Now that we’ve had a chance to examine the critical dance sequence in the Walter Lantz cartoon, The Greatest Man in Siam, let’s take a look at the whole thing. As I remarked earlier, the cartoon seems to be a simple one in which everything is obvious. Nothing to puzzle over.
But it’s simple and obvious only because the moves and memes are familiar, because it’s built on tropes that have been circulating for a long time. As I explained previously, the story is simple: King Size is giving away his daughter’s hand in marriage. Four men compete. One wins. End with a party. It’s that simple.
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When I set out to analyze the cartoon I was curious about one thing: Why’d the trumpet player win? What is it that he did right that the others did wrong?
Let’s not go there just yet. Let’s start at the beginning. Roughly the first two minutes or so are devoted to establishing this exotic world, one based on standard clichés about the Middle East. The opening shot tells us where we are – notice the domes, the minarets, and the color scheme:
Now we move around and see some gags, such as:
Then we see a marquee on over the door to the palace, a double bill with a distinctly working class under-title, a bowling contest:
Then a herald comes through an enormous door:
Some functionary unrolls a long runner down the stairs just off the right of that frame and, when it all runs out, the roly-poly king comes flying out:
The King manages to land upright on the throne. As he settles himself we hear that snake charmer song which is ubiquitous in cartoons. A different melody starts up and the king begins to sing of the contest (the material in brackets is spoken as an aside):
I’m the ruler of this country,
I’m the king of all the land.
[That’s me, believe me.]
And today I give away my daughter’s hand.
[Absolutely free, no charge, no tax.]
We’ll hear this melody repeated over and over as each contestant sings his own words. The king finishes his singing and introduces his daughter, who’s standing on a low pedestal:
She alights from the pedestal and sashays around. She’s spotted by some men, who give us this utterly obvious gag:
Yes, one shouldn't do such things. Notice, however, that it's the men who become animals momentarily, not the woman who's the object of their lust. And . . . why all of a sudden the green background?
The focus shifts back to the king, who once again sings:
The focus shifts back to the king, who once again sings:
Now the greatest man in all Siam
My daughter weds today. [ha ha ha ha]
Let the competition start without delay,
[without delay, without delay, without delay]
Now things get interesting. Each time he sings/says “without delay,” he consults a different timepiece. Here we see the second and the fourth ones:
The last one is worth a moment’s consideration. Its position and shape suggest a giant phallus. If so, what’s it doing here? The king’s not getting married; his daughter is. The phallus is for the benefit of the suitors. It’s a symbol of the king’s power, to which they are subject. He may be a little roly-poly guy, but he IS the king, and he has a king’s powers.
Enter, the first contestant:
He sings that he’s the smartest man in Siam. But he quite obviously is not smart at all. He sings that “When the draft board calls for me, I’ll have water on the knee. I’m the smartest man in Siam, yes I am.”
That is to say, he’s smart in the sense that he’s got a plan to dodge the draft. An official identified as the head of the draft board will have none of and ships The Smartest off to the navy.
What just happened? This cartoon came out in 1943, during World War II. The draft was very much on people’s minds. Many thought of dodging it, and some did. To dodge the draft is to defy the authority of the state. And in this cartoon, the state is King Size. That’s why The Smartest is banished, for defying the King’s authority.
The next man up proclaims himself to be the richest man in Siam:
His jewels are so dazzling they hurt the king’s eyes. Not a good thing to do. In the course of listing his riches, The Richest reveals that he’s dealing in ration books, which is, of course, illegal:
Once again World War II intrudes into the cartoon. The king calls for the Royal Tax Collector, who strips The Richest of all his riches. Two down.
As the king is laughing at the comeuppance of The Richest we hear what sounds like an air raid siren, and then flying planes – more allusions to the war. We see a blurr whizzing around, which turns out to the third contestant, the fastest man in Siam:
He manages a stunt in which he shoots an arrow to the left, then runs to the left, grows a tree, plucks an apple from the tree, and puts the apple on his head where the arrow turns it into apple sauce. He then casually tosses the apple sauce away and it lands on the king’s head:
The king is not happy. The Fastest ends his song: “Lightening don’t scare me a bit, ‘cause I can dodge before I’m hit, I’m the fastest man in Siam, yes I am.” Lightening strikes him in the buttocks while he’s taking a bow. He's reduced to smoke:
Three down. As the smoke clears, King Size turns to his daughter and observes that “he burned himself out.”
This is where we started our investigations in the previous post. King and daughter hear a trumpet riffing and lock eyes in mutual acknowledgment of the outrageous music:
They hear The Hottest and they’re intrigued. He comes floating down, singing that he’s the hottest man in Siam. That is to say, he brings himself down to their level:
Once again a boastful contestant. But that in itself is not a problem. The contest requires such bravado. What’s important is that The Hottest doesn’t challenge the King’s authority or insult him in any way and he addresses his attentions primarily to the daughter, not to the king. He wants the princess to like him; none of the others paid any attention to her. This is both obvious and important. The deal is set-up as a marriage arranged by the king, but it comes down to his daughter’s choice. She signals her approval of The Hottest by making eyes at him:
Again with the eyes. A few frames later we’ll get a close-up on The Hottest’s eyes and, as we saw previously, they’ll become fuses. And the fuses will spark electricity:
It’s a simple gag, but we would be remiss to think of it as just that, a simple and clever gag. In a sense the whole cartoon up to this point ‘disappears’ into those sparks and the rest of the cartoon emerges from them. This is the point of ritual transformation. Before, one world, after, a different one.
The Hottest comes floating out of those sparks as he launches into his solo:
As the solo becomes established, the background reappears, and The Hottest now plays to and dances with The Princess. That goes on and emerges in another transformation:
Now King Size is dancing with his wife. The joy spans two generations. Notice that she’s considerably larger than he is. She tosses him around on the dance floor like he’s a toy:
She grabs his garment and spins him out until he’s standing there in his underwear, a most undignified situation for a king. He's no longer the King of All the World, or, at any rate, of Siam. He's just some woman's husband. She reels him back and the scene gives way to general dancing:
We get another duo-dance from The Hottest and The Princess. They merge with everyone else in a cross dissolve which reveals him to be wearing a top hat. She’s now got flowers in her hair. The wedding’s taken place and we’re dancing at the reception:
Notice the composition in that last frame. We’ve got dark figures in close-up pushing off the edge of the frame and we see the happy couple behind them in the middle.
King Size is tossed into the fountain for one last humiliation:
In effect, this highest has now become the lowest, a standard ritual move. The hierarchical world before the dancing has given way to a world in which all participate on level terms. Except, of course, for the king. He does ritual duty as the butt of all jokes. The cosmic ring toss.
The social contract. That’s what’s going on in those exchanges of eyes. The social contract is being forged/reaffirmed. We’re all eye-to-eye.
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It’s a remarkable performance. That marriage is the foundation of society is a commonplace, a cliché. It may also been something of a truth, when properly argued and demonstrated. Sociologists and anthropologists are wont to make such demonstrations. But so do cartoonists, as the Walter Lantz studio has done in The Greatest Man in Siam.
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The cartoon on YouTube:
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