Squidward Squarepants

After reading Freud's Dream Theory, The Pathos of the Unconscious: Charlie Chaplin and Dreams, and Psychoanalysis of Dreams by Walden and Poch, it became apparent that dreams go further back than we may think. They provide an insight into our inner subconscious thoughts, giving us a deeper understanding of the characters we see in Film and Television.

From analyzing these readings we can infer that literature and dreams are interwoven (Walden & Poch 114). This idea is known as the Freudian Theory, which explains why we dream about the things we do. The buildup of past experiences and literature lead to our most creative thoughts at night. Relative to film and television, these dreams in media enable the audience to gain a grasp of the character and their persona. These visual dreams in film enables filmmakers to shy away from the “mundane storytelling that could have been used to relay the same information about the characters” (114).

Throughout the history of film, there have been many times in which a dream is used to further understand a character. The author uses dreams as a medium to connote or portray certain aspects of the characters life that have been previously hidden, according to Freudian. Many dreams in these films reflect the characters past experiences and thoughts. The television show SpongeBob Squarepants, produced by Nickelodeon, frequently uses ‘Patrick’s’, ‘Squidward’, and ‘SpongeBob’s’ dreams in order to better understand the characters. The author uses dreams to provide a twist, often revealing subconscious thoughts and feelings regarding certain characters.

In SpongeBob Squarepants, the television series, SpongeBob is pictured in Squidward’s dream shaped as a saxophone. Squidward in the animated series is always playing this musical instrument loudly, and badly, often causing disruption. Here, we see SpongeBob imitating the annoying sound that he has heard many times before outside his house. The crowd is booing due to the terrible sound coming out of the saxophone. As a result, we can see more clearly the relationship between SpongeBob and Squidward, and how much the instrument being played annoys him. We can also see, how secretly, SpongeBob actually likes Squidward and wants him to succeed. At the end of the video, we see SpongeBob aiding in the production of the beautiful sounds leaving the saxophone, resulting in the clapping of Squidward’s performance. The author reveals more about the two’s thoughts on one another, agreeing with the Poch & Walden reading.

We can also see Squidward’s ambitions in this dream, which is to perform in front of a large audience; to be a professional musician. This hasn’t been made as apparent in previous episodes. Now, we can see that this dream has been used as a catalyst for the screenwriter of SpongeBob Squarepants to reveal more about the characters to the viewers. Squidward’s previous experiences have been negativity surrounding his music, and so it’s interesting how his dream regards him becoming a professional saxophone player. Alluding to Freud’s Dream Theory of previous literature and experiences becoming apparent in dreams, subconsciously. Dreams in media often have deeper meanings as we can see here. 

*They are pictured as one in the dream, and thus the title*