The Interplay of Identity and Culture

7/30/2019 The Interplay of Identity and Culture

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The Interplay of Identity and Culture

An essay on ontological problematization in Pendeleton Wards Adventure Time

Vincent Perez

Many are doubtless at least marginally familiar with the nigh-ubiquitous animated television

show,Adventure Time (nesAdventure Time with Finn and Jake). The show has spawned countless

other franchises, from apparel to comics to games, and has aired to great critical and audience

acclaim.

The show is centered on a 13 year old boy named Finn; a talking magic dog named Jake; and

the various misadventures and quests they stumble upon or seek out throughout the course of their

days in the land of Ooo.

In examining the show through the lens of post-modernism, one must initially seek out the

ontological issue that the literature problematizes. Throughout the course of this essay, I will show

the ways with which the show decides to question and interrogate the way that man is shaped by,

through and within culture. The question that we are asked to grapple with here is one of identity

and the means through which identity is achieved. What part plays culture and environment and

what part plays our own consciousness and abilities to interact with the world in the formation not

only of our personal selves but in the general idea of our very conception of self and of man? And

can we categorize ourselves according to a common locus?

In the land of Ooo: culture after culture; the implications of a post-apocalyptic world

Of interest first of all and in particular is the landscape of the show itself. The World of Ooo

is a pastiche of communities, places and people: an almost prototypical childhood fantasy world

filled with monsters and wizards and other things with which adventurers may concern themselves

with (primary among these, the rescuing of all princesses in all manner of danger and trouble).

However, beneath the childlike abandon given to the creation of this collection of creatures,

(everything from rainycorns to candy people to ghosts and ghouls and party gods) is a dark subtext,


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an undercurrent of a history that is only ever alluded to and often slips over the heads of the

children that this show has been targeted towards.

Characters often make allusions to The Great Mushroom Wars and wide shots of the

planet reveal a world that looks very much like our own, but with a gaping hole, a chasm as if a

basketball beginning to cave in. It is given to us to assume that this is a result of the catastrophe the

characters reference, itself an allusion to nuclear holocaust. In episode 8 of season 1, Business

Time, three dead businessmen, found afloat in a block of ice, are thawed and subsequently revived

by our adventurers, Finn and Jake. Once animated, the zombie businessmen begin demonstrating

human cultural characteristics and making allusions to current business practices. What seems

initially an innocent, tongue-in-cheek reference to modern business culture gives way to a much

more macabre understanding that these people have somehow survived whatever it was that has

wiped out human culture and may very well be some of the last few artifacts of our culture as we

know it, along with various movie tapes, cameras, mounted electronic animal heads and other

cultural relics that are shown as part of various characters collections. What these things allude to is

a lost culture, the last remnants of our own lives revealed in what would otherwise be dustbin finds.

These artifacts, in turn, are shown to have lasting impacts on this new culture. For example,

Finn and his friends are known to have movie nights, spent watching old films that Finn and Jake

have surfaced or discovered. Some of our culture has retained in the collective consciousness, or

what we share of it, with these vastly different creatures, albeit still sentient and possessing human-

like consciousness. Computers, TVs, game systems, and even the internet, too, are shown to be in

continued use.

The show also playfully deconstructs traditional narrative, using the landscape to play with

established themes and ideas: princesses and monsters, castles and dungeons; but combining these

ideas with the artifacts mentioned earlier to create a referential pastiche, which subtly and with


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tongue-in-cheek references its own existence as a kids show. It stretches the narratives, making use

of non-sequitur and wild imaginative leaps, while continuing to obey a consistent internal logic.

For example, in one episode, Finn is kidnapped by a community of gnomes who wish to use

his boundless energy to power their Up Turn Over Drive, with which they hope to reverse the

positions of the underground and the overground and put themselves in the coveted upper space. In

another, one episode started off as a cross-gender narrative, with the titular characters replaced by

Fiona and Cake, battling the Ice Queen to save Prince Gumball. The episode later reveals the whole

show to have been a work of fan fiction written by the Ice King. Again, an excellent example of the

concept is in the Hitman episode when Finn grounds the Ice King, resulting in a familiar scene of

punishment escalation, with parent-child roles reversed and the Ice King eventually relenting and

proceeding to sulk in his castle.

