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Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t: A Pop-Culture Podcast
Ever had something you love dismissed because it’s “just” pop culture? What others might deem stupid shit, you know matters. You know it’s worth talking and thinking about. So do we. We're Tracie and Emily, two sisters who think a lot about a lot of things. From Twilight to Ghostbusters, Harry Potter to the Muppets, and wherever pop culture takes us, come overthink with us as we delve into our deep thoughts about stupid shit.
Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t: A Pop-Culture Podcast
Deep Thoughts About SpongeBob Squarepants
Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?
When SpongeBob SquarePants debuted in 1999, 23-year-old Tracie was not the intended audience for everyone’s favorite absorbent and yellow and porous hero–but she was charmed and entertained by the show that became a Millennial and Gen Z touchstone. This week, Tracie talks about how SpongeBob gave a generation a framework for understanding capitalism, motivation, community, and absurdist humor. She also explains how challenging the medium of animation may have encouraged the current batch of newly-minted adults to confidently break rules that don’t work for them.
If you’re ready! You’re ready! You’re ready! Throw on your headphones and join us in Bikini Bottom.
This episode was edited by Resonate Recordings.
Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus episodes, video versions, and early access to Deep Thoughts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls
clearly Spongebob is the guy I mean. Not only is he a titular character, like, he's delightful. I think that the kids watching were meant to self-identify with Spongebob. He's fun and funny and having a great time and like whatever. And he loves working. And like Mr Krabs is like no, you can't have a raise. And he's like okay, he's always the employee of the month. Like he gets a lot of rewards for being a cog in the machine and doing it with a smile on his face.
Speaker 1:Have you ever had something you love dismissed because it's just pop culture, what others might deem stupid shit? You know matters, you know what's worth talking and thinking about, and so do we. So come overthink with us as we delve into our deep thoughts about stupid shit. I'm Tracy Guy-Decker and you're listening to Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, because pop culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head? On today's episode, I'll be sharing my deep thoughts about Spongebob Squarepants with my sister, emily Guy-Burken, and with you. Let's dive in. All right, em. I think I was into Spongebob a lot more than you were, but tell me what do you know or remember about Spongebob Squarepants?
Speaker 2:It's an iconic theme song, who lives in a pineapple under the sea. You're right, I never really got into it. I have watched it with you. Famously, our parents said like if you weren't there, they didn't know when to laugh. Yeah, they could only watch it with me, because that's how they knew when to laugh. Yeah, so I know SpongeBob more as a meme than I know SpongeBob as a cartoon that I watched, although I have certainly seen several episodes. The thing that you've mentioned several times, like three hours later, that kind of thing, there's the meme of SpongeBob going imagination with the rainbow. Yeah, it's just kind of like low-level zeitgeist, because I kind of missed it.
Speaker 2:We were talking about before we started recording. That it came out in 99 is when it started and you were 23, and I was 20. And I think part of the difference was that I was still in college and you were post-college. So it was kind of a pain in the butt to watch TV, right, and at the time if I was going to spend my time watching TV, it was going to be the high, holy Sunday night hour of X-Files, and so it kind of just passed me by. But I do know that there is a lot of deep thought about this show. People have spent time thinking about this show. I know that it is just absolutely beloved by the kids who were little kids at the time, as well as the elder millennials who were just younger than us. I'm not going to say I'm tabula rasa, but I'm very excited to hear what you have to say about this, because I don't have a whole heck of a lot of opinions about SpongeBob. So tell me, why are we talking about? You know, our favorite sponge?
Speaker 1:today. Yeah, so, as you say, post-college, I think I mean, to be honest, I was too old, I was too old for it, but I babysat. That was one of the ways I made money in, you know, grad school. And also I just love animation, and so I think I watched it, initially no-transcript, when I was through grad school, through about 2005 or so. My daughter really loved it when she was little and binged it, watched most of the 15 seasons and we've seen several movies together and I definitely think that part of her sense of humor is like influenced by SpongeBob SquarePants, maybe because of hearing me laugh at it. I don't know, I don't know. So I think that's part of why I wanted to talk about it. It also was like a big departure, since we've done some heavy stuff lately, like Silence of the Lambs last week, so I wanted something a little bit lighter. But that's kind of why. And so let me give you a quick preview of where we're going before I. I can't do a synopsis of the whole show, but I'm going to give you like the characters, I think. But before I do that, let me give you a little postcard from the destination.
Speaker 1:There are four main buckets that I want to talk about they're unequal buckets, as you say. There's a lot of commentary about this show. A lot of it focuses on actually money. So there's a lot of Marxist or pseudo-Marxist analysis of this show, because there's very clear class distinctions among the characters and their attitudes toward money and toward work are central to plots often. So we're going to talk about that and I'm seeing that of this sort of amateur analysis, like what we do, there are those who say that this show radicalized a generation to become in the direction of socialism, but there are others who claim that this show really, like was a tool of capitalism and taught us to, you know, like, accept less than what we're worth and just become cogs in the machine, be good little workers, yeah, like. People are saying both extremes about this show. So I want to like unpack a little bit like what the tools are that people are pointing to. I'm interested to get your brain on the case a little bit too, especially as a relatively blank slate because you're a money nerd, and then to have me sort of tell you the stuff. I'm looking forward to hearing your contribution to that piece.
