Most people have heard of political satire, however, galactical satire is inching its way in the to the top with the video Fired on Mars. Created and produced by cartoonists, Nick and Nate, this award-winning short follows the sudden firing of Jeff, a graphic designer on Mars.
After his boss on earth, Brandon, reveals that the company is restructuring his job, Jeff falls into a deep depression, questioning whether we made the right decision. When he finds out his wife, whom he left on earth, moves in with her yoga instructor, his depression turns into anger and he develops an addiction to barbeque potato chips. After turning down a job in the sleep tanks, Brandon kicks him out of the company’s residences where he’s forced to live a new life of solitude on mars.
The storyline reads like a science fiction novel. It has a beginning, climax, and solution important to the arc of the 6-minute short and the evolvement of the protagonist. The content of the video pulls viewers into the story, giving them a sense of emotional movement and allowing them to relate to Jeff on a human level. It offers the audience an opportunity to think about their own day-to-day, asking “if you were fired on mars, would you give up on life or rebuild? If the latter why can’t we human beings do that on earth?”
Fired on Mars uses that classic 90s cartoon style—beady eyes, asymmetrical bodies, crooked lines of perspective, and faded colors. However, it had a modern twist by adding real-time images. For example, when Jeff was watching David Copperfield or when various shots of the gas clouds on mars.
Fired on Mars, forces its audience to think and move with the character’s arc. It combined psychology, humanism, and the concept of time and space to convey its message to the audience. What’s the running theme? That everyone makes bad choices, however, bitterness and regret can’t change that. Alluding to the fact opportunity arises and how someone handles it is just as important as the opportunity.
