the NPR Politics Podcast where each host brings one thing to the table that they just can’t stop thinking about.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

Culture on My Mind – Battle of the Fictional Bands 2023

March 31, 2023March 28, 2023 Michael FalknerLeave a comment

Culture on My Mind
Battle of the Fictional Bands 2023
March 31, 2023

This week, I’m thinking about two battles involving fictional bands.

Such things are traditions among the crew at the Dragon Con American Sci-Fi Classics Track. While the rest of the world builds brackets around college basketball (and mourns their busted brackets—congratulations, Fairleigh Dickinson University!) these geeks ponder and debate which fictional bands would come out on top in head-to-head competition.

This time around, the battle was two-fold. First, the question of the best solo acts. Second, the best team acts.

On March 16th, Joe Crowe and Gary Mitchel were joined by Keith DeCandido (@KRADeC on Twitter), Kevin Cafferty (Gleaming the Tube), Shaun Rosado (@pneumaz on Twitter), and Sherman Burris (@NerdBurger358 on Twitter) to determine if it will be Rex Manning Day all year long.

On March 23rd, Joe Crowe and Gary Mitchel said farewell (for now) to Keith and picked up Leigh Tyberg to question which fictional band was the best. Surprisingly, there never seems to be any love for King Thunder.

These Classic Track Quarantine Panels are typically held once every two weeks (or every fortnight, if you will). If you want to play along at home, grab your internet-capable device of choice and navigate the world wide webs to the track’s YouTube channel and/or the group on Facebook. If you join in live, you can also leave comments and participate in the discussion using StreamYard connected through Facebook, YouTube, and Twitch.

Gary can also be found on A Podcask of Amontillado, a horror-themed podcast that he co-hosts with Erin McGourn.

If you want to connect with the track, Joe, and/or Gary on the socials, you can find them on Twitter (ClassicTrack, JoeCroweShow, and sneezythesquid) and Instagram (SciFiClassicTrack, JoeCroweShow, and Gary_Mitchel). And, of course, to celebrate more pop culture awesomeness, you can find Dragon Con all year round on the internet, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

You can find those discussions and more every other Thursday as the American Sci-Fi Classics Track explores the vast reaches of classic American science fiction.

The episode art each week is generously provided by the talented Sue Kisenwether. You can find her (among other places) on Women at Warp: A Star Trek Podcast.

Culture on My Mind is inspired by the weekly Can’t Let It Go segment on the NPR Politics Podcast where each host brings one thing to the table that they just can’t stop thinking about.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

Culture on My Mind – Darren Nowell

March 10, 2023March 10, 2023 Michael FalknerLeave a comment

Culture on My Mind
Darren Nowell
March 10, 2023

February was a rough month for me. My family had some health scares and my friends were rocked by deaths in their families. Among them was the sudden loss of Darren Nowell on February 21st.

Darren was well-known in Dragon Con, local geek, and local podcasting circles. He worked with the ESO Network for a long time, including as a co-host on the Dragon Con Report podcast which is where I met him. His memorial was held last Sunday with a building full of friends and family to honor his legacy.

The ongoing theme as everybody swapped stories about Darren was that he gave of himself unconditionally. If you needed help, he was there for you. He lived his life without disguises, showing the world his true, compassionate, and authentic self at every turn.

More importantly, he encouraged those around him to do the same. To be proud of the skin in which they lived.

I didn’t know Darren long, but he was certainly one of the brightest burning stars of charisma and compassion that I have had the privilege of being around. He was an amazing example of what humanity can be.

His physical presence will certainly be missed. His legacy will be with us for a very long time.

Thank you, Darren.

Culture on My Mind is inspired by the weekly Can’t Let It Go segment on the NPR Politics Podcast where each host brings one thing to the table that they just can’t stop thinking about.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

Culture on My Mind – The Art of Plays

March 6, 2023July 31, 2023 Michael FalknerLeave a comment

Culture on My Mind
The Art of Plays
March 6, 2023

This week, I’m back to the performing arts with the Theater and Musical Lovers YouTube Channel.

