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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's

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Speaker 2: Chuck and jere Bears here too, And this is Stuff

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Speaker 2: you should Know, the irony edition. It's a little on

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Speaker 2: the nose, isn't it?

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Speaker 1: I think?

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Speaker 2: So? Sorry, let me try again. The isn't it ironic?

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Speaker 2: Don't you think? Addition?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean if you are our age or above,

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Speaker 1: maybe a few below, or.

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Speaker 2: A weird younger person.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you might have made fun of Alanis Morissett for

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Speaker 1: that whole thing, because I remember at the time, like

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Speaker 1: people dissing on that song because they were like, basically,

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Speaker 1: none of what she mentions is ironic.

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Speaker 2: No rain on your wedding day. I mean, yes, it's

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Speaker 2: not expected, but it can be. You know, it's a

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Speaker 2: pretty it's very possible. It's just bad luck in that situation.

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Speaker 2: That's one good example.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, what else a free ride when.

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Speaker 2: You're already there? No, not really no. Basically, nothing that

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Speaker 2: she said was technically ironic, but the fact that Atlantis

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Speaker 2: Morris set Canada's greatest hero felt okay with basically saying

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Speaker 2: this is all irony and ironic, so much so that

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Speaker 2: I'm gonna name my song ironic. Yeah, that just kind

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Speaker 2: of goes to show like how wide open everyone's interpretation

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Speaker 2: of what irony is is.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's kind of notoriously hard to define.

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Speaker 1: Olivia helped us with this, and she, you know, the

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Speaker 1: other sort of cultural example she gave initially was Reality Bites,

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Speaker 1: And in that movie, it's like it's not a plot point,

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Speaker 1: but I mean it's sort of not a plot point,

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Speaker 1: but at some point when on a rider, you know,

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Speaker 1: is asked to define irony and she really can't. And

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Speaker 1: then Ethan Hawk, who you know at the time was

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Speaker 1: supposed to be like this super cool guy, but you

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Speaker 1: know that movie, the way that movie has age, like

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Speaker 1: you look back and you're like, he was kind of

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Speaker 1: a big jerk in that movie.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw something about that that Ben Stiller was

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Speaker 2: actually the nice guy, but he was, you know, part

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Speaker 2: of the establishment.

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Speaker 1: Where Ethan Hawk was not totally.

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Speaker 2: Nice, but he was like the cool dude, but he

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Speaker 2: was like that that's a guy that she wanted, right.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the irony of the movie. But yeah, Ethan Hawk,

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Speaker 1: he kind of makes her feel dumb by like defining

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Speaker 1: irony really plainly it's when the actual meeting is the

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Speaker 1: complete opposite from the literal meeting, which is, you know,

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Speaker 1: at the time it seemed like, oh, how clever, but

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Speaker 1: it's really not just to read some explicit definition of

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Speaker 1: one type of irony to prove you're smart. Is they

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Speaker 1: missed the mark in retrospect?

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Speaker 2: Sure, and even still like he's talking about such a

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Speaker 2: narrow definition of irony that he might as well just

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Speaker 2: kept his darn mouth shut.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, but that's kind of like you said, the

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Speaker 1: whole point of this is a really hard thing to define.

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Speaker 1: I think Lyvia did a great job with a tough topic,

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Speaker 1: and like, you know, looking at it from a historical perspective,

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Speaker 1: I think helps.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I just want to jump in. I was silent

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Speaker 2: because I didn't agree, but I want to say Lyvia

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Speaker 2: did a great job with this. I think this was

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Speaker 2: a bit of a a vision quest maybe for her.

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Speaker 2: I don't know if that's the right term, but it

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Speaker 2: was very difficult assignment.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you've been throwing out a lot of these very

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Speaker 1: esoteric topics lately.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know why. I guess I don't know why.

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Speaker 2: I know you think it's because I just turned fifty

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Speaker 2: but I don't think that's it.

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Speaker 1: I wasn't going to say.

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Speaker 2: That, Okay, Well, at any rate, Yeah, this is something

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Speaker 2: that I've wanted to do for a while, and some

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Speaker 2: people have written in and asked for it. But yeah,

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Speaker 2: I think one of the reasons I wanted to tackle

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Speaker 2: is because I don't no exactly yeah what it is,

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Speaker 2: but also in the like myriad ways that it's played

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Speaker 2: like a really big role in shaping society. In fact,

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Speaker 2: there's this whole kind of schism between the ironic and

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Speaker 2: people who resent the ironic. Yeah, as we'll see, that

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Speaker 2: dates back hundreds of years. So let's get into it, chuck,

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Speaker 2: because irony is nothing new like this. The nineties gen

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Speaker 2: X slackers didn't invent.

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Speaker 1: It, No, not at all. The term itself comes from

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Speaker 1: a character actually not really a thing yet in classical

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Speaker 1: Greek I guess drama. The character was E I R

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Speaker 1: N with a little rooftop over.

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Speaker 2: The little puff of smoke coming out the chimney.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, ieron, I guess or iron.

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Speaker 2: I'm going with iron.

