A college professor has lashed out at SpongeBob SquarePants and accused the popular animated comedy series of being “violent” and “racist.
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Celebrating 20 years of the TV series that is loved not only by children but also by adults, millions of people shared their most memorable moments involving their favorite characters including SpongeBob, Patrick Starfish, Mr. Krabs, and Squidward Tentacles.
One college professor of the University of Washington, however, is less than impressed by the animated series, claiming that SpongeBob SquarePants is racist and violent.
In a controversial piece called “Unsettling SpongeBob and the Legacies of Violence on Bikini Bottom,” Holly M. Barker wrote:
“Billions of people around the globe are well-acquainted with SpongeBob SquarePants and the antics of the title character and his friends on Bikini Bottom. By the same token, there is an absence of public discourse about the whitewashing of violent American military activities through SpongeBob’s occupation and reclaiming of the bottom of Bikini Atoll’s lagoon.
“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.”
To put it short, Barker believes that SpongeBob colonizing Bikini Bottom reflects and normalizes “violent American military activities” in the Pacific – Bikini Atoll in particular.
“SpongeBob’s presence on Bikini Bottom continues the violent and racist expulsion of Indigenous peoples from their lands (and in this case their cosmos) that enables U.S. hegemonic powers to extend their military and colonial interests in the postwar era,” the professor added.
“The song’s directives, ensconced in humor, provide the viewer with an active role in defining Bikini Bottom as a place of nonsense, as the audience is instructed ‘If nautical nonsense be something you wish… drop on the deck and flop like a fish.’”
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Replaced!