Cartoon Multiverses in the Context of Environmental Crises: New Doors Opening or Fantastic Endings?


Ondine Park, University of British Columbia

In this talk, I describe and interpret the representation of multiverses in a number of animated TV shows. In particular, I consider more fully-developed, multi-episode depictions of the multiverse such as in Adventure Time , Rick and Morty , and Fionna and Cake , as well as the more incidental depictions in a selection of other animated shows, including Futurama . In these depictions, the multiverse is a fact. That is, the reality of the vast universe in which each story unfolds (and presumably, the one in which we, as viewers, are also located) is only one of at least two, but usually more – in some cases, an infinite number of – other simultaneous and fully spatialized universes which can be accessed through some kind of portal. In Rick and Morty , the multiverse is represented as an infinite number of fully formed universes that have varying degrees of similarity with the familiar universe. The variations between universes range from minor differences from the familiar universe (e.g., a world in which the single difference is that the word “parmesan” is pronounced “par-MEE-zi-an”) to more substantial variations (e.g., a world in which humans evolved from corn) to extreme variations (e.g., a blender world, which is never shown on-screen but which is implied to be made entirely of blenders blending). In general, the multiverse comes to be made known through a dire event, usually a catastrophe. And, this knowledge of the multiverse and the capacity to access other worlds pose grim cataclysmic threat to the familiar world, many worlds, or all worlds. Knowledge and traverse of the multiverse confer profound power and impose immense responsibility on those who know and can access the many worlds. Thus, in Adventure Time , the cosmic evil entity, the Lich, who is driven to destroy all life, successfully uses deception and magic to open the portal that gives access to all worlds and thus the possibility of extinguishing life in all realities. Similarly, in Rick and Morty , the scientist-inventor/adventurer/grandfather Rick, who is one of the few who has the capacity to open portals between worlds at will, is possibly the entity that poses the most significant existential threat to inhabitants across the various dimensions, and in particular to other versions of himself and his family members. In Futurama , a lesson is provisionally learned about how precarious the many worlds become once the fact of the multiverse becomes known and the thresholds between worlds are crossable. In particular, the scientist-inventor and package delivery company owner Professor Farnsworth accidentally creates a box that contains another universe (nick-named “Universe 1”) that, in turn, contains a box in which the familiar universe (“Universe A”) is contained. Following some hijinks, the Professor creates a number of additional boxes, each containing an alternate reality. Through the events of the episode, the characters come to realize the existential risk of having inhabitants in a different universe responsible for the box containing one’s own universe, and thus manage to flip the boxes inside-out so that each respective universe contains the box that contains that universe itself (i.e., whereas before the inversion, Universe A contained the box that contained Universe 1; afterwards, Universe A contains the box that contains Universe A). I explore some of the conceptualization of the multiverse in theoretical physics alongside social theoretical works on doorways, spatiality, and temporality, in relation to these representations of multiverses to think about the complexities of ordinary places and sites of everyday life, particularly in the wake of such ongoing cataclysms as colonialism, Capitalism, and environmental destruction. In particular, I suggest, multiverses enable an undoing of the centrality and necessity of any singular configuration, interpretation, use, or understanding of space and suggests possibilities of recognizing and operating in relation to incongruous logics and imaginaries without dismissing, submerging, or minimizing any at the expense of other, even dominant, ones. In this way, multiplicities of spatio-temporalities and the many scales, dimensions and realities that are simultaneously producing space(s) can be taken as equally real or potential, even if not necessarily easy to access. I also ask, however, if the notable proliferation of multiverses (and the seeming inevitability of calamity attending the multiverse) both within any given cultural text and across media in the last several years in which environmental crises in particular have also been noticeably proliferating suggest that rather than expanding horizons and possibilities, that multiverses instead reflect a ruinous desire for escape and illustrate inevitable catastrophe?

This paper will be presented at the following session: