Hip Evangelists

Jesse Walker | January 20, 2005

James Dobson might be a little confused about the message of Spongebob's new vehicle -- the video's creator claims it's supposed to promote multiculturalism, not gay lib -- but I'm not surprised Dobson thinks there's something queer about the rectangular sea beast. The same view, after all, is common currency in the gay community.

That's one more parallel between this kerfuffle and the Jerry Falwell/Tinky Winky showdown of '99. As James Poniewozik observed at the time:

Last spring Harper's Bazaar quoted a media-studies academic calling Tinky "the first role model for queer toddlers." The outing runs back to the show's origins across the pond. In 1997 James Delingpole in the Spectator wrote that "homosexuals (in Britain) have elevated the handbag-toting Tinky Winky to a gay icon"; and the firing of the actor who first wore the purple suit in 1997 prompted protests among British gays.

At the time no one was dismissing Mr. Winky's gay boosters as crackpots (except the show's nervous production company). Which raises the question of whether the derision of Falwell's crusade is another sign of antireligious bias in the secular general media. When a right-wing Christian leader outs Tinky Winky, it's proof this Bible-thumping Cletus is missing a string on his banjo -- but when a cultural-studies academic or a Voice columnist says it, it's an insightful apercu on our gorgeous televisual mosaic.

Whatever Falwell's motives, he's shown himself hipper to the discourse of pop culture-savvy gays than many of the wags who laughed him off last week. Perhaps, as a result, they're deaf to a deeper message within Falwell's cri de coeur. Think about it: A spokesman for a not-exactly-lifestyle-tolerant community is hinting to the rest of the world that he's been closely following the discourse of gay cultural critics for years.

While I'm pondering those ominous parallels, I'll let the reader decide whether Dobson has found himself focusing on more than just the family.

Comments

Tim Cavanaugh|1.20.05 @ 2:42PM|#

One great loss in the mainstreaming of gay culture is the death of interest in spotting the gayness of seemingly libidoless items in popular culture: Mr. Peanut, the iMac, the new Beetle, the Budweiser Clydesdales, etc.

|1.20.05 @ 2:46PM|#

The Budweiser Clydesdales are gay, or exhibit "gayness"? If they were sporting wood, would that demonstration of their libido make them "straight" or "straigh-like"? Not sure I'm following the analogy.

And I don't need to see Mr. Peanut with a chubby entering a cartoon elephant's vagina-like piehole, thank you very much.

|1.20.05 @ 2:47PM|#

Mr. Peanut

I never thought Mr. Peanut was gay, I just thought he was British.

Jesse Walker|1.20.05 @ 2:49PM|#

If there's one thing we can all agree on the utter gayness of, it would have to be the Ultimate Fitness Program.

Raymund|1.20.05 @ 2:55PM|#

"I never thought Mr. Peanut was gay, I just thought he was British."

Next to "Dead or Canadian?", there's hardly a funnier parlor game than "Gay or British?"

|1.20.05 @ 2:55PM|#

If there's one thing we can all agree on the utter gayness of, it would have to be the Ultimate Fitness Program.

Not sure if it's homosexual, but it's absolutely floorsexual.

|1.20.05 @ 2:59PM|#

Yes!!! another great post finale as Walker exhibits another exquisite trait, i.e., a counteraccusation of the accuser that he is in fact secretly obsessed with what he opposes!!!

This was prominently seen in the "Ken Starr is a repressed sex maniac" smear rolling around during impeachment. I didn't read Reason then, but I'll wager a tidy sum Walker was all over that one as well.

|1.20.05 @ 3:02PM|#

Sounds like somebody's not ready to master his own body weight.

;-)

|1.20.05 @ 3:07PM|#

I always thought the Tinky-Winky thing made absolutely no sense, sort of like if the only tool you have is a hammer....

Why do they assume any of the teletubbies are male, or any sex for that matter? I mean, can you get any more androgynous or sexless than a teletubbie?