Archetypal themes and concepts and traditional narrative are subverted and parodied by the

show and made silly through over-zealous use and playful inventiveness. The playful, referential

nature of the show also allows it to combine these themes with the references it creates, creating

surreal moments such as when The Ice King is shown offering an animatronic mounted singing deer

head as payment for services to an assassin he had hired.

Finn, the last human: the impact of culture and society on identity

Finn is a thirteen year old boy, living at the cusp of this post-apocalyptic world. Rather

innocently enough, the show allows its viewers to live or relive their childhood fantasies, building its

themes and challenges around the mind of a child at play. Princesses with no kings populate the

landscape, as do thieves and witches and tales of ancient treasure.

From a postmodern perspective, it is interesting to see how the show examines and grapples

with the idea of a thirteen year old boy that has grown up surrounded by this in his reality. In this

new culture, how is human identity examined and understood? It is important first of all to realize


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that Finn still does self-identify as a human and at least one episode has been dedicated to his

search for kin, mistaking an underground civilization of human-like hybrids for members of his own

species.

The show continues its ontological exploration of identity in the vessel of an adolescent, who

has clearly grown up with little human guidance, instead taken care of by various characters,

including his magic dog, Jake, and the Candy Princess, Princess Bubblegum. This examination of

character is interesting if only as a way to project an adolescent lackinh not only parental support

but bereft of the support of a human community. Finn is fiery, stubborn and prone to rash decisions.

As a self-styled adventurer, he constantly seeks out trouble, taking on all manner of insane quest,

diving forward into arduous and dangerous tasks with little to no foresight. He displays the

archetypal characteristics of an imaginative 13 year old boy and his world is populated with

creatures that look to be the imaginings of the same.

The Ice King: examining a new human interface and its implications on identity

Even a casual survey of post-modernist literature shows the fascination that the movement

has with the idea of cyborgs and machine-man hybrids. In the show, the trope is shook up through

the character of the Ice King, a diabolical wizard with a penchant for kidnapping princesses. While

Finn is often called the last human, the 19th and 20th episodes of Adventure Times 3rd season

revealed that the Ice King, too, was in truth a human once, corrupted and driven insane by loss and

given powers by his crown. The Ice King is guilty of sociopathic tendencies but just as often is shown

to be if not completely then at least partially misunderstood.

In Episode 4 of Season 3, the Ice King repeatedly saves the lives of Finn and Jake after

accidentally hiring a hitman named Scorcher to kill them. (I thought he was just gonna hit you in the

gut and make you puke up your lunch) He fights off the would-be hitman, even going so far as to

help (albeit against the consent of Finn and Jake, who did not trust the erstwhile villain) fake the

deaths of the shows heroes and send the hitman away.


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The Ice King represents, rather than a hybrid between man and machine, an interface

between man and magic. The Ice Kings crown is responsible not only for giving him his ice-based

abilities but also his appearance, discoloring his pale skin an icy blue and giving him a long, white

beard. From this newfound consciousness, what changes in the way man interacts with his

environment and how does this warp his identity? It examines the post-human man in much the

same way the use of a cyborg does: through this new interface, human capabilities are expanded

and in so doing human identity put into question.

In conclusion, the show artfully combines a childlike sense of wonder with playful subversion

of form, becoming a loving parody of prototypical adventure shows and role-playing games, in the

vein of Johnny Quest and The Legend of Zelda, respectively. More importantly, it is also a loving

parody of the wild imaginations of adventurous children everywhere.

Adventure Times problematization of identity is ultimately an exploration of a new cultural

space, a post-apocalyptic world that has survived nuclear warfare and has shunned logic and science

in favor of magic. This space is explored through the vessels of Finn and the Ice King, one being a

human that has matured or is maturing immersed in this new cultural space and the latter being an

examination of a new post-human interface, a man-magic hybrid that stretches the concepts of

human identity.

The Interplay of Identity and Culture

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