Speaker 1:The second bucket that I want to talk about is gender and sexuality. This bucket is a little bit lighter than the money one. It's a little bigger than a thimble, but maybe it's a cup. It's a shot glass, it's a cup. There's, I think, the sexuality piece. Like I would argue that spongebob himself is heteroromantic but asexual, so whatever. But I do think that there's some interesting things, like interesting examples of different forms of masculinity and like what the judgment is of the show of those different forms of masculinity is something that's like worth kind of at least like lifting up. We won't spend a lot of time there.
Speaker 1:I want to talk about this will be a little bit related to our conversations around the movie big about adulting and the importance of play and the and the importance of imagination.
Speaker 1:Like the importance of imagination, like that episode actually I rewatched from that meme that you're talking about and just being open to wonder that we get through the person of SpongeBob and Patrick Starr and kind of like the messages.
Speaker 1:And that will segue into my final bucket because since I watched this as a like starting as a 23 year old and then, you know, through my 20s, like in a lot of ways I self identified or identified closely with Squidward, who was like the adult of the three main protagonists I'm putting quotes around the word adult because they're all technically adults and also he, like the show like really gives him a hard time, if you will, about being an adult.
Speaker 1:And yet he was the one I was kind of like identifying with, so it was like a fun challenge to me, not in a like finger wagging way, but just like as a reminder. But I wasn't who the show was made for. That's like a really interesting thing. As I kind of move into my fourth bucket, which is about like the animation itself and the art form and the storytelling pieces of it, I think that Steven Hillenburg, the creator, like me very influenced by Ren and Stimpy, like it's clear to me that he is indebted to john k, who was a sexual predator but also made some great but also cartoons.
Speaker 1:Really genius animator in a lot of ways yeah, it's clear to me that the creators and writers and animators of spongebob watched ren andimpy like religiously and studied it. And it's in that same arc of returning to an auteur, if you wish, of the animation and push it even further to things that I find like deeply funny, where they will intersperse like photographs in with the animation. I'll tell a specific story about that.
Speaker 2:I can remember you telling me about that in the early 2000s, about something that it just struck you as so funny. Does Still really does the singing at the beginning. Right, there's like a painting of a pirate and the mouth is the real person's mouth, but it's a real person's mouth, yeah.
Speaker 1:Are you ready, kids? And then, and in that, so also in the series, open, spongebob kind of bounces, like he opens his door and he's wearing just underpants, like tighty whities, and this actual hand reaches in and puts his square pants on him, like from the side, like the animator, if you imagine, like the animator's hand coming in, which, like I find absolutely delightful. And so you know part of the conversation about the actual art form too and the influence of Hillenburg and others.
Speaker 1:I'm guessing those guys are Gen X, right, and so there's this is like a Gen Z staple that Gen Xers made, and so there's something really interesting to me about that too, like when we think which harkens back to other things, like Dirty Dancing, which was a boomer story, but a Gen X touchstone you know like those sorts of things.
Speaker 2:So anyway.
Speaker 1:So that's where we're going. Before we get there, let me remind you, listener, or tell you if you haven't heard, like some of the key players in this show Again, it's 15 seasons, it's not a singular story arc. So I'm not going to try, but I'll just name the players and I might give a few synopses of specific episodes as we go. But so SpongeBob SquarePants is the show. That's the name of the show. It's also a character. It's set in Bikini Bottom, which is the name of an underwater town populated by sea creatures. So SpongeBob is a sponge and he lives on a little street. There are only three houses, apparently. His is a pineapple, right next to him is what looks like a tiki head, I guess, and then right next to that is a rock. So the Tiki Head is Squidward's house, squidward Tentacles, who is a squid and is definitely the most adult of the three of them. Under the rock lives Patrick Star, who's a starfish. Spongebob and Patrick both wear pants but no shirt. Squidward wears a shirt, but no pants, doesn't SpongeBob have a snail?
Speaker 2:that's a cat named Gary.