On March 4th, Gary Mitchel and Sarah Rose were joined by Kris, JJ, Mera Rose, and Matt Duron to explain exactly why the play’s the thing.

Note: This video has been updated since the initial recording. Depending on security settings, you may have to click through below to see the video directly on YouTube. You should definitely subscribe to their channel for more updates.

Culture on My Mind is inspired by the weekly Can’t Let It Go segment on the NPR Politics Podcast where each host brings one thing to the table that they just can’t stop thinking about.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

Culture on My Mind – A Career in a Coffee Mug

March 3, 2023February 15, 2023 Michael FalknerLeave a comment

Culture on My Mind
A Career in a Coffee Mug
March 3, 2023

The Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard have a tradition.

Well, okay, they have a lot of traditions. Trust me, as a Navy veteran, I know this all too well. But one of the fascinating ones among the senior enlisted and the mustangs (a commissioned officer who began their career as an enlisted service member) centers on their coffee mugs.

Coffee is life blood in the military. From long hours spent on watch to even longer hours spent performing collateral duties, the cups of caffeine can be just what you need to keep moving. Ships usually have a set of coffee mugs available for use in the coffee mess – the space authorized for preparing and dispensing coffee and assorted accoutrements – but Sailors, Marines, and Guardsmen also have their own personal mugs. The senior enlisted, known as non-commissioned officers (NCOs) in the Marine Corps and Chief Petty Officers (CPOs) in the Navy and Coast Guard, also tend to have special personal mugs. Some of those special mugs come with command iconography and such, leaving no doubt as to whose mug is whose.

The tradition has to do with the seasoning of those mugs. You see, NCOs and Chiefs typically take their coffee black and believe that not washing their mugs is good luck. The coffee stains on the inside of the mug build up over time, effectively telling the history of the mug and its owner. The more sludge in the mug, the more experience the owner has.

One example comes from the Naval Historical Foundation and Coast Guard Senior Chief Darcy Collins, as found on the Navy History Tumblr page.

Some studies suggest that the practice isn’t that unhealthy so long as you don’t share the mug with anyone and drink the coffee black with neither cream nor sugar. In fact, the Navy Times picked a few suggestions from the fleet for the perfect mug, including drinking coffee black, drinking the entire mug, and even seasoning it with leftover grounds like a cast-iron skillet.

The last suggestion on the list is the most important for any servicemember: Don’t wash the mug. Ever. If the owner washes it, the respect for them goes overboard. If a junior member washes it, even through ignorance or on a dare, there is no end to the harassment that they will endure at that command and beyond.

After all, the fleet talks and reputations have long lives.

I’ve seen my share of deeply seasoned mugs, but my personal mug only had minimal stains. I take my coffee with cream/milk and sugar, and I also prefer to drink from clean vessels. I’m a bit of a germaphobe that way.

Culture on My Mind is inspired by the weekly Can’t Let It Go segment on the NPR Politics Podcast where each host brings one thing to the table that they just can’t stop thinking about.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

Culture on My Mind – Compassion Means More Than Magic

February 20, 2023February 13, 2023 Michael FalknerLeave a comment

Culture on My Mind
Compassion Means More Than Magic
February 20, 2023

In short, despite being a long-time fan of Harry Potter, I won’t be engaging with Hogwarts Legacy or anything further associated with J.K. Rowling.

I don’t expect anything I say here to change any minds. But this is my platform and I’m using it to unpack some complicated feelings about a complicated topic. If you’re not down with that, you know where the door is.

The Harry Potter book series was well underway by the time it crossed my radar. My wife – then, my girlfriend – introduced me to it because she was (and still is) a voracious reader and had burned through the available library in mere days. When we got married, we couldn’t afford to fly to our honeymoon location in Oregon so we drove instead, and we passed the time traveling through multiple states by reading the books to one another. When she was bitten by a spider on that honeymoon and spent a couple of days sleeping and recuperating, I continued to read them to her for comfort.

The movies are among the favorites with family. We even had a movie marathon when my wife’s mother was in town one time, complete with homemade butterbeer that could make your pancreas scream for mercy.