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Speaker 1: Well, I guess it would be the second letter, but

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Speaker 1: that's German, not about Greek. But yeah, irony, let's go

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Speaker 1: with iron, Okay, but that means one who disassembles. And

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Speaker 1: that was like, like I said, that was a character,

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Speaker 1: and a lot of Greek drama and comedy and comedy

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Speaker 1: writers would insert that character to accomplish like a dramatic

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Speaker 1: or comedic goal. And one of the ways that they

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Speaker 1: would do this, they would do it in a lot

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Speaker 1: of ways, but one of the ways was as sort

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Speaker 1: of a sort of like a detective who would play

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Speaker 1: dumb in order to sort of sniff sniff someone off

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Speaker 1: the case and reveal them as.

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Speaker 2: A fool, right, or a fraud or somebody who knows

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Speaker 2: much less than they they like to think that they do. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: and it's in a way, it's you're setting them up

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Speaker 2: to make a fool of themselves. You call it like

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Speaker 2: paying out the rope that somebody's hanging themselves with. Entire

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Speaker 2: is what they did. And I guess Plato used to

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Speaker 2: love this stuff. He would take off his robe and

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Speaker 2: like twirl it over his head. Yeah, he would get

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Speaker 2: so excited about using Socrates as an iron. And so

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Speaker 2: Socrates is basically like he would be really like smarmy,

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Speaker 2: overly flattering, essentially basically saying please you know so much,

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Speaker 2: please teach me, and then he would eventually assemble them

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Speaker 2: in their entire identity.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. In Latin, that iron word became erronia I r

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Speaker 1: O n I A. And there was a Roman orator

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Speaker 1: in the first century name Quintilian who said, it's basically

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Speaker 1: saying something contrary to what you mean, which is what

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Speaker 1: Ethan Hawk would kind of intimate many years later, and

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Speaker 1: the Europeans in the Middle Ages they were like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's that Quintilian definition is the one that we're going

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Speaker 1: to use as like a like an allegory on a contradiction.

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Speaker 2: Basically, yeah, And it was basically a devisive speech. It

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Speaker 2: wasn't like like a whole book could be ironic or

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Speaker 2: a whole TV show could be ironic, in part because

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Speaker 2: there weren't TV shows back then, but you get the point.

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Speaker 1: It's like a one liner.

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Speaker 2: It was, yeah, exactly, that's what irony was. And it

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Speaker 2: was no broader than that. It was a very narrow

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Speaker 2: definition for hundreds of years until the Renaissance came along

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Speaker 2: and they the Renaissance people were like, oh, okay, we

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Speaker 2: really like this stuff. They I guess got back into

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Speaker 2: Socratic irony, which was using people playing dumb essentially to

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Speaker 2: show how actually dumb someone else was. But they also

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Speaker 2: identified the irony of fate, which is far and away

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Speaker 2: the greatest type of irony. It's also called situational irony today,

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Speaker 2: and that's the one where instead of somebody making a

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Speaker 2: one liner or Socrates playing dumb, this is like the

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Speaker 2: universe does this to you, or life does this to you.

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Speaker 2: Just something happens that no one had any control over,

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Speaker 2: but it's just indisputably ironic. And that's to me, that's

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Speaker 2: the money irony.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so too, because it's a recognition of

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Speaker 1: a thing that happened that wasn't like set up or

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Speaker 1: contrived or written to be clever or something like that.

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Speaker 1: So I'm with you totally.

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Speaker 2: And I think that that's a big distinction, is we'll

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Speaker 2: see like being clever and being the hapless subject of irony.

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Speaker 2: I think that's a big distinction.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. The German Romantics really got into it. Again, they,

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Speaker 1: like most people, had a lot of trouble defining it,

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Speaker 1: but they were very into Like they were into it

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Speaker 1: in a sense of like, hey, this is how we

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Speaker 1: can question conventional wisdom by throwing out ironic viewpoints.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and the way that they did it. So I

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Speaker 2: was looking into this because I didn't it took me.

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Speaker 2: I'm like, what are they talking about? Essentially, the Romantics

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Speaker 2: were the first postmodern people. They were the first to

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Speaker 2: basically say, hey, you know, life, have you ever stopped

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Speaker 2: and thought about life? Like? Are there other ways life

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Speaker 2: could go? What are other things you can do with

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Speaker 2: your life? And they were essentially like the first to

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Speaker 2: challenge conventional wisdom in the West as a group, and

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Speaker 2: they essentially became they prized irony because to them that

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Speaker 2: was a way of like thinking about things, of like

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Speaker 2: turning things over in your mind. So that's what the

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Speaker 2: German Romantics were into. And there were opponents to that

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Speaker 2: who are like, yeah, no, this is you're going down

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Speaker 2: a really bad path here.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. One guy in particular, George Wilhelm Frederick Hegel, he

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Speaker 1: was a German philosopher but not a Romantic. He was like,

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Speaker 1: I don't like any of that stuff. And I think

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Speaker 1: it seems like he kind of saw it as like

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Speaker 1: a sort of a smart alecky way to go through life,

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Speaker 1: like you're putting yourself above someone else and you're not

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Speaker 1: committing to anything, kind of like the like hipster irony

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Speaker 1: now maybe.