Jesse Walker|1.20.05 @ 3:12PM|#

Actually, Snake, I didn't get into the Starr jokes; I thought they were pretty obvious and dull. Poniewozik's wisecrack seemed more original and well-informed, so I was happy to riff on it, admittedly a little weakly.

Anyway, I'm glad to see you were willing to back up one of your wild guesses about me with a wager. Please send me that "tidy sum" care of Reason. You'll find the address on the front page of the website.

|1.20.05 @ 3:18PM|#

can you get any more androgynous or sexless than a teletubby?

For a fundie, though, being androgynous or sexless is tantamount to being gay...or at least bisexual. Cartoon characters and puppets should be manly men or submissive sexy women, otherwise the kiddies will grow up being sexually confused and thus be easy prey for all those predatory homosexuals waiting to "convert" them to a gay lifestyle. Hey, don't laugh: it could happen to your kids if you aren't eternally vigilant!

|1.20.05 @ 3:20PM|#

I'm not gay, and I have an iMac. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

As far as Sponge-Bob goes, anything whose target audience is young children always comes off as gay or feminine. Think about it. Sesame Street, Barney, Teletubbies, Blues Clues, the Wiggles, even Mr. Rogers. The Characters on each are all sort of gentle, soft speaking, and non-threatening.

Actually, they come off as stereotypically gay. Unless Sponge Bob takes his spongy wand out, and procedes to sodomize Patrick, I don't see the argument.

|1.20.05 @ 3:20PM|#

Going back to the assertion of the original article, I don't think that this proves Falwell or Dobson are hooked into gay culture or culturally aware at all...in fact quite the opposite.

That a researcher documented links between British gays and Tinky 2 years before Falwell did NEVER managed to eclipse the fact that MOST people saw this as yet further proof that Falwell was an out-of-touch loon or a horse's ass.

Falwell's aproval ratings have been dropping ever since. Even the recent motivation of the right hasn't been able to pump them up.

Hopefully, Dobson's "Focus on the Bob" will do the same for him.

BTW, Jesse...good call on the UFP

|1.20.05 @ 3:25PM|#

For a fundie, though, being androgynous or sexless is tantamount to being gay...or at least bisexual. Cartoon characters and puppets should be manly men or submissive sexy women, otherwise the kiddies will grow up being sexually confused and thus be easy prey for all those predatory homosexuals waiting to "convert" them to a gay lifestyle.

They have to be manly or feminine, but they can't actually represent sex itself. Because sex is bad.

But not as bad as being gay.

|1.20.05 @ 3:38PM|#

It's kind of like conservative Republicans. You can be a card-carrying, Bush-loving "Republican", but if your not declaring a commitment to an anti-gay, anti-liberal, pro-Christian, pro-life agenda, then you are suspect.

Now's the same with cartoon characters. It's not enough to be sweet and innocent. You have to significantly and overtly declare that you're a heterosexual (whether you have the parts or not) or you're suspect.

And Conservatives wonder why some folks find them a bit insufferable. Oh the humanity...or is it cartoonity?

|1.20.05 @ 3:39PM|#

They have to be manly or feminine, but they can't actually represent sex itself.

They can't speak of or depict the sexual act, but they must at all times exude, if ever so subtly, the unmistakeable odor of hard lubricious compulsive child-begetting rut--strictly within the sanctified bounds of holy matrimony, of course--for it is God's Commandment to be fruitful and multiply and outbreed the heathen. It feels good because it is so bad. Oops, time for me to make another baby. Back in a jiff!

|1.20.05 @ 3:40PM|#

Why are gay themes of such interest to the writers and readers of REASON?

|1.20.05 @ 3:46PM|#

Why are gay themes of such interest to readers and writers of REASON?

Cuz it's all we can do to keep from plumbing the depths of each other's tight brown stars. Congratulations, Bill, you stumbled onto the hottest all-male orgy in town! Grab a tube of lube and get cracking, my good man!

DaveInBigD|1.20.05 @ 3:53PM|#

When a right-wing Christian leader outs Tinky Winky, it's proof this Bible-thumping Cletus is missing a string on his banjo -- but when a cultural-studies academic or a Voice columnist says it, it's an insightful apercu on our gorgeous televisual mosaic.

