On April 20, 2010, an explosion occurred on a drilling rig licensed to BP, the Deepwater Horizon. The BP oil spill is one of the largest oil spills in our history, with 4.9 million barrels of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico. Mike Mitchell had a fantastic idea to use a current, well known cartoon icon to symbolize the effect that the oil spill had on marine life. His choice of character: Spongebob. Genius? Yes. By using Spongebob, an innocent cartoon, he was able to push that overall feeling of sympathy to his viewers on how real marine life was dying due to the extensive amounts of oil spilled. I believe this was very successful in showing how BP's mistake had a huge impact on marine life and their habitats. His limited color palette is successful in that the focus is Spongebob's dead body surrounded by the sludge of brown oil. His caption on the bottom of the image adds to the drama of the overall composition.
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ReplyDeleteHaha I just read your comment on my post...maybe checking other people's entries before you post yours would be a good idea next time?! And I should also check comments on mine before I do anything...oh well. In any case, great choice! I agree with the fact that this piece uses an iconic figure (not just for children, but for adults as well) to bring attention to a very important social issue. Even if a lot of the pictures people took of oil-covered animals are far more heartbreaking, this picture definitely grabs at the viewer in a different way.
ReplyDeleteWell how bout you leave some images for the rest of us to use??? Haha. We both chose a great artist with a very interesting twist on issues that we can all (like you said, children and adults) can relate to.
ReplyDeleteNow this is just brilliant! The idea of killing Spongebob is not only hilarious, but it gets the message across. People are more likely to relate to Spongebob, who's life they watch play out on tv, rather than a real animal. But, after thinking about Spongebob dying, I'm forced to think about the deaths of the real marine life and devastation the spill had on it.
ReplyDeleteThis is a nice image and all, but I think it kind of makes light of an issue that was so much heavier. Sure spongebob is a cute character that we all are familiar with. But he is fictional, and he did not actually die from the oil spill. The image is cute, but it's too comical of a representation of what actually happened in my opinion.
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