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Speaker 2: Right exactly, Yeah, kind of like you know, coming up

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Speaker 2: on something that, oh, you love your life of milk

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Speaker 2: and cows. Huh, I guess that's all there is to life.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So that was Hegel Kurkerguard, who was the Christian ethicist.

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Speaker 2: He really hated irony as well. He called it infinite

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Speaker 2: absolute negativity. And so in the way that Hegel like

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Speaker 2: identified hipster irony as being just annoying and kind of

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Speaker 2: looking down on people, Kirkerguard kind of took that and

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Speaker 2: multiplied it by all the people doing this and found

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Speaker 2: like you could actually as a society lose your way

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Speaker 2: and like lose meaning to life if you examine stuff

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Speaker 2: too much rather than just living it. And so he

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Speaker 2: essentially predicted the postmodern age which we're in right now,

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Speaker 2: that loss of meaning that happened because people started thinking

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Speaker 2: about the possibilities that are out there not rather than

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Speaker 2: just actuality.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. As far as like you know, as

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Speaker 1: time marched on in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it

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Speaker 1: became a big thing in like the literary world. There

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Speaker 1: was a essay in eighteen thirty three from a classical

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Speaker 1: scholar an English scholar name Connop Thirwall who he was

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Speaker 1: into the irony of faith, meaning, like you said, that's

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Speaker 1: what we call situational irony now. But he was doing

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Speaker 1: that through the lens of like you know, works of

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Speaker 1: literature basically, and that's where we get dramatic irony basically

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Speaker 1: was from him, which is the idea that the audience

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Speaker 1: knows something that the characters don't, and when that plays out,

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Speaker 1: that's a dramatic irony.

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Speaker 2: Right, and he retroactively applied it to Oedipus Rex.

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Speaker 1: Lots of irony there.

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Speaker 2: There really is. There's a lot, So there's some in that.

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Speaker 2: So King LEAs and Queen Jacosta get get rid of

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Speaker 2: their baby because it's been predicted that their baby's going

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Speaker 2: to grow up and kill his father, so they're like, well,

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Speaker 2: let's get this baby away from us. By doing so,

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Speaker 2: their kid grew up without knowing who his father and

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Speaker 2: mother were, So he actually grows up to slay King

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Speaker 2: Leis without realizing that this is his father. So it

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Speaker 2: happened anyway. They maybe if they had brought him up

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Speaker 2: and not given him away, he wouldn't have killed them.

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Speaker 2: That was a pretty big ironic twist in that whole play.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I think if Alanis Morsat had a sung lines

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Speaker 1: like that, it's like Oedipis, that's right, killing his dad.

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Speaker 1: And then there's more irony heaped up on top of that,

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Speaker 1: which is later on. Of course, he didn't know that

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Speaker 1: he had killed Leis, so he seeks vengeance against his

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Speaker 1: the king's murderer, who is himself.

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Speaker 2: Right, And then there's also a bit of dramatic irony.

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Speaker 2: The audience knows that Oedipus is eventually going to claw

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Speaker 2: his own eyes out. Yeah yeah, And at one point

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Speaker 2: he mocks a blind man for being blind, which is

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Speaker 2: just cruel. No matter when you you're speaking.

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Speaker 1: I'm sure the audience is like, oh, yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean like there's a lot of irony,

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Speaker 2: and here's this is the thing. So what was the

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Speaker 2: guy's name? Again? I know it's made up, but.

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Speaker 1: Come up with Thurwall?

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Speaker 2: No way, that's real, weird. So mister Thurtwall basically shows like,

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Speaker 2: here's irony. Here's irony too, here's irony. But if if

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Speaker 2: you pin him or anybody else down and saying great,

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Speaker 2: can you make a universal definition for irony, I'm sure

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Speaker 2: he would have thrown his hands up, and that's just it.

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Speaker 2: I think Winona Ryder even says in reality bites like

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Speaker 2: I can tell when I see it, I know it,

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Speaker 2: but you can't really come up with a good universal

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Speaker 2: definition for it. But you can go back and be like,

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Speaker 2: that's ironic. That's ironic. It's almost like humans have a

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Speaker 2: innate like sense of irony.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and it is funny now that I think about it,

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Speaker 1: that is so iron that Ben Stiller was the good

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Speaker 1: guy m because he was genuinely like a really nice

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Speaker 1: guy and treated her very well in that movie. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: he was part of he was part of the establishment,

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Speaker 1: so he wasn't cool and Ethan Hawk, Like, what's he doing?

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Speaker 1: Not Ethan Hawk? But what would that character be doing?

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Speaker 2: Now, I don't know. I mean, I hesitate to say,

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Speaker 2: but I'm sure you know he would have a.

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Speaker 1: Podcast still, be right.

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Speaker 2: He would be very much in love with his own

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Speaker 2: you know, mind or intellect.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, sure, so he'd have a podcast.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think he nailed it.