In general I think they're both reading into it something that's arguably not there, so they can both be dismissed as crackpots (at least to the extent that you can dismiss any literary critic as a crackpot ;p ). However, the big difference is that if you take the gay activists seriously, they're just adding a different interpretation to a text, which is pretty much harmless. If you take the reactionary seriously they want to ban, or at least denounce, the Teletubbies and Spongebob. Less harmless.

So paying different levels of attention is not differing treatment based on anti-right bias.

If there were a left-group denouncing Spongebob as culturally insensitive or promoting the destruction of the environment or whatnot, and the movement was similarly large and vocal to the Christian Right, that might get the media's attention.

|1.20.05 @ 4:01PM|#

If there were a left-group denouncing Spongebob as culturally insensitive or promoting the destruction of the environment or whatnot, and the movement was similarly large and vocal to the Christian Right, that might get the media's attention.

We can only hope that they would be viewed as big a group of nincompoops as Dobson's group (hopefully) will.

|1.20.05 @ 4:51PM|#

What, pray reveal, is wrong with having "gay themes?"

|1.20.05 @ 5:10PM|#

"Falwell's aproval ratings have been dropping ever since."

Couldn't that have had more to do with Falwell's tasteful "September 11th was the queers' fault" bit?

|1.20.05 @ 5:43PM|#

dlc,

Good point...and looking at how I phrased it, one could assume I meant that the teletubbies debacle was the cause or beginning of his decline.

While it would be funny were it so, that's NOT what I meant to imply. But it damn sure didn't help him and I DO think it was a contributing factor.

From Joseph McCarthy to Spiro Agnew To Barry Goldwater (he was actually kind of cool in his own bizarre way) insufferable intolerants have a way of coming in and going quickly out of vogue.

Their bluster sounds good to all the "right thinking" folks until reality enters the picture.

|1.20.05 @ 5:49PM|#

Dr. Dobson didn't mention the ultimate sin: SpongeBob plays music through his nose!! American children can actually watch that Square Pants character play music, sounding like a piccolo, through his nose. If this program was on a network channel, I would gather my three friends and mount a letter campaign to the FCC.

Praise Dr. Dobson for his tireless efforts of protecting children from that nose-playing creature!

|1.20.05 @ 7:47PM|#

quote from TPG:
>Mr. Peanut

>I never thought Mr. Peanut was gay, I just thought he was British.

>Comment by: Thomas Paine's Goiter at January 20, 2005 02:47 PM



Since we're confusing gay people with British people, I thought it would be funny to mention that when my sister was a little kid, she always confused British people with retarded folks!

|1.20.05 @ 10:10PM|#

I don't know about SpongeBob being gay, but in retrospect I suspect the great thespian lion Snagglepuss was.

|1.20.05 @ 11:32PM|#

What, pray reveal, is wrong with having "gay themes"?

You know...it might mean that everyone who regularly visits here is a little, you know...gay. Like maybe he accidentally wandered into a poofter chatroom. He wouldn't want his friends and neighbors to think he was some kind of fruit or something.

Now touch me, Titus, I've been a very naughty boy!

|1.21.05 @ 12:21AM|#

You'd think 'Sponge' Bob would be obviously hetero, wouldn't you?

UncleJimbo|1.21.05 @ 2:58AM|#

Stan, we're all a LITTLE bit gay.

Doug Dangger|1.21.05 @ 3:00AM|#

As a Gay Man and a Gay Journalist, I'm not sure if this story has legs...

|1.21.05 @ 4:57AM|#

...I'm not sure if this story has any legs...

Ewww gross, a stump fetishist!

Jesse Walker|1.21.05 @ 10:38AM|#

I don't think anyone has even mentioned the fact that SpongeBob HAS a GIRLFRIEND

Bah -- so did Lincoln!

Andrew Ian Dodge|1.21.05 @ 12:00PM|#

Then there is always the "in the closet metalhead" fave's band Manowar.