Those memories are the core of our fandom in this franchise.

I give J.K. Rowling a lot of credit for finding a niche in the young adult market, for getting kids and adults into the magic and fantasy genre during the late ’90s and early ’00s, and for inspiring decades of related entertainment in Hollywood. But that doesn’t absolve the hurt and pain she continues to cause among communities that I care about.

Her point of contention with the transgender community seems to revolve around the myth that transgender women exist for the sole purpose of subjugating cisgender women. Let’s be clear and talk like adults on this matter: Equality and equity are not like a pie with a limited amount of slices to go around. Cis women don’t lose anything with trans women existing in their spaces. Just like the scares over immigration and racial equality over the centuries of human civilization, there’s room enough for everyone.

And the idea that men are transitioning just to gain access to women’s spaces so they can abuse women? Preposterous and ridiculous. That is a long and expensive road to travel for an abuser who could get his jollies by far easier means. The theory also lacks empirical evidence.

There is no doubt that Rowling fights for women’s rights. She is indeed a feminist. But, by her own words and deeds, excludes trans women from her purview because she doesn’t see them as “real” women, and she uses her available resources to wage that battle.

She is a trans-exclusionary radical feminist, also known as a TERF, and that mentality is hurtful to people for whom I care.

Further, she fosters this mentality among her legions of fans. Transphobic Potter fans routinely attack the trans community online, including usage of Potter-themed elements in their comments. One common thread is the use of mudblood and avada kedavra in their tirades – the latter of which is a literal death threat – and makes it painfully obvious that they are identifying with the bad guys in their favorite franchise. A franchise where the main character is raised by family as something that he is not, then literally changes himself to become who he truly is inside.

It’s a bad, bad look for transphobic fans.

Another common thread is their claim that these fans will buy more merchandise, including multiple copies of the new video game, in order to put more money in Rowling’s coffers and “stick it” to the critics. Transphobes in the Wizarding World ranks leave no doubt that they hate the trans community. Outright, no question, hatred cloaked in the symbols and themes of the Harry Potter universe.

For some in the trans community, Harry Potter has become synonymous with hatred and death threats. As part of a recent video about Rowling’s history – one which you really should go watch despite the epic runtime – Jessie Gender opened the floor for fellow creator Aranock to share her personal story. In short, the Harry Potter books were the first books she ever read, but as she began to transition, she received scores of literal death threats from fans with Harry Potter icons and avatars all over their profiles. To this day, she sees Harry Potter as a literal warning flag.

We all know what constant exposure to harassment and abuse can do to people. Don’t tell me that it’s normal on the internet or that people should shrug it off. That only ignores the problem at hand and enables the oppressors. Words harm. Words kill.

Paraphrasing Jessie, oppressors harass, view topics in binary and essentialist terms, and thrive in creating antagonism. They want to silence criticism and want to sow discord in the communities that they despise. We fight them by creating dialogues inside and between communities with kindness and meaning, understanding that we are all imperfect people imperfectly fighting a system that hurts people.

We should discuss how the actions of Rowling and her defenders affect trans lives. We should discuss how the new video game’s lead designer was a GamerGate sympathizer and notably attacked activists while defending sexual harrassers. We should honestly discuss the social issues inherent in the Potterverse and what lessons content creators can learn in their own work to develop meaningful universes free of racism, sexism, cultural appropriation, antisemitism, and deliberate anti-LBGTQIA+ bias.

On my end, I care more for my friends and family than I do for the Harry Potter universe. Even if I offset the purchase of a new book or movie or house scarf with a donation to a charity, it’s still money from my hands to Rowling’s coffers. She’s happy to have the support, and one cannot fight oppressors by funding them. For future projects, there is no separating the art from the artist – a luxury that LGBTQIA+ artists are rarely afforded, by the way – because paying for the art enables the artist to keep attacking people.

The books and movies and limited memorabilia will remain on my shelves because of the family memories, but that’s where it ends.

Your mileage may vary. You do what makes you happy. But I know where my loyalty lies.

I don’t stand with hatred.

