This is a post, really, about SF/Fantasy worldbuilding, and not about SpongeBob at all. But nonetheless I say: let his glorious, joyful face stand, there, at the head of this post, for all the world to see.
So, as you know already: SpongeBob lives in the undersea town of Bikini Bottom. Now, should we be disposed (and why would we not be) to consider the calibre of worldbuilding of the show in which he appears, we might note in it certain inconsistencies and departures from the commonly agreed conditions that obtain in the real world. Here are two kinds of these departures.
1. Despite being under the sea, the characters frequently light fires, and such fires burn merrily.Now, there was a time when the first sort of 'inconsistency' about a SF text would have bugged me much more than the second. Indeed, I can imagine people who would not regard the second as an inconsistency of worldbuilding (based upon doesn't mean same as; no reason why this imaginary land might not be a monarchy; Neptune a recognised maritime mythic figure; and so on). Nonetheless, I am these days more put out by the second inconsistency than the first. The first doesn't seem to me to be an inconsistency worth fretting over, since it embodies the core representational logic of the show -- the comedy of incongruity integral to animated cartoonery. The second, however, violates the cultural logic of the text. It is the distinction between those fans who read texts only on the level of in-show content on the one hand, and those who read texts according to their codes of representation on the other. As far as that goes, it seems to me shows operate according to conventions. Darren in Bewitched is the spitting image of Dick York in the first five series and yet he looks extraordinarily like Dick Sargent in the sixth to eighth series. Despite this fact, the other characters at no time so much as mention his strange and upsetting physical metamorphosis. In SF, though, there is this grievous black-hole pull back towards the logic of the first type, above. When Doctor Who swaps actors, it has to be written into the text on the level of content, it has to be rationalised and explained. The problem with this attitude (widespread in SF, I'd say) is that it treats us, readers and viewers, as if we are all as idiotic as Hugh Laurie's Prince George at the Theatre ('Look behind you Mr Caesar!').
2. The cartoon world of the show is, in a hundred particulars, very clearly based on US life. Bikini Bottom is, as it were, a small US coastal resort, translated via the rubbery topological reshaping by which such cartoony things work, underwater. Nonetheless, we discover in The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie that the people of Bikini Bottom are governed by a King. The people of the USA are not governed by a King. In one sense, that's kind of the whole point of the USA.
There is always the question of whether - and why - incongruity of either sort needs explaining, conventions aside. In fact, I suppose this touches on one of my most persistent irritations with fandom - the sacred nature of conventions (and yes, I'm deliberately punning).
ReplyDeleteI take your point, Adam, but - Doctor Who notwithstanding - it's not as if SF audiences haven't been trusted to gloss over different actors playing the same role. To take another example from a BBC production, Travis out of Blake's 7 changed face and accent rather markedly from one season to the other, but it was presumably accepted that the audience would absorb this change without complaint or any need of an explanation. Even though, given the SF premise of the series, it could well have been written into the text on the level of content, as you put it.
ReplyDeleteThat's clearly right, Al, up to a point. I'm arguing that point is set differently in the minds of some (many? don't know) SF fans. I'm thinking of: let's say, the differences in the appearance between Klingons in the original series Trek as against the way Klingons appear in TNG and after. This cannot be swallowed as part of the codes of representation of the show; there must be some explanation framed from within the logic of the text. I don't think that's true outside SF/F.
ReplyDeleteI think the link in that last comment is borked, Try: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klingon#Continuity_issues
ReplyDeleteAs an American viewer who, thanks to overlapping kids and grandkids, has had Spongebob on his TV continuously since it came out, I can tell you that no one over here thinks Bikini Bottom is in the U.S. It's out in the South Pacific somewhere. Whether it's in international waters or not, the sea is ruled by Neptune, not the U.S. President.
ReplyDeleteMy personal theory is that Bikini Bottom is near the Bikini Atoll and all the residents were affected by a decade of atomic testing.