This week’s theme is “You Dissolve” by The Thermals, for no reason other than I like it.
I’m not allergic to irony. I’m addicted to it. It’s the only reason why, on the morning I began to write this, I could watch Wynona Ryder deliver her racist lines in Girl, Interrupted without puking up my oatmeal. During the supposed-to-be-climactic moment when Ryder’s character hits her mental illness rock-bottom and is told off by the only employee of colour at the institution, I couldn’t help but wonder how Ryder felt having to say all that awful stuff to Whoopi Goldberg. She delivers her lines well, but that’s all she does. Goldberg’s stoic expression, which I suppose should evoke my sympathy as the viewer, did nothing to help me suffer through the tired old trope of the Magical Negro. Case in point, the cinematic illusion just wasn’t there–I knew they were acting, you see, but the fourth wall had been shattered accidentally rather than artfully.
The first time I watched the movie, I was in my late teens. I probably just wanted an excuse to stare at stunning girltwink Wynona Ryder, who in her youth embodied all my unattainable gender-queer aesthetic aspirations. I found it inspiring–back when I thought I could escape being mentally ill. Now, I just find it insulting; the way the other mental patients are used as vehicles for Susanna Kaysen’s WASP-y ass character development reminds me a bit of people who go overseas and volunteer in order to ‘find themselves.’ You know, the kind who act like the disadvantaged exist solely for their developmental benefit. Still, I sat through the whole thing, and it wasn’t all because of the sunk-cost fallacy. I’m at a point in my life where I don’t need to like something to enjoy it, as long as it makes me feel something.
Enter the practise of watching things postironically.
We’re transitioning out of a culture of pure satire. Comedy, for example, has gone from the cynical, critical, and abrasive style of Bill Hicks and George Carlin to the relatable, flawed, and vulnerable comedic storytelling of Bo Burnham and Mae Martin. Now that I’m immersed in this kind of media, it’s difficult to watch anything that is either too satirical or takes itself too seriously. This is the post-ironic condition: we’ve gone so long, it seems, consuming dissociative and detached media that that ironic joke just isn’t funny anymore. The media we consume these days has to feel as real as reality itself, otherwise it’s not satisfying. But it can’t feel too real, otherwise what am I doing in front of a screen? I might as well touch grass.
I’ll briefly explain what postirony is for the unfamiliar. I’m not sure who coined the term, but the originator of the art form is said to be David Foster Wallace, the author of Infinite Jest. Post-irony is defined as “a state in which earnest and ironic intents (sic) become muddled,” at least on Wikipedia. There are a few kinds of postirony, in my view:
Ironesty, a term coined by Greg Dember to describe the braiding together of irony and vulnerability.
The oscillation between irony and earnestness, as described by Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker.
There is also New Sincerity, a term coined to describe a full return to earnestness after irony. While not technically a blending or an oscillation including irony, its relationship to postmodern irony makes it “post-ironic” in the more literal sense of the word. The indie rock group Bright Eyes seems to be the most popular example of this sensibility.
“While my mother waters plants my father loads his gun/He says, ‘death will give us back to God/Just like the setting sun/Is returned to the lonesome ocean.’"
In some circles, postirony is considered an antidote to postmodern nihilism and cynicism. It is seen as a progressive leap beyond the inevitable tar pit of despair and dissociation that postmodern thought inevitably leads toward. And yet I haven’t escaped or progressed beyond pure irony and cynicism; I am in bed with it now so frequently that it feels inclined to ask what are we? Sometimes I’m capable of being completely sincere, but other times I can only make it halfway before my gag reflex is triggered. I was repeatedly told as a crying child that I needed a thicker skin; that kind of programming doesn’t just go away.
Postirony is as good or as bad as any other coping mechanism, honestly. It’s simply pertinent to the now; when we are numb not just to feeling, but to numbness itself. Full-on earnestness is still just too much for a lot of us. If we really felt all there is to feel as humans, nary a soul would escape their bed. But there’s no living without feeling; cynical distance no longer gets the job done. Today, postirony is the hot new medicine; tomorrow, it too will be obsolete. We might see a return to full-on irony, depending on how badly The End of The World hits us–or the dark times ahead might call for a full embrace of New Sincerity. I really don’t know. I’m not sure if I care.
I guess I really am somewhat allergic to the concept of progress. I am not anti-progress, but I’d rather we not focus so heavily on it as a culture. eI think we have enough therapeutic mythologies and positive vibes. We have enough happy endings and utopian ideals. Maybe I’m alone in this, but I want to see more broken hearts and unresolved issues on the big screen. I want more scenes like the funeral in season two of BoJack Horseman, where BoJack desperately looks for a reason why his best friend died and doesn’t get one. One character finally tells him:
“There is no reason for death, that’s why it’s scary…you can’t [fix it].”
Afterwards, the room falls silent before an almost inappropriately light-hearted subject change happens–implying that yes, life goes on, but those brief moments of confusion, of grief, of sadness, they are really real.
That’s the postironic condition. It doesn’t matter at all, and yet it all matters so, so much. Too much.
Can we let go of progress for just a moment? Can we just that weird conundrum be absolutely perfect?
People say perfection doesn't exist, but we all know it does–especially if you’re an artist. That moment when you know that improving upon something would ruin it–when you simply cannot imagine something being better than it is–that’s you recognising perfection. If perfection didn’t exist, all we’d ever have would be progress. A never-ending treadmill of addiction to ideals. A high, chased to escape the harrowing transience of this very moment. That deeply unsatisfying scene at the end of Girl, Interrupted, when she recovers from Borderline Personality Disorder and goes back to The Real WorldTM to be a successful writer who will one day be played on screen by Wynona Ryder.
I don’t want another mental illness movie where the main character gets better in the end. I don’t want more funerals where we all pretend it makes sense and was all a part of some greater purpose because we secretly don’t believe it was at all and we’re scared to admit it. I don’t want any more trying to get somewhere else all of the time. For a brief moment, I’d like this absolute clusterfuck of a life to feel perfect. Perfection isn’t a lack of flaws. It's not ultimate transcendence. It’s not just a glowing white light permeating the whole of your being. Perfection is also rest. It is acceptance. Perfection is “that’s good enough, for now, I guess.”
So, you know, I hope you take some time to not be okay today, and to do absolutely nothing about it. Don’t try to fix it. Maybe even wallow in it. Try and let it be perfect and awful. You might end up in that weird between space, where the pain is kind of funny even though it hurts, and you’re not quite sure if there’s a difference between pleasure and pain anymore.
Hell, it’s all aliveness, anyway.
Brilliant!
Thanks ever so much for the turn-on to BoJack Horseman. I haven't watched any kind of TV in years including Netflix, but now I have an excuse. Thank you.