Masculinity Between Animation and Live Action, or,

SpongeBob v. Hasselhoff

SpongeBob SquarePants is known as a visually appealing, scurrilous entertainment for children, and an escapist, psychedelic pleasure for adults.^[1] The big-eyed yellow sponge (voiced by Tom Kenny) who lives on the ocean-floor beaches of Bikini Bottom has charmed audiences since Nickelodeon first aired the programme in 1999. The 2004 SpongeBob SquarePants Movie is also a valuable theoretical text, as it contrasts live action with animation meaningfully in its narrative and ideology as well as its aesthetics. The contrast of medium primarily corresponds to the film’s investigation of gender and age difference: grotesque, adult hypermasculinity is associated with live action, while animation is associated with ambiguously gendered, polymorphously perverse childhood. Ultimately, The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie represents a victory of childhood over adulthood and, in the same move, of animation over live action.

The tension between animation and live action – and related forms such as motion capture and rotoscoping – is a complicated tangle with a rich history. At the 2010 Society for Animation Studies Annual Conference, Harvey Deneroff and Victoria Deneroff (2010) argued, through social practice theory, that strain arises between animators and motion capture artists in part because each group is accustomed to different ways of working. At the same conference, Lisa Bode (2010) analysed how the marketing and reception of motion capture often emphasizes actors’ work while it marginalizes the work of animators. These conference papers contended that status, power and financial compensation are at stake in the tensions between animators and other film artists.

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