Spongebob, the Pioneers, and the Truth of Fairytales
Happy Holidays Tolkien Poppers!
I hope that you are settling things with work or home that need to be done, so that you are able to enjoy some relaxation or at least some craziness in a place and with people that you enjoy! I’m getting ready for spending time with family, exchanging gifts, and eating many homemade treats. Whatever you plan on doing for the next couple months, I hope that you are well and that these posts can add to occupying some of your leisure.
Today’s post is a fun one because I am bring Spongebob Squarepants and Tolkien together in dialogue through the lens of Tolkien’s literary theory. I always love putting things together that don’t seem like they belong together and think I did a pretty decent job here. You’ll have to tell me if I succeeded or failed miserably. Now, put on your squarepants, your Krusty Krab hat, and get ready for Spongebob and On Fairy-stories!
My book Tolkien and Pop Culture: Volume I is now available on Amazon! This book is a selection of my Substack posts from the past couple of years, cleaned up, and formatted for publication. For the first time, you can get all these essays in print or in your Kindle library. It’ll look great on your shelf and be available for your own Tolkien purposes! Use the QR or the link to pre-order your copy: https://a.co/d/eBE7jiH
In Tolkien’s famous essay “On Fairy-stories,” he makes a case for the legitimacy of fantasy as an art form. He links fantasy to the timeless human craft of mythmaking, which contains truth within story. For many, myths, fantasies, and fairy tales were and, in some cases, still are considered immature and for children. Tolkien describes the situation this way:
“It is true that in recent times fairy-stories have usually been written or ‘adapted’ for children…if [fairy-stories] were left altogether in the nursery, [they would] become gravely impaired…Fairy-stories banished in this way, cut off from a full adult art, would in the end be ruined; indeed in so far as they have been so banished, they have been ruined.” (OFS, 51)
The issue is not the myth or fairy tale themselves, but the way in which they have been diluted and cast away by adults in arbitrarily determining them as less-than under the illusion of consistent human improvement.
This articulation sounds pretty pessimistic and as if Tolkien was pitting the modern world against something more ancient. To a certain extent, that is the case. But that is not the whole story. For Tolkien was a modern man living in the modernity and postmodernity of the 20th century. Modernity had come in and essentialized its place as the new universal doctrine of humanity. A mindset that would translate to action for the betterment of humanity as a whole. Because of science and particular romantic ideals for humanity, there would no longer be war, exploitative labor, or desire to short another person for one’s own ambition to get ahead. Back-to-back World Wars shattered that vision of the world, and artists like Tolkien were wrestling with what humans actually were and how we were to move forward from the unmeasurable evil we had enacted in the name of human “progress.” Who was considered human? And who actually benefited from said progress?
Instead of rejecting everything the modern world was offering during his time, Tolkien aimed to influence a switch in perspective through the recovery of myths and fairy stories that were all-too-often thrown out for, according to Tolkien, means and ends that were detrimental to humanity and the world.
On Fairy-stories is my favorite non-legendarium text of Tolkien’s, so it is frequently on my mind and has been the main text I have been engaging with in my recent academic work. As it has moved from the back of my mind to the front, no piece of pop culture has been spared in my conducting of Tolkienian analysis. My ADHD is always at work in occupying my brain with information that rarely has to do with my present circumstances: random philosophical questions, what I need to get done at home, and random movie and television quotes. Being a younger millennial, Spongebob Squarepants was frequently on my TV screen and has filled my rolodex of memes and informed my sense of humor. For many within my generation, quoting a line from Spongebob and waiting to see if they can complete the reference or recognize it is a way of gauging the quality of cultural relatability of another. Because Spongebob periodically makes his way across my ADHD-fueled train of thought, the Krusty Krab Pizza song (aka one of the greatest animated cartoon tunes ever composed) from the Pizza Delivery episode.
After I annoyingly (and solitarily) belted Krusty Krab Pizza, I immediately thought about the progression of the episode. In this Season 1 classic, Spongebob and Squidward are performing their closing duties at the Krusty Krab when they get a phone call. Squidward answers to inform the customer that they’re closed. Mr. Krabs, their greedy boss and owner of the Krusty Krab, swipes the phone from Squidward and takes the customer’s order. Mr. Krabs repeats the customer’s order, which happens to be pizza - to which Squidward exclaims that they don’t serve pizza - and Mr. Krabs responds that a “delivery Squid” will be right there to drop off the pizza! Of course, Squidward is extremely annoyed that he’s been tasked to do something past his scheduled working hours and not in his job description. Spongebob, alternatively, loves working and is ready to do anything for the sake of the customer. I think we can all agree that Squidward embodies the correct posture here.
Before they leave, Spongebob checks the boat - Bikini Bottom’s version of a car - parked outside the Krusty Krab in preparation for their pizza delivery. Squidward does not want to drive and tells Spongebob to take the wheel. Spongebob then informs Squidward that he can’t because he’s still in boating school and doesn’t have his license. To which Squidward replies, “Come on, Spongebob. It’s just around the corner.” If you’re familiar with Spongebob Squarepants, you’ll know that whenever Spongebob gets behind the wheel of a boat, disaster is surely to follow. This is the case and Spongebob panics by putting the boat in reverse and slamming the pedal to the metal, sending them miles away from the city of Bikini Bottom and into the “wilderness” with no gas in the tank. How are they going to get home, let alone deliver the Krusty Krab pizza to the customer?