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Speaker 1: Actually, All right, let's take a break and we'll come

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Speaker 1: back and talk about irony a little more. All right,

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Speaker 1: So we've defined, or at least talked about a couple

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Speaker 1: of different types of irony. But here comes some more

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Speaker 1: everybody verbal irony. This gets a little dicey because verbal

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Speaker 1: irony and sarcasm are like sarcasm is is sort of

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Speaker 1: a way of being ironic, but to me, it's different

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Speaker 1: because there's a smarminess to it. Yeah, they're lumped together

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Speaker 1: a lot like sarcasm and irony. So if you know,

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Speaker 1: if you were to say, like if it's really raining

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Speaker 1: outside and the weather is really bad and you're like nice

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Speaker 1: weather like that, that is irony. It's got a little

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Speaker 1: smart but not as smarmy as like, oh, that speech

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Speaker 1: you gave was so great, you know, to a bad

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Speaker 1: speech like that is super sarcastic and smarmy.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you said. One of us said that

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Speaker 2: irony is based on one who disassembles. Sarcasm is to

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Speaker 2: tear flesh. Yeah, you know, and that really kind of

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Speaker 2: goes to show you like they both do something similar,

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Speaker 2: but one's way more vicious than the other. Yeah, sarcasm

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Speaker 2: is pretty lame. It's just a I think it's meant

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Speaker 2: to be a phase in the development of a person's

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Speaker 2: sense of humor. It's supposed to come early on and

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Speaker 2: be abandoned eventually, but some people don't abandon it and

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Speaker 2: they love Deadpool. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I try not to be sark Oh, I take that back.

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Speaker 1: I'm I don't try to not be sarcastic. I think

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Speaker 1: I think it just sort of fades away. I'm sure

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Speaker 1: I am sarcastic sometimes, but I don't know. It's not

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Speaker 1: the greatest look once you're a certain age.

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Speaker 2: I can't think of any of you being sarcastic.

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Speaker 1: Oh you can't.

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Speaker 2: I can.

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Speaker 1: You're not very sarcastic either, I don't think unless you're

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Speaker 1: just trying to get it, like get a laugh or something.

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Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, I mean that's definitely My humor is fairly ironic.

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Speaker 2: But I like to think it's not at the expensive

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Speaker 2: not anybody. And usually it's if it's at the expense

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Speaker 2: of somebody, it's at the expense of myself.

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Speaker 1: Like yeah, sepricat.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's another way to put it. Sure, that's how

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Speaker 2: Ethan Hawke's character would put it. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Here's a word that I never knew, but I knew

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Speaker 1: it was a thing. I've never heard of Latote's before

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Speaker 1: me either. But that's a word that is like a

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Speaker 1: verbal like understated verbal irony, like if someone asks you

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Speaker 1: if if you if you like something or not that

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Speaker 1: you really really hate, and you say, like, not the

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Speaker 1: biggest fan of that. That is called a.

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Speaker 2: Litot's I'm so glad you're the one who said that,

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Speaker 2: because that's not how I was going to pronounce that.

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Speaker 1: We can say lightotes. Well, I looked it up because

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Speaker 1: I get I'm frankly tired of being made fun of

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Speaker 1: you Mal You're a professional, I'm getting there.

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Speaker 2: I'm just well, I'm just a lump. So yeah, that's

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Speaker 2: it has to negate what the like, I don't know

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Speaker 2: any better way to put it, Like, yeah, I'm not

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Speaker 2: a big fan, meaning you really don't like something, so

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Speaker 2: it's an understatement, but at the same time you're negating

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Speaker 2: the fan part. I don't fully understand it in the

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Speaker 2: in the sense that like, if you think about something

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Speaker 2: too hard like economics, right, yeah, yeah, you can suddenly

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Speaker 2: like lose it and not understand it anymore. That's that's

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Speaker 2: kind of how that is with me.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, just breeze right on by the light of tease exactly.

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Speaker 2: Let's talk situational irony, because this is the whole reason

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Speaker 2: for this episode. Man, Like, there's nothing more delightful than

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Speaker 2: me than a really good ironic twist.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And I feel like this can be played in well,

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Speaker 1: I mean it happens in real life, of course, but

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Speaker 1: can be played in in you know, literature and movies

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Speaker 1: and TV and stuff like that as like a as

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Speaker 1: like a come up. And sometimes like sometimes it can

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Speaker 1: be very sad when situational irony strikes, but sometimes it's

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Speaker 1: like somebody gets what they deserved in a yeah, ironic

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Speaker 1: way for.

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Speaker 2: Sure, and then sometimes it's just like an impressive other times,

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Speaker 2: most of the time, if not always, there's a black

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Speaker 2: comedic sense to it, or if you look at it

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Speaker 2: deeply enough, there is something funny about it, even if

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Speaker 2: it is sad, even if it is tragic, if it's

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Speaker 2: still ironic, there's something there's something more to it. There's

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Speaker 2: something more valuable to it than just what it is

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Speaker 2: on its surface. Like a lifeguard drowning, right, Like that's sad,

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Speaker 2: of course, Like if you put yourself in the if

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Speaker 2: you know the person's name, you know the situation of

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Speaker 2: their death, Like they were trying to save someone and

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Speaker 2: they drowned. They had like this life ahead of them.

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Speaker 2: They left a child behind, you know, as a survivor.

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Speaker 2: Once you know that stuff, it's it's not funny at all.

