In Filip Hodas’s Bikini Bottom, the iconic and beloved cartoon character SpongeBob is represented as a washed-up relic under a bridge at an empty canal, sitting there alone, left as rusty and old, exuding an underlying melancholy that children would be oblivious to. SpongeBob’s jolly face and happy expression betray the dire situation, juxtaposing emotions that Hodas compares to the parable of the American movie star: the fast-paced world of the business, where fandom quickly forgets their idols, and consumerism and hype culture prevail. Everything and everybody will be forgotten and will be gone, rotting for good.
Bikini Bottom is the most iconic work of the Pop Culture Dystopia series, in which Hodas illustrates the resting places of obsolete pop-culture icons. Though abject in their decrepitude and strewn, rejected, in landscapes of urban or suburban decay, these ubiquitous figures show signs of benign neglect—like favorite teddy bears that have been loved into oblivion and left on bedroom shelves as their owners inevitably matured. Hodas pictures a future anterior in which our cartoon heroes are martyred into reality, like Velveteen Rabbits who live (and die) according to the passions of popular culture.
