Blog Post #10: Pulling from the Theater

This week in class we viewed An American Tail, an animated feature from 1986 that addresses the topic of immigration through a family of Russian mice, the Mousekewitz’s in the late 19th century.  In it, the Mousekewitz’s show the hardships of immigrating to America, specifically New York City, while introducing the audience to a huge cast of other immigrant mice. Though the film was made in the 1980s, director Don Bluth pulls from many different musicals and literature set in the mid 1800s all the way to the early 1900s. While some of these may be used as stereotypes meant for easy identification, others seem to be intentionally placed to set the scene as well as simply alluding to other popular works that the audience should be familiar with.

The first and the most obvious of the musical allusions is demonstrated through the characters of Papa and Mama Mousekewitz. Their personalities, marital relationship, and even the way they dress mirrors that of Tevye and Golde from the 1960s musical Fiddler on the Roof. This seems to have been used for stereotyping because Tevye and Golde were easily identifiable Jewish characters whose story was also set in the early 1900s in Tsarist Russia. Below see pictures comparing the two sets of characters.

Papa MousekewitzMama Mousekewitz

Tevye

Mama Mousekewitz

There is also several other characters that appear to be modeled after other characters from musicals. Fivel’s friend Tony bears a shocking resemblance both in personality and looks to the character of Jack Dawkins or the “Artful Dodger” from the Dicken’s novel turned musical Oliver Twist which was originally written in 1838. Tony introduces Fivel to America and tries to teach him how to survive, much like the Artful Dodger. Another character from a famous book/musical that seems to appear in this film is the cowardly Lion from The Wizard of OZ who comes in as Tiger, the lovable cat who is not as tough as the others and attempts to conform but can’t. Not only is Tiger the same color as the Lion, but Dom Deluise, who does Tiger’s voice has the same sound to his voice as the Cowardly Lion. See images below to see the odd similarities between these characters.

Jack Dawkins AKA the Artful Dodger

Tony (on right) and Tiger (top middle)

Cowardly Lion

Finally, there is a reference musically to a musical that was written in the 1870s, the approximate time that An American Tail is set. After Fivel leaves the sweatshop, the music “Poor Wand’ring One” plays in the background. This is from the famous Gilbert and Sullivan musical The Pirates of Penzance. This song is sung to a poor young man who also wound up washed up on the shores of an island. He was a misfit not quite sure of where he fit in. This seems to be another obvious allusion for Fivel in this film. Overall, An American Tail seems to pull a lot from literature around the time to help the American audience identify with something they may not remember, immigrating to the United States and the long hard road to becoming an American.

I commented on Andrew Steward and Brenda Weber’s blog.

Advertisement