Speaker 1:Yes, spongebob has a pet who's a snail, whose name is Gary and Gary meows like a cat. Yes, a fast food restaurant called the Krusty Krab, which is owned by Mr Krabs, who is a crab and is extremely money-focused and he's very greedy and he has this thing where he can smell money and he loves money. That's his entire personality pretty much is that he loves money and he runs the Krusty Krab like really to to maximize profit. He doesn't care about the customers, he does not care about his workers, he just cares about money. That is made very clear. He has a daughter named Pearl, who is a whale, adopted I okay, they never say Squidward hates working, he just works to live. Spongebob loves working. He's the fry cook and he loves it Like he just thinks it's the bee's knees. In fact, like the very first episode, one of the things we see is like he's gonna go try and get a job at the Krusty Krab. So other characters include SpongeBob and Patrick's friend Sandy, who is a squirrel like a, like an actual squirrel from the land. So she wears a diving outfit and helmet underwater but she has a dome with a tree in it where she actually lives. That's like imagine like a, like an underwater base that they built. It's sort of shaped like an igloo with like a lock system that drains the water so you can take your helmet off. There's also mrs puff, who is the driving instructor. She's a puffer fish, she's very nervous. And plankton, who is the driving instructor she's a puffer fish, she's very nervous. And Plankton, who is tiny and he owns the Chum Bucket, which is another restaurant across the street from the Krusty Krab, which is always failing, and Plankton is always trying to steal the secret formula for Krabby Patties which makes them irresistible, so that he can be a successful restaurateur. So there's this big rivalry and he's always failing. There are probably other characters, like there's Larry the Lobster, who's a bodybuilder, and you know.
Speaker 1:There's a couple of other recurring characters, but those are the main. Those are the main ones. Let me start with the the money and Marxism piece and I'll give a little bit more of maybe some of the like that first episode where which is the first time that so each episode, much like Ren and Stimpy, it's like a 30-minute episode with two 15-minute mini episodes or half episodes, so you'll talk about and each one is named, each of the 15-minute ones is named. So sometimes you'll see something. It'll be like season two, episode 13B, which means it's the second half of the episode. Is that storyline? So one of the two in the very first episode is when SpongeBob gets his job at the Krusty Krab and he's like really excited to try and go get this job and it's the first time we hear him say I'm ready, which is not just I'm ready, it's I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready, which I will sometimes say to you and, if you didn't know that, where it came from that's where it comes from.
Speaker 2:I had no idea, oh my goodness, that's helpful.
Speaker 1:Now For 20 years I've been saying this to my sister. She didn't know that I was quoting SpongeBob. That's fantastic, okay. So he goes to get this job and, like Patrick is encouraging him, you can do this. And then he gets there and Squidward's like oh no, like Squidward does not want his next door neighbor working with him at the Krusty Krab, and so Mr Krabs gives him an impossible task to go buy this like super fancy spatula that Mr Krabs has just made up, that you know supposedly doesn't exist, and not to come back until he has it. And when he does, then he can have the job. So of course he goes off and he's going to. He gets it.
Speaker 1:But in the meantime four busloads of anchovies show up to the Krusty Krab and they're like literally like a sea that the two other characters, mr Krabs and Squidward, are just kind of like floating on the sea, of anchovies who are hungry and rude. And some of the jokes are like so funny to me that I don't understand why they're so funny. Like Mr Krabs, the buses pull up and his eye twitches and he says do you smell that? It's a smelly smell. That smells smelly.
Speaker 2:Like for some reason.
Speaker 1:I find that hilarious. Do you smell that? It's a smelly smell, that smells. It's that sophisticated sense of humor.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm so clever, so I mean it doesn't take a genius to know. Spongebob swoops in with this fancy spatula and like, almost magically, makes enough Krabby Patties to feed all these anchovies and saves the day. And so of course he gets the job, much to Squidward's chagrin, because Squidward finds him really annoying. The job much took Squidward's chagrin because Squidward finds him really annoying. Those attitudes like Krabs is delighted because they've just made so much money from all these anchovies buying all the Krabby Patties. Squidward is annoyed and SpongeBob is just like happy to be of service. And so those characteristics like that describes so many episodes Krabs is delighted because there's money. Squidward is annoyed and bored and put out in one way or another. Spongebob is just happy, happy to be working, happy to be of service. It's very clear that they are underpaid. I think there's only there's one time I'm aware of. It's possible there are more, but there's one time that I'm aware of where SpongeBob says hey, mr Krabs, can I have a raise? And Mr Krabs is like no.
Speaker 1:And that's the end of the conversation. So like we're meant to know that they're underpaid, clearly overworked. Sometimes we see it directly where, like Mr Krabs says, we're going to be open 24 hours now and there are literally two employees Like not to a shift. Two, there's Squidward and SpongeBob. So like we're meant to know that they're overworked and underpaid and SpongeBob is just like yeah, this is what we do, you know. And Squidward is like huh.
Speaker 1:And so I see why the amateur analysts are saying like both of the things that they're saying right, both that this radicalized a generation who were like yeah, I'm not doing that. And also that it was like kind of conveying the message of like be a good worker, because clearly Spongebob is the guy I mean not only is he a titular character. Be a good worker Because clearly Spongebob is the guy I mean not only is he a titular character, like he's delightful. I think that the kids watching were meant to self-identify with Spongebob he's fun and funny and having a great time and like whatever, and he loves working. And like Mr Krabs is like no, you can't have a raise. And he's like okay, he's always the employee of the month. Like he gets a lot of rewards for being a cog in the machine, and doing it with a smile on his face, though he is also made fun of like right, like crabs and squidward both think he's kind of ridiculous.
