Spongebob Squarepants is everyone’s favorite sponge who lives under the sea. Recently the show just celebrated its 20th anniversary. But, there is one person that does not think so highly of Spongebob. A professor from the University of Washington is not a fan of Spongebob.
The Professor, Holly M. Barker has recently published an academic journal about Spongebob called “Unsettling Spongebob and the Legacies of Violence of Bikini Bottom.” She gives her different opinion on the popular sea sponge.
In the article it reads, “Spongebob Squarepants and his friends play a role in normalizing the settler colonial takings of indigenous lands while erasing the ancestral Bikinian people from their nonfictional homeland.
The Professor calls Sponegbob’s colonization of Bikini Bottom “violent” and “racist.” She also claims that the cartoon is guilty of “whitewashing of violent American military activities against natives of the Pacfic.”
Holly’s beliefs come from the idea that the show is set in a version of a real-life Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. During the time of the Cold War, natives of the area were relocated and the American military used the area for nuclear testing.
This area today is not an area people can live in. The history has given fans a theory that Bikini Bottom is inhabited by creatures who do mutation testing.
Professor Holly has stated as an “American character” allowed to inhabit an area that natives had no other option but to leave. She believes Spongebob has shown his privilege of “not caring about the detonation of nuclear bombs.”
Barker has pointed out cultural appropriation of the Pacfic culture, which includes Hawaiian-style shirts, homes in the shape of pineapples, tikis and Eastern Island heads, are one of many stereotypes of this region that are in the show
The theme song is even problematic to Barker. She believes it denounces the area as one full of “nautical sense.”
Professor Barker understands that the writers most likely did not have colonization in mind when they created this show. She is very upset by the lack of acknowledgment that “Bikini Bottom and Bikini Atoll were not for the taking. Another issue she has is a perceived imbalance between male and female characters. The name “Bob” represents everyman rather than a culturally appropriate character.
In the article, that Barber wrote she claimed that because of the themes, children have “become acculturated to an ideology that includes the U.S. character Spongebob is residing on other people’s homeland.”
The article concludes with this statement, “We should be uncomfortable with hamburger-loving American community’s occupation of Bikini Lagoon and the way it erodes every aspect of sovereignty.”
The Journal the article was published in is called “The Contemporary Pacific: A Journal of Island Affairs.” It is designed to publish topics about social, economic, political, ecological, and cultural topics.
A Nickelodeon rep did not respond to Fox New’s request for comments about Professor Holly’s Opinion. Fox News also tried to reach Tom Kenny, who is the voice for Spongebob Squarepants and was unsuccessful in the attempt.
Many children do not even think about any of the social, economic, political, ecological, and cultural topics discussed in the tv show. Kids should not have to think about any of those issues, when they are just trying to enjoy their cartoons. Those issues go over their heads because no one really thinks of that with a kids cartoon show. The only ones who probably care are older adults, but that is not going to stop kids from watching the show. It has been on for 20 plus years and is still successful.