To make matters worse, Squidward, in understandable frustration, kicks the boat, fixing the gas gauge, and sending the boat with a full tank speeding back the way they came. Spongebob, in all his optimism says, “Well, we can still deliver it on foot.” Cue the greatest episode-themed song of all time as Spongebob and Squidward’s pedestrian journey to deliver the pizza ensues.
Throughout their unexpected journey (see what I did there?), Spongebob stops to perform travel tips laid down by the historic “pioneers.” According to the Spongbob fandom wiki, “The pioneers are a set of early sea creatures who inhabited the Pacific Ocean.”1 We get little to no information about the ways and culture of these Pacific Ocean Pioneers, but we do see that their approach to trekking is rooted in folklore and actually works. The first instance of Spongebob using the tactics of the pioneers is when he puts his ears to the ground to see if he can hear cars coming on the highway, so they can hitchhike. Squidward dismisses Spongebob and in the middle of Squidward’s dismissal, he is proven wrong with the approach of a truck. Spongebob then attempts to hitchhike like a pioneer and tragically fails because the truck driver thinks that he’s a “breakdancer.” This is the only instance where one of Spongebob’s pioneer tricks does not work.
Spongebob and Squidward continue their trip and are met by a sandstorm, which entirely covers the road so they don’t have a reference for direction. Squidward panics, but Spongebob, upon seeing a rock with moss growing on one of its sides, exclaims, “Moss always points to civilization.” More wisdom from the pioneers. Squidward rejects Spongebob’s knowledge and decides to go in the opposite direction claiming, “Trust me. I know where I’m going.” He did not know where he was going. And this is proven with a wide shot, showing Bikini Bottom lying in the direction of the moss side of the rock.
Descending into exhaustion and delirium, the Krusty Krab Pizza song experiences various renditions and Squidward tries to eat the pizza. Spongebob defends the pizza. And in the middle of him running away from Squidward, he looks over and shouts, “Look! We’re saved!” He runs to a huge boulder to which Squidward calls it “a stupid boulder.” Spongebob, in all his trust in the stories of the pioneers, retorts, “It’s not just a boulder. It’s a rock…the pioneers used to ride these babies for miles.” Again, in modern skepticism, Squidward attempts to dismantle the legacy of the pioneers. In the middle of his rant, Spongebob runs over Squidward with his newly revved up rock. Squidward realizes that Spongebob and the pioneers were right all along. In the end, they deliver the pizza and make it back to Bikini Bottom in time for their next shift at the Krusty Krab.
So, what does this episode of Spongebob have to do with Tolkien and On Fairy-stories? Just as Tolkien experienced modern people in his own life toss out the wisdom of fairy tales and folklore, Spongebob was ridiculed by Squidward for something similar. And in this animated TV classic, Squidward’s arrogance in his reliance on his own ahistorical identity and knowledge leads to the furthering of his and Spongebob’s hardship. Now, there is a category distinction between Spongebob’s folk wisdom and a fairy story. There may be some overlap in the mixture of history and legend, but what really matters is the truth behind them. Tolkien believed that truth was at the root of all good fairy stories and fantasy. Sure, dragons are not real, but is the greed a dragon embodies real? Many of us would say yes. Through fairy stories, humans can put the issue of greed, for example, into a fantastic landscape and explore its ins and outs and how those in the fantasy world respond to that greed. This can then lead to how we in the primary world understand and address greed. Similarly, Spongebob, with only movies to reference in this episode, invokes the folk wisdom of the pioneers, which held truth in successfully helping them travel to safety.
Squidward is what Tolkien would call a realist. Realists dismiss fantasy - rooted in folklore, myth, and history - as a frivolous escape. Think of Spongebob’s reliance on a movie, which probably took creative liberties in presenting the pioneers. It is primarily through an artistic medium by which the truth of fantasy makes its way. To quote Tolkien at length,
“In what the misusers are fond of calling Real Life, Escape is evidently as a rule very practical and heroic…Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if, when he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers or prison-walls? The world outside has not become less real because the prisoner cannot see it. In using escape in this way the critics have chosen the wrong word, and, what is more, they are confusing, not always by sincere error, the Escape of the Prisoner with the Flight of the Deserter.” (OFS, 69)
What Squidward would call “real life,” is actually the means by which he constructs his own “prison” of misery. Spongebob surrenders to the stories of the pioneers and it leads to the recovery of their sense of the world and return to it.
Recovery of the world through story is necessary if we want to succeed as human beings. Cutting off the world from its history, the stories told about it from those that occupied the past, and the stories we tell about it now is like killing a living insect and pinning its corpse to a cork board in preservation. The colors of the thoraxes or shine of the wings may be there in the glass case for us to ponder and appreciate, but it does not change the fact that it is still just a collection of dead things. They are not out in the world, living and dying to contribute to the ongoing ecological health of the world. Stories should be set free. And it is only when we loosen our grip on the certainty we think is an island of truth can we truly be free to partner alongside the world and its inhabitants to bring us to a better world. It’s a journey worth taking and we may even get a killer tune from Tom Kenny on the way.
“Pioneers.” Fandom.com. https://spongebob.fandom.com/wiki/Pioneers#:~:text=The%20pioneers%20are%20a%20set,the%20episode%20%22Hysterical%20History.%22
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