Speaker 1:It's like complicated the fact that SpongeBob is the main character and is so happy to be a worker. He's happy, it's his dream, it's the finest eating establishment in all of Bikini Bottom. You know that he was like born to be a fry cook. He's treated as if he's a chef in some ways, like because of the sort of prodigal kind of, you know, prodigy kind of thing. But he's not wearing a chef's hat, right, he's wearing like the Krusty Krab uniform and he's just slinging burgers like, even though he's sort of made to seem as though this is some special gift. And the fact that, like again crabs, we see again and again and again that money is his only motivator and he's not sharing it with his employees. But spongebob remains happy with the circumstances. That's what those who sort of say like this is the tool of capitalism that was trying to indoctrinate youngins to be good workers. That's the evidence that they provide.
Speaker 2:Here's what I'm hearing. It was around then like late 90s, early 2000s, when I first heard from our uncle in Orlando you know, find something you love to do and you'll never work a day in your life. Which I've heard many, many times since and it very much seems like we are seeing with SpongeBob and Squidward, like the two sides of that, which is a very capitalist kind of way of looking at things in some ways Like so you know, find something you love to do, you'll never work a day in your life. I really hate that advice. I don't like I don't fault our uncle for telling me that and I don't think that it's necessarily bad advice in a better world than the one we live in, except that nobody loves digging ditches and that needs to be done.
Speaker 2:I love what I do. I love what I do. There are days when it is work, do there are days when it is work. So the idea that, like Spongebob, loving what he does, is decoupled from how much he's paid for it is, I think, kind of like a Marxist idea in that. Like you're not doing work because you're getting paid for it. You're doing work because the work needs to be done, because it fulfills something in you because, because you're good at it, you know all of those things that would be kind of like the idea of communism. But also why capitalism is not great. Because you get these exploited workers, one of whom is happy to be exploited, the other one who is just this doesn't have any other good choices.
Speaker 2:So I can definitely see where someone could say like, yeah, this is, this is upholding the status quo. But I can also see. Before we started recording, I was saying, like you know, this is Gen Z, we're watching this. As the eldest Gen Z, the ones who are now in the workforce it makes my heart sing that they are saying to their bosses what do you mean? You want me to work past five? You only pay me till five or no. I'm not answering the phone on the weekend.
Speaker 1:No weekend like no, which I am so proud to see because it never occurred to me that I could do that when I was their age.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I do think that there is something to like. They grew up imbibing this and seeing that spongebob is there because he wants to be there and squidward is there because he has to be there.
Speaker 1:There's something, something really, really interesting about Squidward in particular. Squidward is driven by status, despite the fact that he has very little. He's a total snob. He's a culture snob. So he plays the clarinet poorly and thinks of himself as being like, very important, like a creative genius of some kind, right like he really wants to be viewed in that way. So he not only does he play the clarinet, like he paints and like whatever, and he has this big rivalry with this other squid named squilliam.
Speaker 2:That is amazing why is that so delightful?
Speaker 1:squilliam looks just Squidward but like has like a unibrow and is like, is much more Like externally successful. So in one of the most beloved episodes of SpongeBob SquarePants it's called Band Geeks and Squilliam calls Squidward up and says my band is supposed to play at the Bubble Bowl two Fridays from now or whatever it is, but I can't do it because I'm going to be out of town. So I thought maybe you and your band want to do it. And of course Squid doesn't have a band. But he lies and says that he does and tries to get a. He gets all these people together. So all well fish together in this I don't know abandoned factory or something. And he says has anyone played an instrument before? And Patrick Starr raises his hand and says does mayonnaise count as an instrument?
Speaker 1:I don't know why I find that so funny anyway.
Speaker 1:So, like the whole, like the whole motivation for Squidward to do this, to try and pull his marching band together, is to show up Squilliam, that he's not a failure. And what's interesting is that I think the reason I'm bringing this to the fore in terms of what you were just talking about is again like what motivates us right, like we're clearly meant to think. Bringing this to the fore in terms of what you were just talking about is again like what motivates us right, like we're clearly meant to think that this is the wrong reason, like there's a lot of secondhand embarrassment on the part of Squidward and it is not working. And then, finally, like SpongeBob gives this like rousing speech where he's like Larry, when you had that accident, who was it that revived you? And he was like the emt guy and like so.
Speaker 1:And so when, when that happens, what did the? A guy on the street, like it's not squidward, like the answer is not squirt, and spongebob somehow manages to be like well, let's do it for those guys. So they pull together this amazing band that like knocks the socks off of everyone, including squilliam, and so so squidward gets rewarded, like he gets what he wants, even though I think we are meant to know that it's for the wrong reasons.