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Speaker 2: But if you just step back and you say a

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Speaker 2: lifeguard drowned, there's something just in that irony. There's something

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Speaker 2: blackly comedic about it. There's something funny about it. I

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Speaker 2: think everything has something funny about it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I laughed instinctively the second you set

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Speaker 1: a lifeguard dround because I didn't know it was coming. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it just made me laugh. There's nothing funny about anyone dying.

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Speaker 1: But since that didn't really happen and you just said it,

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Speaker 1: it was funny.

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Speaker 2: But even still, it's not like you're celebrating that person's

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Speaker 2: death by laughing, or you don't care that that person died.

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Speaker 2: This is something different. It's separate. It's larger than that

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Speaker 2: person's individual death in that sense, but it's tied directly

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Speaker 2: to it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I saw a comedian the other day. I can't

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Speaker 1: remember her name, Oh what was it? But she was

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Speaker 1: talking about like her worst death would be to be

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Speaker 1: like the only person that died in a plane crash. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and I couldn't figure out where she was going. I

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Speaker 1: was like, I sort of get it, but I don't

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Speaker 1: fully get it. And then she was explaining, like when

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Speaker 1: you see the news reports, you know, there was a

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Speaker 1: plane crash and everyone's horrified, and then it's like one

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Speaker 1: person dies and everyone's like, oh, well that wasn't that bad.

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Speaker 1: You're just the one person.

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Speaker 2: Oh man, you need to introduce me to that friend.

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Speaker 1: It's not a friend. It was a comedian.

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Speaker 2: Oh, we'll make friends with them, and they introduce me.

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Speaker 1: All right. Maybe someone will write in it, or maybe

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Speaker 1: she will. You never know.

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Speaker 2: There's there's some others too, like a fire station burning

385
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Speaker 2: down so funny, especially especially if no one got hurt. Well,

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Speaker 2: that's what I'm saying. There's like, you might not think

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Speaker 2: it's funny. I don't even think that's particularly funny. It's ironic,

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Speaker 2: But I get tee there's somebody out there who finds

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Speaker 2: that funny. That's the thing. It's not always funny to

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Speaker 2: everyone all the time, that it could just be one person.

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Speaker 2: My theory is that everything is funny at least to

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Speaker 2: one person. No.

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Speaker 1: I totally agree. And I think what's getting me here

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Speaker 1: with the the this kind of irony being played when

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Speaker 1: I think there's a sometimes karma attached to it.

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Speaker 2: You know what? I mean, yeah, like that lifeguard hit

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Speaker 2: a drifter with his car and drove off.

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Speaker 1: Well, which kind of plays into the next one, which

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Speaker 1: is cosmic irony, which is a little bit like karmic irony,

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Speaker 1: and that it's situational irony where you know, the gods

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Speaker 1: or whatever fate caused something.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's essentially the same thing if you ask me

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Speaker 2: lifeguard drowning or something. George Carlin, did you see his example? No? Oh,

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Speaker 2: I sent it to you. George Carlin, he basically did

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Speaker 2: a bit where he explains the difference between what's ironic

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Speaker 2: and what's actually not ironic. May I Yeah, you sent

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Speaker 2: this to me, Yeah, I did. He basically said this.

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Speaker 2: He said that if you are a let's say there's

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Speaker 2: a diabetic and he's on his way to buying insulin

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Speaker 2: and he gets hit by a delivery truck. If yeah, see,

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Speaker 2: if the delivery truck was carrying sugar, that would be

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Speaker 2: like poetic and pretty funny, but just bad luck really,

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Speaker 2: according to George Carlin, Sure, he said, if the delivery

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Speaker 2: truck was carrying insulin, now you've got irony. I think

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Speaker 2: both of those things are ironic, whether it's sugar or insulin. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: but that was his distinction.

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Speaker 1: That's good. Well, we've already talked about dramatic irony. That's

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Speaker 1: the next one on the list. And that's again when

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Speaker 1: the audience knows something that the characters don't. And Hitchcock

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Speaker 1: had a very famous example of like Lessie has seen

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Speaker 1: with a couple of characters and a restaurant diner just

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Speaker 1: talking about whatever, and a bomb goes off under the table.

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Speaker 1: If the audience doesn't know that's happening, it's some great

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Speaker 1: tragedy or a shock. If you do know, I mean,

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Speaker 1: it still might be a tragedy, but it's not a shock.

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Speaker 1: If the audience knows that that bomb is under there,

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Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, that adds this real dramatic

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Speaker 1: tension to what's happening.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, or like the audience knowing Oedipus will tear his

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Speaker 2: eyes out, just kind of laughing at him, laughing at

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Speaker 2: the blind guy, right.

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Speaker 1: Right, like you got to come in your way, buddy.

433
00:24:06,119 --> 00:24:09,639
Speaker 2: There's another one. I didn't ever hear this term for it.