Culture on My Mind is inspired by the weekly Can’t Let It Go segment on the NPR Politics Podcast where each host brings one thing to the table that they just can’t stop thinking about.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

Culture on My Mind – Jukebox Musicals

February 17, 2023August 7, 2023 Michael FalknerLeave a comment

Culture on My Mind
Jukebox Musicals
February 17, 2023

This week, I’m back to the performing arts with the Theater and Musical Lovers YouTube Channel.

The channel and its associated Facebook group were established as an unofficial gathering of Dragon Con attendees who love theater, musicals, and the performing arts. Their goal is to create a community of fellow thespians and fans at the convention. This time, they assembled to talk about musicals that take a different approach to storytelling by starting with a collection of songs and working backward to develop a story and link them all together. The jukebox musical – Ain’t Misbehavin’, Mama Mia, American Idiot, Rock of Ages, and the like – sometimes works, sometimes doesn’t, and sometimes is just fine.

On February 13th, Gary Mitchel and Sarah Rose were joined by Greg Houser (website), Jacqueline Cocanougher, Rob Levy (Modern Musicology Podcast), and Steven R. Denham to put in their quarters and let their dancing shoes tell the tale.

Culture on My Mind is inspired by the weekly Can’t Let It Go segment on the NPR Politics Podcast where each host brings one thing to the table that they just can’t stop thinking about.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

Culture on My Mind – Willow

February 13, 2023February 9, 2023 Michael FalknerLeave a comment

Culture on My Mind
Willow
February 13, 2023

At the end of November 2022, the revival series for Willow premiered on Disney+. The original film from 1988 is a cult classic that was originally written by George Lucas, scripted by Bob Dolman (Far and Away, SCTV), directed by the legendary Ron Howard, and starred Warwick Davis, Val Kilmer, and Joanne Whalley. It also showcased the incomparable Jean Marsh as the villainous Queen Bavmorda, and she left no pieces of scenery unchewed in her performance.

The story is a basic sword-and-sorcery plot that has unlikely heroes racing to protect a mythical chosen one from the elements of evil. This film came from a time period saturated with sword-and-sorcery, including the Conan the Barbarian entries, Deathstalker, The Beastmaster, Dragonslayer, Krull, and so on. In that light, Willow is a tongue-in-cheek love letter that both parodies and celebrates the genre.

The story revolves around the age-old trope of an infant Chosen One, which is addressed by the evil queen executing a toned-down Massacre of the Innocents by imprisoning all of the pregnant women in her domain. When the foretold newborn escapes, she ends up floating down the river – another biblical parallel and fantasy trope – and landing in the arms of Willow Ufgood. The halfling Nelwyn is the heart and soul of this film and ends up taking an epic journey to deliver Elora Danan to her destiny.

Since the Nelwyn are socially secluded, like the Hobbits of Tolkien’s masterworks, Willow’s initial instructions are to travel only long enough to leave the baby with the first Daikini (“tall person”) that he can find. That person is Madmartigan, a mercenary who reluctantly joins the quest in an attempt to keep doing what rogues do. Willow also answers the call of becoming a sorcerer with the help of brownies – an interpretation of the Scottish hobgoblin lore and analogue to fairies – and the fairy queen Cherlindrea.

The tropes keep coming with a cursed enchantress who Willow needs to restore to human form, plenty of fantastic creatures to slay, and a love interest for Val Kilmer (literally, since he later married the actress) in Joanne Whalley’s Sorsha, warrior daughter to evil queen.

No joke: Sorsha finds ultimate redemption by falling in love with Madmartigan. Even Willow isn’t safe from missteps like this.

The movie rockets onward with several more light-hearted fantasy and comedy tropes, including hiding from troops by wearing women’s clothing, a high-speed duel between goons on horseback and our heroes in a rickety cart, a perilous race down a snowy mountainside on a shield (ala Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom), and a couple of swashbuckling swordfights.

In the end, Willow defeats the evil queen by slight-of-hand and everyone’s happy once again.

