The blog Overthinking It ran a series in late 2016 called 'Merica Madness - a March-Madness-style tournament dedicated to finding the single most American piece of pop culture that actually had the word "American" in the title. Part of this was finding out what "American" even meant in the first place, so their four brackets separated the nominated works into four different categories: Sex, Violence, Family and Capitalism
. Fast forward a couple months, and the bracket winners are as follows: American Pie for Sex, American History X for Violence, An American Tail for Family, and American Gangster for Capitalism (neither Don McLean's "American Pie" nor Denzel Washington's American Gangster were in the tournament).
The finals were between An American Tail and American History X. It did not escape the contributors that both films were about the experience of the American immigrant and the idea and treatment of The Other. One contributor noted that the winner would most likely not be American History X simply because no one wants to vote for the movie about neo-Nazis. The final vote states that while both pictures of American attitudes towards what it sees as outsiders are indeed in its history, being American is ultimately about being optimistic, welcoming, hopeful for the future, and secured An American Tail's place in the winner's seat.
The series ended on November 3rd, 2016, less than a week before the the actual 2016 U.S. Presidental Election Day on November 8th. The morning after the election, staff member Matthew Belinkie commented this on the final article: "[gets up, checks election results] Whoops!"
