Cartoon is also a serious thing - unveiling the "standard employee" of modern capitalist society in the Sponge Bob Square Pants cartoon

Authors

  • Alessandro Vinicius de Paula Departamento de Psicologia/Instituto de Educação da Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso - Campus Cuiabá (IE/UFMT) & Programa de Pós-graduação em Administração da Universidade Federal de Lavras (PPGA - UFLA)
  • Lauisa Barbosa Pinto Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia do Sul de Minas Gerais - IFSULDEMINAS - Campus Muzambinho. & Programa de Pós-graduação em Administração da Universidade Federal de Lavras (PPGA - UFLA)
  • Christiane Batista de Paulo Lobato Programa de Pós-graduação em Administração da Universidade Federal de Lavras (PPGA - UFLA)
  • Flávia Luciana Naves Mafra Programa de Pós-graduação em Administração da Universidade Federal de Lavras (PPGA - UFLA)

Keywords:

Identity, Work and subjectivity, Work Ideologies, Organizational identity, Observational study.

Abstract

Considering the settings in the world of work in modern capitalist society, including its centrality in the life of the individual as the basis of identity formation of human beings, it was adopted a qualitative approach to develop an observational study of a fictitious social environment of children's cartoon Sponge Bob Square Pants - revealing how it may represent an "ideal model/standard of a good worker" that is presented to the child and young audience. The four episodes discussed here are used as a background for a reflection on the organizational relationships and the dualities/contrasts (pleasure and pain) of perceptions and subjectivities present in this context. It is observed in the episodes analyzed a dichotomy between "good and bad worker". The episodes portray the antagonism in relation to the work of the main character SpongeBob (that establishes a positive and pleasurable subjective relationship with his work activity, but also alienated) and its antagonist Squidward (which represents the suffering and hardship sphere of work). The four selected episodes have essential components for understanding the importance that work represents in the lives of individuals and how is this dynamic in the current contemporary capitalist model guided bymanagerialism, which values the high performance and transforms the individual into capital that must be productive at any cost.

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Author Biographies

Alessandro Vinicius de Paula, Departamento de Psicologia/Instituto de Educação da Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso - Campus Cuiabá (IE/UFMT) & Programa de Pós-graduação em Administração da Universidade Federal de Lavras (PPGA - UFLA)

Professor/pesquisador do Departamento de Psicologia/Instituto de Educação da Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso - Campus Cuiabá (IE/UFMT). Psicólogo, mestre em Psicologia Social (UFMG) e doutorando em Administração do Programa de Pós-graduação em Administração da Universidade Federal de Lavras (PPGA-UFLA).

 

Lauisa Barbosa Pinto, Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia do Sul de Minas Gerais - IFSULDEMINAS - Campus Muzambinho. & Programa de Pós-graduação em Administração da Universidade Federal de Lavras (PPGA - UFLA)

Graduada e mestra em Administração, doutoranda do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Administração da Universidade Federal de Lavras (PPGA/UFLA).

Christiane Batista de Paulo Lobato, Programa de Pós-graduação em Administração da Universidade Federal de Lavras (PPGA - UFLA)

Graduada e mestra em Administração, doutoranda do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Administração da Universidade Federal de Lavras (PPGA/UFLA).

Flávia Luciana Naves Mafra, Programa de Pós-graduação em Administração da Universidade Federal de Lavras (PPGA - UFLA)

Doutora em Ciências Sociais - Desenvolvimento, Agricultura e Sociedade pela Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro . Professora/pesquisadora do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Administração da Universidade Federal de Lavras (PPGA/UFLA).

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Published

2014-07-28

Issue

Vol. 15 No. 5 (2014)

Section

Human and Social Management

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