All told, the film is a fun romp with a ton of heart and soul. It is effectively a light Dungeons and Dragons campaign. Rather, a corny screwball teenage fantasy where kids could see themselves in the starring roles. It was unique in this regard since most fantasy fare focused on a big shirtless musclebound hero like Schwarzenegger’s Conan, but Willow provided representation for empathic and non-athletic people like me through Willow himself. It’s easy to see why it became a cult favorite, especially considering the easily accessible (and modern for the time) humor spread throughout. Val Kilmer has a major hand in that since he ad-libbed the majority of his lines, effectively carrying his role through the power of charisma.

George Lucas originally conceived of the story in 1972 as a means to present well-known mythological situations to a younger audience, which seems to be a standard for his style. He also tailored it for Warwick Davis after being impressed with the young actor during Return of the Jedi. Davis obviously had a ball in the role, and the only reason that he doesn’t have top billing is studio politics.

The big stumbling block was visual effects technology, which he finally found to match his vision in the mid-1980s. He approached Ron Howard based on their strong relationship and, based on the story, Howard recommended Bob Dolman. Lucas admired Dolman’s style and work on the sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati.

The film itself was rejected by various film studios because fantasy was taking a downward turn according to the performances of Krull, Legend, Dragonslayer, and Labyrinth. Lucas called in a favor with Alan Ladd Jr. at MGM since the studio head was in charge at 20th Century Fox when Lucas pitched Star Wars.

Of course, Industrial Light & Magic handled the visual effects, including the first use of digital morphing technology that would later be used in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. The score was written by James Horner, a well-known film music composer in the 1980s (and beyond) who played with metaphors and the spiritual side of mythology and music history. His score was influenced by Leoš Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass, Mozart’s “Requiem”, Béla Bartók’s “The Nine Splendid Stags”, Edvard Grieg’s “Arabian Dance” for Peer Gynt, and the works of Sergei Prokofiev. Most notably, “Willow’s Theme” paraphrases part of the theme of the first movement (“Lebhaft”) of Robert Schumann’s Symphony No. 3, and “Elora Danan’s Theme” references the Bulgarian folk song “Mir Stanke Le”, also known as the “Harvest Song from Thrace”.

The movie was pretty much a melting pot of cultural and technological ideas.

The film was released on May 20, 1988, and premiered at number one, but it fell well short of blockbuster expectations against Crocodile Dundee II, Big, and Rambo III. Critics were also mixed, faulting the pacing and generic story while praising The Princess Bride for doing a similar movie better. They did, however, note that kids may be hooked by it.

Willow was nominated for several awards, including Oscar nominations for Sound Effects Editing and Visual Effects and Golden Raspberry Awards for Worst Screenplay and Worst Supporting Actor. It won a Saturn Award for Best Costume Design. It has been a staple of home entertainment since it was first released to VHS, Betamax, Video 8, and LaserDisc on November 22, 1988.

There have been a few spinoff properties over the years, including a board game, three video games, and a trilogy of sequel novels that Lucas outlined and Chris Claremont wrote. Those novels, the Chronicles of the Shadow War trilogy, have since gone out of print and are allegedly disavowed by George Lucas. In 2005, George Lucas and Warwick Davis started discussing a television series sequel, which finally came to fruition in November 2022 after two years of development with Disney+.

I watched the original film for the first time in a long while before moving directly into the sequel series after the first season was completed. I can safely say that the only difference between the movie and the series is about 35 years.

We’ve gotten older. The story has evolved to meet its target audience. The heart is still the same.

Typical of fantasy tropes, evil avoids being defeated by traveling through generations, leaving a new band of heroes to take up the quest and save the world. Elora Danon is back but has no idea who she truly is. Sorcha has become a queen and had two children, each of which must contend with their lineage. The innocence and gentleness of Willow Ufgood has been transferred to Prince Graydon while Willow himself takes on the mentorship role from Fin Raziel and the High Aldwin. Princess Kit combines her father’s swashbuckling swagger with her mother’s weight-of-the-world worry. The role of jester once inhabited by the Brownies is taken up by a rogue named Thraxus Boorman.

The representation I mentioned before? It takes a new turn with a same-sex relationship, marking the first Disney+ franchise to actually focus on a queer storyline.