Speaker 1:It's I mean we're even told it's for the wrong reasons. Like spongebob doesn't rally the troops for squidward but squidward still like like reaps the benefit of it. So it's like this really interesting sort of push pull that and this episode is deeply beloved, like when I did a search for like funniest spongebob episodes. Like this comes up on every single list and it's got this like status like keeping up with the Joneses or keeping up with Squilliam, in this case at its core, which again, like to your point about working because you love it or working because you have to like what is the motivation? Like I do think that Hillenburg and the other creators were really interested in some of those questions about motivation.
Speaker 2:And also even the what you're describing, how Spongebob like rallies the troops, is by saying let's do this for these other people who helped, but also gets into the idea that to each their own ability, so, like the EMT guy is who helped Larry because that's what he's good at, I think it's really interesting that Squidward is unhappy because he's status obsessed, mr Krabs is money obsessed and those are like kind of two sides of the same coin. Yes, completely yes, and whereas SpongeBob's just happy, as is Patrick, if I remember correctly, there is something to like taking pride in humble work, which is status quo supporting.
Speaker 1:The thing, though, I think like when we talk about status and money, though, like the episode that gave us the meme with the imagination with the rainbow is called the Idiot Box, spongebob and Patrick order a TV for the box. They throw the TV away a giant television that they throw away so that they can have this big box to play in. And Squidward is, you know, lives between the two of them. So he's like, can I have the TV? And he's like super excited to have this giant TV. Meanwhile, spongebob and Patrick close themselves in the box and are playing different games, and the sound effects from them are like really believable, so much so that Squidward is like, what are you doing? Do you have a sound tape recorder in there? Like, how are you doing that? Like they're playing mountain climber and like he hears the sound of the avalanche and he's like he gets really scared and he opens the box to see if they're okay and they're just sitting there, like blinking at him, and Squidward's like, how are you doing that? And that's when SpongeBob's like it's our imagination and he does the rainbow thing that you've seen in the meme and he goes back into his house and he's trying to watch the TV and every show is something about boxes, boxes or like it's like a boxing match and he's like, well, it's not actually boxing, but then they're like boxing boxes moving around a boxing ring so ridiculous. So there's definitely sort of that like again, that sense of like, what is the motivation? Like these two guys, patrick and SpongeBob, they don't need money, they don't need status, they got their box, they got their imaginations like, and they are happy, and that's true, like over and over and over again, so that that episode is like explicit. But also like when they love going jellyfishing, so they have nets, like think like butterfly nets, but to catch jellyfish and then they just throw them back and they're like frolicking, like they play, like that's their thing.
Speaker 1:What's interesting to me, one of the many things that are interesting in that episode in particular, in the idiot box, squidward like he's having FOMO about all the noises he's hearing coming out of the box and so he joins them and they said, well, where do you want to go? And he's like, I don't know, like a robot, pirate island, like trying to come up with the most ridiculous thing. And then they do it and like he's not seeing it, he's just sitting there in a box with these two guys and so he like gets frustrated and leaves and they keep playing. And then he hears the sound effects and it sounds like robot pirate island. He's like major FOMO. So he waits for them to go to sleep and then gets in the box and is looking for like the button or the lever or the whatever, like how they were making the noise and eventually like he's like it's not, like if I could just press my foot, like this I'll be driving a race car. And then there's the sound of a race car and he's like, hey, I'm finally doing it. I'm finally doing it.
Speaker 1:And SpongeBob hears from his house like, oh, he's finally doing it. Well, it turns out it's actually like a trash truck that's picking up the big box and, like Squid's like having a great time because he feels the box moving. He's like my imagination is working. He gets dumped in the dump and like falls down this hill of trash, down this hill of trash. So it's like there's something. Really. There's like a tension that's alive for me in that, insofar as I feel like we are being clearly shown that Squidward is limiting himself by his kind of adult I'm putting quotes around that his adult perspective. His cynicism and his negativity are limiting him. And even when he finally lets himself, it's not really him. It's not real. Even his imagination is not real. His experience is actually this trash truck no-transcript is able to access. The motivation that we are clearly shown is like more fun, more desirable, like what we should be aiming for, like we should be aspiring to be SpongeBob and Patrick. But even when Squidward lets himself, he pays for it.
Speaker 2:This is feeling a little like there's a connection to Big. I see that when Josh gets his first paycheck and he's like 135 or whatever it was, yeah, 187, yeah, like there's a childlike enjoyment and childlike joy and wonder and imagination that you see with spongebob, and it's in part because he is not obsessed with the adult status type stuff that I can't remember the not villain, well Squidward, but yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh Plankton.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, I'm big, I'm big.
Speaker 1:The rival guy.
Speaker 2:Paul, paul, there's that, but there's also like there's more, I think sympathy for Squidward in this situation.
