posted by Scene -- @ 4:51 PM

Square, Flat Pants: Why SpongeBob is Gay is Nobody Cares

I was too busy to make it to the theatres this week, and I couldn’t seem to stretch my review of Ong-Bak beyond “Worst ever advertisement for orthodox religion, best ever advertisement for muay thai kickboxing”, so instead of my weekly film review, I grabbed my baseball bat, looked for the nearest dead horse, and decided to beat the crap out of it.

Apparently, or so my nightly news and a certain seemingly sprawling community of concerned pundits keeps telling me, SpongeBob Squarepants is gay. That is, soft, squishy, happy, and with perfectly upturned eyelashes. Not to mention all that gay shit he does, like putting his arm around Patrick Starfish (Starfish! Like asshole!), and living in a pineapple. (A fruit! Like fruity-fruity-fag-boy!)

Nobody seems to care, however, except for the previously mentioned pundits. Probably because the rest of us have already come to terms with the fact that gay people exist, thus gay people exist everywhere, thus some of us are gay, and therefore, should the logic hold up, there, statistically speaking of course, should exist somewhere a gay cartoon character.

I’m condescending though. Of course these same pundits have come to grips with the fact that gay people exist. What scares them the most, however, and what they refuse to wrap their head around, is the fact that gay children exist—despite the ever-growing popularity of 50 Cent amongst young boys as evidence to the contrary. But the case in point isn’t whether Bill O’Reilly’s son is a gay wigger or not, but whether or not his favorite square-panted sponge is.

And the answer, since nobody else can seem to conclude the matter with any finality, is a simple “No”. It’s quite obvious to anyone that actually watches the show that SpongeBob loves stadium power rock, not gangsta hiphop with an East Coast lyrics/West Coast beats/Down South drawl fusion.

As for the gay issue: yes and no. Or, to put it succinctly, in just as many words with just as many letters but with less confusion: Who Cares? SpongeBob might be “homo” in however way you choose to stereotypically fill-in that paradigm, but without a penis and without a sex-life, SpongeBob will always be miles from “homosexual”.

The secret behind SpongeBob’s lack of heterosexuality is that he’s been so de-sexualized. More than that, though, his de-sexualized character prevents him also from being homosexual. Spongey ain’t getting any. Not even from phallus-headed Patrick. And who would have sex with a Sponge anyway? Dude’s probably looser than Kevin Bacon’s foot.

The whole debate is ridiculous, obviously. There’s a huge history of subversively “gay” characters in children’s entertainment. Batman and Robin. Bert and Ernie. Pee Wee. Children don't care if their entertainment is gay, because so long as nobody is kissing or dirty stuff like that, it's not very gay at all. You'd think this would be an ideal situation for conservative adults, who say they don't care what gay people do so long as they don't see it. ("I don't care what they do in the bedroom...")

And if the argument is that such characters promote a gay lifestyle to children, well then, that’s just inane. If anyone out there is gay merely because Batman referred to Robin as “his young ward”, well then they aren’t just gay they’re stupid too. It’s like saying I grew up heterosexual because Al Bundy read Big’Uns.

And that’s the game we should be playing instead of pointing the limp gay finger at people. Let’s point the stupid finger.

Going on national news and protesting SpongeBob to promote your neocon agenda? Stupid.

The Pope declaring gay marriage the great Evil of our times? Stupid.

SpongeBob Squarepants? Stupid, yes. But in the good way.

This article? Stupid.

50 Cent’s new video? Gay.

Something more intelligent next week, I promise.

Jef.Catapang