434
00:24:09,640 --> 00:24:12,720
Speaker 2: I've always heard it as breaking the fourth wall, but

435
00:24:12,960 --> 00:24:16,880
Speaker 2: that is actually called romantic irony, and it's where the author,

436
00:24:16,920 --> 00:24:22,479
Speaker 2: the narrator, I guess probably even the character basically breaks

437
00:24:22,520 --> 00:24:25,840
Speaker 2: out of the realm of fiction and seart addressing you,

438
00:24:26,080 --> 00:24:29,399
Speaker 2: the reader or the viewer. That's romantic irony. And the

439
00:24:29,400 --> 00:24:32,240
Speaker 2: reason I think it's called romantic based on the German

440
00:24:32,320 --> 00:24:36,920
Speaker 2: Romantics and their love of irony, that in its purest form,

441
00:24:37,480 --> 00:24:42,359
Speaker 2: the author is basically stopping the narrative to talk to you,

442
00:24:42,480 --> 00:24:45,840
Speaker 2: the reader and say, look at how this guy's you know,

443
00:24:46,080 --> 00:24:50,159
Speaker 2: ideals and hopes and dreams are so far off from reality. Right,

444
00:24:50,200 --> 00:24:52,639
Speaker 2: I take it as like them spelling things out for

445
00:24:52,680 --> 00:24:53,199
Speaker 2: the reader.

446
00:24:53,280 --> 00:24:56,240
Speaker 1: I guess yeah, I like it, you know, for the

447
00:24:56,359 --> 00:24:58,639
Speaker 1: sake of comedy. Like it made me think of like

448
00:24:59,000 --> 00:25:03,720
Speaker 1: Albert Brooks and broadcast news. I don't remember that, you

449
00:25:03,720 --> 00:25:06,600
Speaker 1: don't remember seeing that, or you never saw that, or

450
00:25:06,600 --> 00:25:07,400
Speaker 1: you don't remember that part?

451
00:25:07,800 --> 00:25:10,919
Speaker 2: Is it the one where I'm mad as heck and

452
00:25:10,960 --> 00:25:12,280
Speaker 2: I'm not going to take it anymore?

453
00:25:12,440 --> 00:25:16,960
Speaker 1: No, that's network broadcasting. I've never seen It was a

454
00:25:17,080 --> 00:25:20,680
Speaker 1: James L. Brooks romantic comedy. One of the great movies,

455
00:25:21,200 --> 00:25:22,960
Speaker 1: by the way, I got to see it, especially if

456
00:25:23,000 --> 00:25:24,040
Speaker 1: you like Albert Brooks.

457
00:25:24,359 --> 00:25:27,560
Speaker 2: I do. I love him. I think he's an international treasurer.

458
00:25:27,720 --> 00:25:31,639
Speaker 1: That's right. He was obviously born Albert Einstein. Fun fact,

459
00:25:32,400 --> 00:25:37,240
Speaker 1: what that was his name? The two fun facts about

460
00:25:37,240 --> 00:25:40,240
Speaker 1: Albert books as he was Albert Einstein and changed his name,

461
00:25:40,680 --> 00:25:43,240
Speaker 1: and the other is that he was brothers with the

462
00:25:43,680 --> 00:25:51,840
Speaker 1: super Dave Osborne. Wow, and The Outsiders was written by

463
00:25:51,840 --> 00:25:52,560
Speaker 1: a teenage girl.

464
00:25:54,440 --> 00:25:58,280
Speaker 2: It's the fact of every podcast now. Yeah, wow, thank

465
00:25:58,320 --> 00:26:00,520
Speaker 2: you for that, chuck. Yeah, see broadcast news. It's great,

466
00:26:00,640 --> 00:26:02,960
Speaker 2: like look at great movies. Have you ever seen Network?

467
00:26:03,359 --> 00:26:05,640
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, okay, yeah, I liked it too.

468
00:26:07,080 --> 00:26:10,200
Speaker 1: I didn't say I liked it, No, I loved it.

469
00:26:11,119 --> 00:26:15,760
Speaker 2: Okay. So getting back to irony. You know one thing also,

470
00:26:15,880 --> 00:26:18,400
Speaker 2: I'm proud of us for not being like, was that ironic?

471
00:26:18,440 --> 00:26:20,800
Speaker 2: Were you being ironic? We're not doing that, and that

472
00:26:20,840 --> 00:26:24,080
Speaker 2: would have been really annoying, So kudos to us. If

473
00:26:24,080 --> 00:26:31,040
Speaker 2: you ask me, maybe we'll edit that out.

474
00:26:31,240 --> 00:26:32,840
Speaker 1: I was just thinking in my head how funny it

475
00:26:32,840 --> 00:26:34,360
Speaker 1: would be if I was just about to say that,

476
00:26:34,480 --> 00:26:36,760
Speaker 1: and like the words were sitting in my mouth. That's

477
00:26:36,760 --> 00:26:39,400
Speaker 1: why I was being silent. No, I just was saying

478
00:26:39,440 --> 00:26:45,280
Speaker 1: that would be funny. Back to iron specifically though, right, yeah.

479
00:26:45,480 --> 00:26:48,800
Speaker 2: The socratic irony is what it's also called or philosophical

480
00:26:48,840 --> 00:26:52,680
Speaker 2: irony where you know again you're playing. I think dumb

481
00:26:52,760 --> 00:26:57,360
Speaker 2: is usually the way that it's most often described or presented,

482
00:26:57,359 --> 00:27:01,359
Speaker 2: but it can be other things, like I think Randall P.