Typical to fantasy: Same story, different telling. This story returns to basic sword-and-sorcery stuff, but evolved through three or four decades of high fantasy and urban fantasy fare. There are elements of The Mummy franchise, Merlin, Xena: Warrior Princess, Once Upon a Time, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and more in the mix. The tongue-in-cheek approach that made Willow a cult classic among fans still exists in the series.

The big difference that I see in the comments is that the fans who fell in love in 1988 don’t see their movie in this series. Comments like “this show resembles the Willow movie in name only”, “the tone, atmosphere and characters are completely different in style”, and “it doesn’t contribute anything unique to the genre” are telling. Neither generation of Willow hides that love is the core of their story. In fact, the sequel wears this value on its sleeve: “Love is the most powerful force in the universe.”

The original Willow fans have grown up, but remember the common thread surrounding that original film? Willow itself is geared by design to the youth of the era.

We’ve talked time and again about how representation matters. The original had its representation with women warriors and atypical heroes, and the sequel emphasizes love between consenting adults in the face of intolerance. Both of them offer representation of chosen family – a staple of Lucas’s works for generations – and the sequel takes it even further for a generation that places significant emphasis on the concept.

Fans of my generation have their Willow, and now new fans 35 years later have their Willow, too.

Modern dialogue is easy to access. Modern plot devices are easy to access. Even the use of modern music – an element of the new series that I don’t like, especially since I can’t find a relevant theme consistent with the song and its respective episode – is something right out of the fantasy properties for this generation. I’m not a fan of today’s vampire and werewolf shows, which are contemporary fantasy vehicles, but I catch enough of their elements when they’re playing in my house. The use of modern music instead of a soaring closing theme is the way of things today in that genre.

The argument that the series doesn’t contribute anything unique to the genre is a non-starter for me. The original Willow was a mash-up of fantasy tropes. It was not original, but it was unique because of its heart. The new series is no different.

The sequel series and the original film are fun pieces of fluff with a ton of heart and representation for days. Neither of them is high art nor my favorite thing in the world, but they are beacons of joy for two distinct generations in the hue and cry of our daily drudgery. If that’s not for you, that’s fine, but don’t stand in the way of that happiness for someone else.

It is for that simple joy and what it brings to people that I appreciate both versions of Willow.

Both Willow (1988) and Willow: Season One are available to stream on Disney+. Willow (1988) is also available on DVD and Blu-Ray wherever fine physical media is sold.

Culture on My Mind is inspired by the weekly Can’t Let It Go segment on the NPR Politics Podcast where each host brings one thing to the table that they just can’t stop thinking about.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

Culture on My Mind – Quickly Canceled

February 10, 2023February 9, 2023 Michael FalknerLeave a comment

Culture on My Mind
Quickly Canceled
February 10, 2023

This week, I’m thinking about cancellations.

Like, quick cancellations. The kind that hit science fiction on television and accelerate a good thing from airwaves to destitution in three episodes, then on to cult status at convention bootleg bins or Shout Factory DVD sales sometime thereafter. Some genre shows get six seasons and a movie – and sometimes, they even deserve the honor! – but other shows were lucky to get a single shot after a mid-season pickup.

On February 9th, Joe Crowe and Gary Mitchel were joined by Tom Morris (The Good, the Bad, and the Nerdy Movie Podcast) and Shaun Rosado (@pneumaz on Twitter) to reminisce about those few brave shows that inspired so many angry letters to television executives. After all, what did the Fox say? “Firefly and Wonderfalls are canceled.”

(Always too soon, I know.)

Gary can also be found on A Podcask of Amontillado, a horror-themed podcast that he co-hosts with Erin McGourn.

You can find those discussions and more every other Thursday as the American Sci-Fi Classics Track explores the vast reaches of classic American science fiction.

The episode art each week is generously provided by the talented Sue Kisenwether. You can find her (among other places) on Women at Warp: A Star Trek Podcast.

Culture on My Mind is inspired by the weekly Can’t Let It Go segment on the NPR Politics Podcast where each host brings one thing to the table that they just can’t stop thinking about.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

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