“SpongeBob SquarePants” has been around for ten years now. As has been noted, it’s “rarely about anything besides a few friends living under the sea” and a lot of people don’t get it. I’ve been watching it for about eight years and I get it. My kids love it – my husband and I used to. Spongebob was boob-tube television. It was a great laugh after a long day. You didn’t have to think, you just watched and laughed. SpongeBob was the naive one, Patrick was the stupid one, Squidward was the annoyed one. It was “Friends” for kids.
Then creator Steven Hillenburg and company got bored. Or stoned. It wasn’t good enough to just have SpongeBob be ridiculously excited about going to work. Patrick being so stupid one wondered how he breathed wasn’t going to cut it. Five-plus years of good, clean, slapstick and pun comedy somehow wasn’t a winning strategy anymore. They had to get edgy.
Maybe it was the addition of Steven Banks as the new head writer in 2004. Or Paul Tibbitt as executive director in 2004 and Derek Drymon coming on as co-executive producer in 2006. Whichever it was, they decided to push the envelope during that time span. It was the end of an era. The end of what Robert Thompson described as, “no sense of the elbow-in-rib, tongue-in-cheek aesthetic that so permeates the rest of American culture.”
So SpongeBob and Squidward got naked every other episode. Plankton and SpongeBob pulled their faces off in frustration. SpongeBob fell in love with a rotting crabby patty, which was shown in all its close-up disgusting beauty. SpongeBob’s pants ripped more times than a mathematician can count. Male characters wore dresses more often than female characters did. Kicking butts was the oft-repeated theme of an entire episode. (“Yes, Principal S, I realize my son going through school saying, “I’m going to kick your butt” is unacceptable. You see, he saw an episode of ‘SpongeBob…’”)
Oh, and let’s not forget Pink singing a song in a lovely pirate costume fit for a Frederick’s of Hollywood party. Yes, bustier and all. I’d show you a picture, but this is a family-friendly site.
I’m sick of seeing male characters in dresses and hoping that my daughter doesn’t ask why. I’m tired of seeing SpongeBob’s butt or underwear. Or Squidward’s, for that matter. I really don’t like trying to keep my dinner down while watching close-up shots of disgusting bodily functions or parts or decaying anything. Disembodied characters or body parts falling off or being pried off? No thanks. How about trying to figure out how to explain cross-dressing? Um, no.
“SpongeBob SquarePants” has become a propaganda machine to subtly indoctrinate children into the new liberal, anti-conservative, anything-goes-and-anything-is-ok mindset. If Hillenburg has those values, that’s his God-given right as a citizen of this country. And it’s my right as a citizen to turn off the trash and teach my children my values.
“SpongeBob SquarePants” is all dried up at our house.