Speaker 1:That's yeah.
Speaker 1:So that's a really interesting point too because, yes, I agree, in particular, like again, since I started watching this as an adult like I was I identified with Squidward a lot of the time, you know, like I'm sure the kids who were watching it like the kids I was babysitting were not identifying as Squidward, but I was, you know.
Speaker 1:And so there's also like a really interesting kind of tension there in that, when I think about what I named before, that like I think Hillenburg and the other makers were Gen Xers like me, I'm watching it, identifying with Squidward, you know, and like looking for ways that I can like not make those mistakes but totally understanding them, understanding the status, understanding the FOMO, understanding the like oh no, squilliam Like I can't let squilliam know I work at a fast food restaurant, you know like really getting that in ways that I have a feeling, like the kids I was babysitting for whom it was tech, I guess, but I have a feeling like the kids I was babysitting for whom it was tech, I guess, you know officially made like probably weren't getting you know from life experience.
Speaker 1:So there's something really like. Yes, I completely agree. There's a lot more sympathy for Squidward than there was for Paul in Big yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so something I like I have spent some time thinking about my spouse and I have talked about like where we college In the first college he chose for a reason that I can't wrap my head around, and I was thinking I wouldn't do that, except that when I first went to visit my alma mater, kenyon, I wanted to cross it off my list because it wasn't prestigious enough list because it wasn't prestigious enough and like I feel really lucky that I have this like core sense of like who I am and like I stepped on campus. I'm like, well, I'm home, so that's it. And I had a couple of pangs of like I had someone say to me when I applied I had someone I went to high school with, like oh, like you're not going to get into Kenyon Because I was going to school with people who are applying to Yale and Harvard and Princeton and Duke and blah, blah, blah and so that kind of like social conditioning for like prestige. And even like my first job out of college I worked at Barnes and Noble and then I ended up getting an office job. That was awful, but it was an office job.
Speaker 2:So that's like real work instead of retail, which is not real work. So like there's and I don't know if that's just Gen X or if that is millennials have felt that too or what and if that's part of what we're seeing with, like elder gen z like saying no about yeah about work, maybe yeah. I don't know, but that, that, I think, is like it's really interesting because what they're growing up watching is like just be who you are and enjoy yourself yeah, yeah, actually, like on that point of like be who you are and the status stuff, I'm gonna shift into gender a little bit.
Speaker 1:So I'm not gonna say this like never in 15 seasons ever passes Bechdel, but in general it doesn't. So there certainly are more than two female characters, but they're almost never together. It's not a regular thing that they would be together and if they were, like if Mrs Potts and Sandy talked, they would probably be talking about SpongeBob. It's entirely possible that it's more than one point in the 15 seasons that, like, pearl and Sandy spoke about something besides SpongeBob or a man, but in general, no. So a reminder Bechdel is are there at least two female characters? Do they talk to each other? Do they talk to each other about something other than a man, two named female characters? So I'm saying like in general, no, this film, this franchise, doesn't. They don't set it up that that happens on the regular and I think there's still some really interesting things that happen around gender.
Speaker 1:So Sandy is the most frequent airtime female character and she's a badass, right, she's a squirrel who lives under the sea and they first meet when SpongeBob first meets Sandy. She's like wrestling this giant clam and they like do karate together. Spongebob first meets Sandy, she's like wrestling this giant clam and they like do karate together, spongebob and she do, and like this clam eats SpongeBob. He's trying to save Sandy but ends up like getting eaten. And she's like hold on little yellow dude because she's from Texas, and she like beats the heck out of this clam who like flies off like whimpering, like she is tough, real tough, and she's wearing this like diver's suit, but then in her dome she wears like a little like mini skirt and like bandoo. So she's very much female, you know, like girly girl to a certain extent, but also tough as nails. So that's really kind of interesting. She's clearly SpongeBob's romantic interest, though again I have to say I think SpongeBob is pretty much asexual and has something going on with Patrick, I don't know. They're like best friends, you know. So it's complicated.
Speaker 1:I'm actually not making any comments on sexuality, on gender, on gender, like Sandy's really interesting. And like SpongeBob, who is our beloved protagonist, is like really physically weak. So they go to like Muscle Beach at Goo Lagoon. And like Larry the Lobster, like there's all of this, they're like lifting weights and stuff and like SpongeBob is lifting, like Spongebob is lifting, like like a stick with marshmallows on the end of it and struggling, you know like, and Sandy's like dead lifting these huge weights. And like Larry's like dead lifting like the bleachers with all the fish and people in them, like on either side of a stick.
Speaker 1:And like Spongebob is like struggling with these marshmallows. So like we are meant to understand that this little yellow dude is not very strong and like we laugh at him. But we laugh with him kind of it's much gentler, kind of like laughing at him than I think it could be, especially with the kind of like emasculating in the traditional sense weakness, except that then he splits his pants while he's trying to lift and everybody laughs and he loves that, that he's making everybody laugh. So he starts splitting his pants all the time.
