Phineas, Ferb and Foucault

In the show Phineas and Ferb, the future is transformed when a past event is altered. The world turns into a dystopia full of intense security and vigilance. I never would have imagined that this children’s show would incorporate the work of the great philosopher Michel Foucault.

Foucault explores the concept of the Panopticon. A Panopticon type world seeks to discipline people to one point of view and one way of acting. This is achieved through high security and reinforcement of the correct behavior. Foucault states that the “gaze is alert everywhere” (551) and that “the inmate will constantly have before his eyes the outline of the tall central tower from which he is spied on” (555).

In the dystopia depicted in Phineas and Ferb, all people must wear lab coats and everyone is named Joe. These are results of laws that Emperor Doofenschwartz has passed. The people living in this dystopia all monitor each other. When Candace, an outsider to the world, arrives she is immediately told that she must wear her lab coat. In that way, the townspeople continuously police each other.

There is also a statue of the Emperor through which he can keep watch over all of the citizens. Whenever he wants to communicate with the townspeople he simply does it through televised messages. He always has some kind of way to access and monitor the people.

I must admit that Phineas and Ferb have made the Panopticon concept a lot more interesting for me.

Works Cited

Foucault, Michel. "Discipline and Punish." Literary Theory: an Anthology. By Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2004. 549-66. Print.