Today I want to call attention to something I've noticed Brown students embracing: a cultural trend popularly known as irony. I'm not talking about literary paradox, nor am I talking about the scenarios in the Alanis Morissette song — which, incidentally, are more coincidental than ironic. I am talking about the irony too often cited as the motivation for presenting exaggerated expressions of "-isms" as mockery.
But is irony actually a motivation or merely a justification?
It's okay, the story goes, to say something sexist or racist or homophobic if you are doing it self-consciously, as a joke. If you say something prejudiced seriously, you're ignorant, but if you say it ironically, you're avant-garde.
The main problems with this strain of thought are that, first, it's getting hard to keep track of who is bigoted and who is wryly postmodern, because the two can sound an awful lot alike. And second, certain statements are offensive regardless of the speaker's intention. Yet the philosophy that irony excuses offensive speech is all over the place. It's what allows the public figures mentioned below to slide by.
I realize I'm not the first to point this out. A New York Times review of "Bruno" observed that "lampooning homophobia has become … a way of licensing gags that would otherwise be out of bounds." A post in the blog "FWD/Forward" contains a criticism of the popular hoax novel "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies," which overtly promotes the idea that disabled people are unpleasant to be around: "It's not transgressive. It's just a repetition of what society believes."
In fact, I'm not even the first on this campus to make the point. The Brown Noser published an article in February called "Student mistakes real racism for ironic racism." What makes this headline funny is that the situation is conceivable — real and ironic racism sound quite alike. Likewise, Brian Judge '11 asked in a 2009 opinions column ("A sense of humor no one likes," Oct. 26, 2009), "Can it be cool to be earnest again?"
Consumers know that "Glee" is not a representation of real life. But is it so far-fetched to say it can affect the way viewers see real life? It evidently has had some positive effects. Somebody posted on PostSecret.com last December that Kurt, a gay main character in "Glee," "helps me realize that it's okay to be me." Yet even while the show represents diverse people, it firmly — I'm sorry, ironically — adheres to their stereotypes.
The makers of the show know what they're doing. They are using caricatures — the neurotic, theater-obsessed Jewish girl, the wheelchair-bound student who just wants to fit in, the ball-busting paranoid feminist, the aggressive gluttonous fat girl and the large, self-righteous, vocally talented black girl — for humor.
They are purposefully ridiculous in order to expose these prejudices for what they are, and all their viewers know that — or do they? And do the writers' intentions even matter when they have written a scene in which an onlooker listens to two gay characters talk and imagines they have literally stopped articulating words and are simply saying "gay, gay, gay" until a purse falls out of one of their mouths? Whether or not the show's writers believe in the stereotypes they use, this hyperbolic presentation does not qualify as a critique.
I'm not saying irony in pop culture is always bad. In fact, it's best when it is up front about its status as such, rather than putting on pretenses and coming off as real prejudice for an extra ironic effect. Lily Allen pulls this off pretty well. For instance, the song "The Fear," in which she sings, "everything is cool as long as I'm getting thinner," leaves no room for doubt as to its sarcasm.
Lady Gaga, on the other hand, who has on several occasions claimed she is always simply being herself, leaves such matters less clear. If it was ironic for her to show up to a baseball game in underwear and flip people off, I'm sure this irony was lost on those on the receiving end of her middle finger. If the revealing clothes and sexually exhibitionist videos are meant to draw attention to the objectification of women, they succeed more in drawing attention to her body. Granted, the meat dress came across a little less opaquely.
Irony comes from the Greek word for feigned ignorance or dissimulation. Ignorance that is not clearly feigned doesn't really come off as irony. It just comes off as ignorance.
And if this offends any of you irony apologists out there, don't worry. Maybe I don't even mean it. Maybe I'm just being ironic.