Speaker 1:I actually had to stop watching that episode because I couldn't handle the secondhand embarrassment you and I are particularly uh yeah, particularly sensitive to that sensitive to secondhand embarrassment but so we have larry the lobster, who's like super buff and like, also just like a cool dude like we. He's neither villainized nor is he idealized as like a, you know, like it's not. Like. The hyper masculinity is something that becomes something we're meant to like, wish for, it's just one way of being yeah.
Speaker 1:Which I think is pretty cool, and I wonder if that also contributes to sort of the like the ways in which Gen Zers are just a lot more comfortable with different expressions of gender, like on that spectrum Right. One doesn't have to be Larry the Lobster in order to be male one can be a spongebob and still be male.
Speaker 1:I think that's really cool and like it's unfortunate that, like sandy was kind of our only option, or pearl, who's very again those opposites because she's a very girly girl. Pearl is the whale, daughter of the crab, like super into, into, like she's like cheerleader, like kind of traditional feminine, like hyper feminine kind of expressions, but huge because she's a whale. So it's like outside of Bikini Bottom we might think that those things were mutually exclusive and in Bikini Bottom it's like no, it's just that's how pearl is. You know, that's who, that's who sandy is so so those things are pretty cool.
Speaker 1:We're running out of time so I want to talk about the actual like art form a little bit oh, yeah, yeah, yeah so use of real, like live action or still photographs within the animation is done regularly, but not so much, in my opinion, that it becomes sort of a shtick that you're like, oh yeah, that again. And done to such comedic effect, like in that first episode. When SpongeBob first meets Sandy, she says how are you with air? And he doesn't know what she's saying. So he gets invited over to her dome, her tree dome, and he asks Patrick, patrick, what's air? And he says do you mean putting on airs? That just means being fancy. You have to put your pinky up.
Speaker 1:So SpongeBob goes to Sandy's dome and like starts to realize what air is and he's like starting to dry out and his voice gets all funny. He's like what's wrong with water? It's really bizarre. And then Patrick sees him like trying to get out, and so Patrick like rushes in and is like no, you can't quit. And he's like taking him back to the table so that they can have lunch together and he dries out, and he dries out, so they get really dried out and then we cut to a photograph of a yellow kitchen sponge next to a little pink starfish. It's a photograph and I've seen this before, but like a couple of nights ago. I'm watching this and I'm laughing so hard I'm almost crying at this photograph of a yellow kitchen sponge and a pink starfish in the midst of this thing, where they're like waters for quitters.
Speaker 2:And then Patrick's like pinky up because of Johnny Pansy oh man, anyway, anyway.
Speaker 1:so where I wanted to go with this, though, was this sort of like not being afraid to push the bounds of the medium, which I think, in many ways, again, is indebted to ren and stimpy and those anim animators who came before, but is not derivative of Like they're not rehashing the same thing that Ren and Stimpy did you know, they're doing it in new and interesting ways and sometimes it falls flat.
Speaker 1:Like there's one episode I don't remember which one it is Like. I actually like the episode but it starts with this like Patches the, the pirate live action thing with this parrot on, like parrot marionette it's really. That bit is really stupid and I think it's meant to be like it like like captain kangaroo here in the dmv when we were kids, where there was like a live action thing that would introduce a cartoon show. Like I think it's meant to kind of harken back to that, but that to me fell flat.
Speaker 1:Like pushing the medium and like being nostalgic and stuff. But then in other times, like at one point, they have to run a gauntlet on a haunted pirate ship and it's the perfume counter and we actually see like video of an actual, like perfume counter. That's hilarious, so perfume counter, that's hilarious, so I guess that. And then they have a narrator.
Speaker 1:like I think a lot of kids senses of humor were very much influenced by things like that right like like I've mentioned before on other episodes, where my daughter sometimes if something's taking too long, she will put on this weird french accent which is the narrator from spongebob and say two hours later and it's hilarious, and she got that from spongebob and that's like baked into her humor dna, which I think is really, really interesting.
Speaker 1:I mean, we've talked, we've been talking about a lot of the things that are baked in, but I think again we have said this so many times on deep thoughts but one of the things that I, that I think the SpongeBob folks did well and why it still holds up these 25 years later, or whatever, is that they took the medium deeply seriously, but they didn't take themselves seriously and they were willing to break the rules if it had certain effects, and so I think that's one of the things that makes it as long lasting as it's been.
Speaker 2:You know it's interesting the way you're putting that. Willing to break the rules is kind of what I feel like we're seeing with willing to break the rules if it serves the humor or the story. I feel like that's what we're seeing with the Gen Zers who are like yeah, I'm not doing that at work, like they're willing to break the rules because it serves their needs.
Speaker 1:Something else yeah, it serves a greater purpose. Yeah, that's really interesting.
