:: Don't you think? ::

Tuesday, July 01, 2003

Zoe Williams writes an excellent review of irony (and I mean that sincerely).

We have a grave problem with this word (well, in fact, it's not really grave - but I'm not being ironic when I call it that, I'm being hyperbolic. Though often the two amount to the same thing. But not always). Just looking at the definitions, the confusion is understandable - in the first instance, rhetorical irony expands to cover any disjunction at all between language and meaning, with a couple of key exceptions (allegory also entails a disconnection between sign and meaning, but obviously isn't synonymous with irony; and lying, clearly, leaves that gap, but relies for its efficacy on an ignorant audience, where irony relies on a knowing one). Still, even with the riders, it's quite an umbrella, no?

. . . . .

But other strands of media use irony to assert their right to have no position whatsoever. So, you take a cover of FHM, with tits on the front - and it's ironic because it appears to be saying "women are objects", yet of course it isn't saying that, because we're in a postfeminist age. But nor is it saying "women aren't objects", because that would be dated, over-sincere, mawkish even. So, it's effectively saying "women are neither objects, nor non-objects - and here are some tits!" Scary Movie 2, Dumb And Dumberer, posh women who go to pole-dancing classes, people who set the video for Big Brother Live, people who have Eurovision Song Contest evenings, Char lie's Angels (the film, not the TV series) and about a million other things besides, are all using this ludic trope - "I'm not saying what you think I'm saying, but I'm not saying its opposite, either. In fact, I'm not saying anything at all. But I get to keep the tits." As Paul de Man pointed out, some time before FHM, "This does not, however, make it into an authentic language, for to know inauthenticity is not the same as being authentic."(4). So, we're not the first age to use irony (as some insist), but we are the first to use it in this vacuous, agenda-free and often highly amusing way.

Posted by morland @ 07:19 PM

:: Comments ::

Dave Eggers did it better in his book. Nice ripoff though.

Posted by: Ironically speaking on July 7, 2003 10:20 AM

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