483
00:27:01,520 --> 00:27:04,840
Speaker 2: McMurphy Jack Nicholson's character from One Flu Over the Cuckoo's

484
00:27:04,880 --> 00:27:10,720
Speaker 2: Nest is considered philosophically ironic by being a sane person

485
00:27:10,960 --> 00:27:16,200
Speaker 2: in a mental hospital, and in doing so he shows

486
00:27:16,240 --> 00:27:20,760
Speaker 2: like just the unjustness of life in that mental hospital

487
00:27:22,160 --> 00:27:24,760
Speaker 2: seems a little I don't know if off is the

488
00:27:24,880 --> 00:27:28,560
Speaker 2: right term, but like here's where it's like, Okay, maybe

489
00:27:28,600 --> 00:27:31,680
Speaker 2: we need to come up with other terms for stuff

490
00:27:31,720 --> 00:27:33,960
Speaker 2: like this and stop using ironic like that.

491
00:27:34,359 --> 00:27:37,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's where like when we get into talking about

492
00:27:37,560 --> 00:27:42,320
Speaker 1: satire and parody, like they always use irony. So I

493
00:27:42,320 --> 00:27:46,240
Speaker 1: guess it's just sort of like a subgenre or maybe

494
00:27:46,280 --> 00:27:48,560
Speaker 1: you know, not a subgenre but its own thing where

495
00:27:48,560 --> 00:27:49,640
Speaker 1: irony comes into play.

496
00:27:50,520 --> 00:27:55,400
Speaker 2: Sure, let's talk satire. I have a pet theory that

497
00:27:55,520 --> 00:27:58,679
Speaker 2: satire is actually super harmful for society.

498
00:27:59,080 --> 00:28:01,040
Speaker 1: Oh interesting, I love satire.

499
00:28:01,400 --> 00:28:05,800
Speaker 2: It can take I like parody, but satire I feel

500
00:28:05,800 --> 00:28:11,480
Speaker 2: like it can take the actual like anger and discontent

501
00:28:12,520 --> 00:28:16,679
Speaker 2: and just release it as it acts as a pressure

502
00:28:16,760 --> 00:28:19,280
Speaker 2: valve for society. Oh okay, we'll just laugh all this

503
00:28:19,440 --> 00:28:22,439
Speaker 2: off and then the status quo can continue on. And

504
00:28:22,480 --> 00:28:26,280
Speaker 2: I think it actually is harmful to society. The better

505
00:28:26,320 --> 00:28:30,320
Speaker 2: and more widespread the satire is, the less change will

506
00:28:30,359 --> 00:28:33,480
Speaker 2: actually come along. Like society has to go through really

507
00:28:33,600 --> 00:28:37,399
Speaker 2: rough periods where it's really upset to affect real change,

508
00:28:37,960 --> 00:28:40,240
Speaker 2: and satire kind of prevents that from happening.

509
00:28:40,480 --> 00:28:42,280
Speaker 1: I guess that's a kind of satire because there's so

510
00:28:42,400 --> 00:28:47,600
Speaker 1: much comedic satire that you love in your life, you know.

511
00:28:48,240 --> 00:28:50,400
Speaker 2: Okay, I'll go with like spinal tap.

512
00:28:52,000 --> 00:28:57,200
Speaker 1: Okay, I mean The Simpsons is a satire, is it? Yeah?

513
00:28:58,000 --> 00:29:01,959
Speaker 2: You think? I don't know. Are you saying is it ironic?

514
00:29:02,040 --> 00:29:02,560
Speaker 2: Do I think?

515
00:29:02,760 --> 00:29:05,080
Speaker 1: No? No? No, I mean we agreed to not do that.

516
00:29:05,160 --> 00:29:08,120
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, really it is. I think it's

517
00:29:08,440 --> 00:29:12,000
Speaker 1: a satire, isn't it. I don't know, man, I think

518
00:29:12,240 --> 00:29:15,800
Speaker 1: I like American life and family and stuff.

519
00:29:16,000 --> 00:29:18,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I can definitely see that, Like, I

520
00:29:18,320 --> 00:29:20,640
Speaker 2: definitely see where you're coming from. I don't know. I

521
00:29:20,680 --> 00:29:25,480
Speaker 2: always kind of associate satire almost exclusively with like having

522
00:29:25,520 --> 00:29:30,320
Speaker 2: a really important message, which is why to me, it

523
00:29:30,960 --> 00:29:35,200
Speaker 2: takes that important message and kind of uses it to

524
00:29:35,280 --> 00:29:37,400
Speaker 2: deflate any true feelings about it.

525
00:29:37,600 --> 00:29:42,760
Speaker 1: Oh interesting, okay, like social satire. Yeah yeah, all right, yeah,

526
00:29:42,800 --> 00:29:43,080
Speaker 1: Like I.

