One. The 13 Types of Irony
1. Plot Irony: A reversal that results in the opposite of
our expectations like a car death after wearing seatbelt. This is one of the
most common forms of irony. Romantic comedies are always based on plot irony:
Two people hate each other in the beginning of the film but eventually fall
madly in love with other. This irony is so predictable in romantic comedies
that it’s more of a formula than it is a plot reversal.
2. Serendipitous Irony: The more we deviate from our
original plan, the better the outcome.
3. Faustian Irony: The more we think we’re rising and
succeeding in life, the more we are actually falling as we become crushed under
the weight of our own vanity, which blinds us and leaves us vulnerable to
failure.
4. Idle Irony: The better our life becomes the more we
are compelled by boredom to sabotage our happiness. In other words people often
cause problems that don’t really exist. And soon they create very real problems
out of nothing.
5. Pathological Irony: Man shoots foot off to get rid of
a wart.
6. Sarcastic Irony: Saying one thing and meaning an
other.
7. Satanic Irony: A greedy man enjoys a long, healthy
life while his innocent victims die cruel deaths and their lives are short.
This type of irony refutes notions of justice.
8. Narcissistic Irony: searchers for the self lose their
selves while people who don’t think about their selves find their selves.
Someone goes into therapy and becomes even crazier. Or the example of
Stalingrad in which the selfish die and the helpful live.
9. Jungian Irony: The more extreme we develop a facet of
our personality the more extreme we develop its opposite. The macho man is also
becoming more and more of a baby.
10.
Materialistic Irony: You
buy an expensive fur coat but the weather is forever hot so you can’t wear it
like the old lady in Buenos Aires.
11.
Short-sighted irony: You
workout to impress a girl but she’s turned off by big muscles. You were looking
at what you want, not at what she wants. A woman overdressed and wears too much
make-up and men are terrified of her.
12.
Ironic Irony: You try to
be ironic because you think it’s cool but you come across as a fake and as a
poser.
13.
Corruptive Irony: The
more we get our hands dirty in the mess of life, the more pure we become; the
more we stay away from the filth, the more contaminated we become by our lack
of involvement, which is a form of narcissism. This is the major theme of the
story “The Missing Person.” Leo finds love and redemption while working as a
hustler in Las Vegas. “It’s all right. I’m here.” These are the final words and
show that he’s not the missing person anymore.
Two. Lexicon
1. Convoluted: going in circles, round and round and
round, before you make your point. For example, it takes Matheson seven pages
of digressions, including one about painting, before he reaches his main point,
which is to define hyper-irony in the The Simpsons.
2. Hyper-Irony: See page 290. You make cruel fun of
something in the most cynical way but then undercut or knock down your cynicism
to show that your cynicism is just as questionable as sentimentality or
self-aggrandizement or pretentiousness or some other thing you’re making fun
of. In other words, hyper-irony is the condition of always questioning your
stance on any position. Hyper-irony is the incessant urge to undercut every
position you take, including the position of hyper-irony.
3. The advantage of hyper-irony over other forms of irony
and comedy in film and television: When you’re simply ironic, you run the risk
of being self-congratulatory, patting yourself on the back by saying, “See how
cool I am? I’m better than everyone else because I get the joke.” The risk of
being cynical and ironic is being smarmy and arrogant. Hyper-irony contains an
implicit humility because you question everything, including your own cynicism.
An example of a movie with no hyper-irony, just plain irony, is Idiocracy, a film that makes fun of American stupidity. The
film is okay and even good in parts but over simplistic. In contrast, The
Simpsons and 30 Rock are two TV shows that are more complex because their
hyper-irony shows the contradictions and complexities of life in ways that less
comedies do not.
4. McMahon’s use of hyper-irony is the classroom, an
example: Recently, two young women were talking during my lecture. I stopped
lecturing and asked them what they were doing and they said they were looking
at birthday photos on one of the women’s cell phone. I made a big production
over how “hurt” I was, that I was so “boring” that these two women were
compelled to look at cell phone birthday photos. I then said I should just go
home and “drink beer, eat apple pie and watch American Idol reruns.” I then finished by saying that my
“self-esteem was in the toilet” and that I had hit a “new low” in my teaching
profession. By making a big production of the women looking at photos and
talking during my lecture, I was undercutting their behavior, but at the same
time I was undercutting the idea of a teacher, an authority figure, who lets
his vanity get the best of him. I was also undercutting the idea of an authority
figure who takes interruptions personally. My “rage” was fake and real at the
same time. My “rage” was both exaggerated and authentic in the same breath. I
was undercutting the idea of a teacher who takes himself too seriously; at the
same time, I was undercutting the idea of a teacher who does nothing in the
face of interruptions because in fact I did admonish, in my own joking way, the
two women for distracting the class. In other words, I was making fun of myself
and being serious at the same time. My exaggerated reaction to the two women
looking at birthday photos made the rest of the class laugh, mostly at my
histrionic (over dramatic) reaction. We can conclude, then, that the women
insulted me on one hand but on the other hand they gave me a “gift,” the
opportunity to be funny. I am both resentful and grateful at the same time. The
resentment and gratitude undercut each other. That’s hyper-irony.
Three.
Write down a personal experience that illustrates hyper-irony.
Four. Writing Option:
Using the idea of hyper-irony, analyze an episode of South Park, 30
Rock, or another current TV show. Your thesis will show the different ways the
episode implements the idea of hyper-irony. In your first page, you’ll define
hyper-irony, as it’s laid out in Matheson’s essay. In your second page, you’ll
use a personal anecdote to show you understand how to apply hyper-irony to your
own life (as I did with the cell phone birthday photograph story). Your thesis
will begin on your third page. So again, this is a “2 plus 3” format.
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