| February
2005
Should our media report on the Spongebob nonsense?
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This syndicated cartoon appeared in the Straits Times of 8 Feb 2005. Those
of us who are aware of the controversy surrounding Spongebob Squarepants,
would know what it's getting at. But the Straits Times, as far as I can see, has not reported anything about that issue, and thus, to most readers of its comics page, the thing makes as much sense as if the text had been in Basque.
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The background to this
is the issue manufactured, yes, manufactured, by the fundamentalist
religious rightwing of America over a cartoon character called Spongebob
Squarepants. This children's character is modelled after a sea sponge, and
whose best friend is Patrick Starfish. All of a sudden, James
Dobson, founder of the rabidly anti-liberal Christian group Focus on the
Family, accused the cartoon of promoting homosexuality. And the evidence
for that was -- wait for it
-- the fact that Spongebob was often holding hands with Patrick Starfish. This is crazy. The
cartoon speaks to children, many of whom are in kindergarten. Quite often
in kindergartens and the first few schoolyears, when the teacher wants to
take the class somewhere, he or she lines the children up in two lines and
ask the kids to hold hands, boys with boys and girls with girls, so that
the column doesn't degenerate into a mess on the way to wherever. Holding
hands is what kids do, the most innocent thing in the world. Instead, Dobson makes a
mountain out of nothing. He reads an essentially American phobia (of
holding hands with a same-sex friend) that afflicts adults, into a
children's cartoon. He is also ignorant.
All over the world in most other cultures, from China to India, from
Thailand to Tunisia, adult men hold hands as a simple gesture of
friendship. When your masculinity is not as insecure as American males',
it is no big deal. Then, the clincher,
according to Dobson, was that Spongebob appeared in a video together with
over 100 other popular children's characters, e.g. from Sesame Street,
that sought to teach children to respect diversity. The video, released Nov
2004, was produced by the 'We Are Family Foundation' with support from
many sponsors, including Federal Express, the Nickelodeon network, The
Disney Channel, and the Anti-defamation League, and would be sent to
61,000 elementary schools. Dobson claimed that the
diversity pledge that included mention of "sexual identity"
crossed a moral line and was irrelevant to children's lives. The moral line thing we
don't have to discuss here. It's their morality, which is far from a
universal morality, so they can think what they want. As for not being
relevant to children's lives, this is simply not true. Kids nowadays will
meet other kids from gay and lesbian households. Or they may have older
brothers and sisters who are gay. Even in Singapore. Or they may have
neighbours who are openly gay. One cannot pretend that these realities do
not exist. Kids may not understand the sexual aspects of the
relationships, but they do see the relationships. And one would not want
kids to tease or bully their classmates who come from gay and lesbian
homes. * * * * *
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The only newspaper that
carried something about this (ridiculous) issue was Today. It appeared in
the entertainment pages and was similar to the Reuters story on the right.
Somehow it wasn't in the internet edition of the same newspaper. The Straits Times
ignored it, except for the syndicated cartoon that appeared out of
nowhere. The issue worth
pondering for a moment is: should the Straits Times have ignored it,
leaving its readers unaware of this madness? On the one hand, it is
plainly all hot air and no substance. Why dignify it by reporting? One
should remember too that the Christian fundamentalists need the oxygen of
publicity to keep up their influence. They have to create, yes create,
such controversies every now and then, to demonstrate their power over
public policy. Not too long ago, for example, they were all roiled up over
Tinky Winky. Jerry Falwell, another one of the bible-thumping tele-evangelists
that America produces by the dozens, denounced this purse-toting, purple
Teletubbie as a gay role model. If the media give these crazies the oxygen
of publicity, then the media is being complicit in their anti-modern,
hate-mongering agenda. On the other hand,
reporting on their antics can also reveal their true colours, and if you
don't, then Singaporeans remain ignorant of these forces. Consider too,
that Focus on the Family has an offshoot in Singapore and our naive media
keep referring to them every time some social issue crops up, trying to
get a good ol' Christian angle to the story. They don't seem to be aware
of the hidden, politically-motivated agenda, much as I tell reporters
every chance I get. Singaporeans are too
simple, thinking that religion is by definition a force for good. It is
not always so and the Christian fundamentalists are as dangerous as any
other kind of religiously-motivated ones. © Yawning Bread
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Footnotes None Addenda None
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