Speaker 2:Whereas we were like no, these are the rules, the rules are the rules.
Speaker 1:You got to follow the rules, because the rules are the rules. This is a cartoon.
Speaker 2:you can't put live action in a cartoon yes yeah, yeah yeah, that is the sort of thing that that's why we do what we're doing which is like where are these like kind of I won't say universal, but like widespread changes and differences between generations coming from? And like I get a little frustrated with how much we talk about generations Like they named Gen Alpha before they're even done being born. It's like stop, like they need to have like shared experiences, shared media, shared a bunch of stuff, and if they're not even all born yet, then what's the point? But there is something to when they get to be, you know, young adults and the older adults are like kids these days about, you know, working with them. What is it that they're going to have in common?
Speaker 1:highlights of what we talked about. Spongebob y'all is still really, really funny. So the key buckets that I brought today were like attitudes toward money and kind of Marxist analysis thereof money and work and we actually extended that out to status and I think where we landed was actually talking about motivation and what motivates us, and naming that Spongebob sort of showed us that like intrinsic motivation. Like Spongebob works because he likes the work and he is therefore happy and he is not driven by status. He is not driven by money, he's not even. I mean there are moments when he cares about how others think about him, but even in that like as long as like when he's making people laugh, he's happy too. You know, even he can't lift what Larry the lobster can lift, but when he makes people laugh, that makes him happy. So there's like a way in which, like we are shown that relationships, imagination, fun, play, all are like great motivators and status and money are not. Squidward is so unhappy all the time and he has a hard time even accessing the things that make SpongeBob happy because he's doing it for the wrong reasons. We talked a bit about gender. I put sexuality on the shelf because it's complicated and I actually don't want to get into it that much, but I did talk about gender. The show in general does not pass the bechdel test, but it does give us really like non-judgmental, different modes of masculinity, in particular, from very weak spongebob, physically physically weak, to very strong Larry, who aren't idealized or demonized for either of those things. That's just how they show up. We also saw sort of what outside of Bikini Bottom I named, like the whale, who is also very feminine, would, based on some of what society has taught us about fat phobia and femininity, would say that that's impossible. But there's Pearl. That's just who she is. And similarly Sandy, who is a total badass, very physically strong, very physically fierce and also feminine. We get both with Sandy I talked a bit about, like the some of the generational, like switching and swapping and humor insofar as, like this was Gen Xers making stuff for Gen Zers and younger potentially, and like some of the humor things we have therefore passed on through this show, like my daughter's two hours later, and also breaking the rules a little bit or breaking the fourth wall occasionally, the ways in which I experienced this show when it was new, like kind of like self-identifying as Squidward who was, like the quote unquote adult, even though they're all technically adults, and the ways in which it felt like a reminder versus like kids I was babysitting who are now adults, who would have self-identified probably as SpongeBob or possibly Patrick of some of the groundbreaking work that Ren and Stimpy did in terms of, like reclaiming animation as its own art form, not just as marketing for products but as its own art form, that this kind of builds on that work that Ren and Stimpy did and even expands it by continuing to break the rules I named, specifically by bringing in like still photos or video from the real world, which we see even from the opening sequence, where we've got the pirate painting with an actual man's lips asking if you're ready, kids, and also the animator's hand with the square pants over SpongeBob's tighty-whities.
Speaker 1:So those were the big highlights of what I think we talked about. What did I miss, em?
Speaker 2:I think we we talked a little bit about how so you mentioned that money and status are bad motivators, but we talked about how like that could be the way that spongebob treats work could be seen as like a like upholding the status quo in some ways, or it could be like a Marxist pushback.
Speaker 2:In some ways, I think it's complicated, I think it's like it's a yes end and in part because it's being, it's been made by, like the Gen Xers who were like oh, the boss wants me to work late, okay, I'm working late, so we struggle with breaking those rules.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I think that's why we see commentators saying both things about this franchise. They say both that it radicalized a generation around work and that it taught us to be good little workers. We see both things being said and I see why I see why, people draw those conclusions, I mean from the art itself.
Speaker 1:I think we would have to look at data, whether quantitative or qualitative, to know what the actual impact was. So well, that's what I wanted to say about SpongeBob SquarePants, who lives in a pineapple under the sea. So next weekend.
Speaker 2:Yes, next time I will be bringing you my deep thoughts about the Mummy, the Brendan Fraser film.
Speaker 1:All right, cool. Looking forward to it. Can't wait See you then. This show is a labor of love, but that doesn't make it free to produce. If you enjoy it even half as much as we do, please consider helping to keep us overthinking. You can support us at our Patreon there's a link in the show notes or leave a positive review so others can find us and, of course, share the show with your people. Thanks for listening. Our theme music is Professor Umlaut by Kevin MacLeod from incompetechcom. Find full music credits in the show notes. Thank you to Resonate Recordings for editing today's episode. Until next time, remember pop culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head?