527
00:29:43,000 --> 00:29:45,120
Speaker 2: Get where it's coming from too, where it's saying like, hey,

528
00:29:45,120 --> 00:29:47,320
Speaker 2: we need to let more people know about this. A

529
00:29:47,320 --> 00:29:52,959
Speaker 2: good example is, oh, who was it? I think as

530
00:29:53,040 --> 00:29:57,240
Speaker 2: Jonathan Swift, the pamphleteer or essayist. I think he came

531
00:29:57,320 --> 00:30:00,160
Speaker 2: up with a modest proposal in seventeen twenty nine, and

532
00:30:00,160 --> 00:30:03,080
Speaker 2: he'd written a bunch of essays about how the Irish

533
00:30:03,080 --> 00:30:06,560
Speaker 2: were starving and how they needed help, and he just

534
00:30:06,600 --> 00:30:09,240
Speaker 2: got crickets in return. And then he wrote a modest

535
00:30:09,240 --> 00:30:12,040
Speaker 2: proposal and in it he basically talks about how the

536
00:30:12,080 --> 00:30:14,400
Speaker 2: Irish just need to eat their babies and that will

537
00:30:14,400 --> 00:30:17,440
Speaker 2: solve the hunger issue and a lot of other problems too.

538
00:30:17,720 --> 00:30:21,320
Speaker 2: Then he got, you know, all sorts of attention for that. Yeah, yeah,

539
00:30:21,360 --> 00:30:24,400
Speaker 2: of course he got attention for it. It's nuts in

540
00:30:24,440 --> 00:30:27,680
Speaker 2: some ways, it's funny, in some ways, it's just abhorrent,

541
00:30:28,080 --> 00:30:30,960
Speaker 2: and it's very attention getting. But how much change did

542
00:30:30,960 --> 00:30:34,840
Speaker 2: it actually affect? I don't know enough about eighteenth century

543
00:30:34,920 --> 00:30:37,640
Speaker 2: Irish history to tell you how much change it affected,

544
00:30:37,960 --> 00:30:41,960
Speaker 2: but based on my understanding of satire over the years,

545
00:30:42,040 --> 00:30:46,560
Speaker 2: especially socio political satire. It probably didn't actually have that

546
00:30:46,680 --> 00:30:49,880
Speaker 2: much effect aside from making more people aware of it.

547
00:30:50,160 --> 00:30:54,520
Speaker 2: But does that actually make things change? That's my question.

548
00:30:55,160 --> 00:30:59,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good question. I think the proponents of

549
00:30:59,040 --> 00:31:03,040
Speaker 1: satire would say just getting the conversation around it going

550
00:31:03,120 --> 00:31:06,840
Speaker 1: is the point, and the change comes because of those conversations.

551
00:31:06,840 --> 00:31:09,840
Speaker 1: But I'm not taking a stance either way. I see

552
00:31:09,840 --> 00:31:11,000
Speaker 1: your point fair enough.

553
00:31:11,400 --> 00:31:14,560
Speaker 2: And at the same time, one last thing. My position

554
00:31:14,720 --> 00:31:16,360
Speaker 2: isn't that we all just need to put up with

555
00:31:16,400 --> 00:31:18,800
Speaker 2: the status quo. Oh sure, that's what I'm saying. Like

556
00:31:18,840 --> 00:31:23,680
Speaker 2: satire inadvertently can make the status quote continue on when

557
00:31:23,680 --> 00:31:24,280
Speaker 2: it shouldn't.

558
00:31:24,920 --> 00:31:29,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're talking about getting some bricks and baseball bats. Yeah,

559
00:31:29,120 --> 00:31:30,960
Speaker 1: and really doing something that's.

560
00:31:30,800 --> 00:31:34,480
Speaker 2: Right, taking it to the streets. As Michael McDonald.

561
00:31:34,120 --> 00:31:39,760
Speaker 1: Said, Uh, camp is another sort of irony, and that's

562
00:31:39,800 --> 00:31:40,680
Speaker 1: a little more of the.

563
00:31:43,400 --> 00:31:43,560
Speaker 2: Hate.

564
00:31:43,600 --> 00:31:45,080
Speaker 1: I mean, I love camp, so I hate to lump

565
00:31:45,120 --> 00:31:47,160
Speaker 1: it in with the hipster irony. But that's kind of

566
00:31:47,200 --> 00:31:49,840
Speaker 1: what they're talking about, like an ironic appreciation of something.

567
00:31:50,600 --> 00:31:54,080
Speaker 1: If something is campy, that's kind of what you're talking about.

568
00:31:54,080 --> 00:32:00,280
Speaker 1: And you know, in a lot of cases, right, yeah.

569
00:31:59,240 --> 00:32:01,760
Speaker 2: John, Speaking of the Simpsons, John Waters was on The

570
00:32:01,800 --> 00:32:02,600
Speaker 2: Simpsons once.

571
00:32:03,120 --> 00:32:04,840
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I remember that one he gave.

572
00:32:05,360 --> 00:32:08,960
Speaker 2: He gave a throwaway a definition of camp. He said,

573
00:32:09,280 --> 00:32:14,720
Speaker 2: the tragically ludicrous, the ludicrously tragic, and then Homer said,

574
00:32:14,880 --> 00:32:20,600
Speaker 2: oh yeah, like when a clown dies. John Waters goes, well,

575
00:32:20,800 --> 00:32:22,320
Speaker 2: sort of, that's funny.

576
00:32:22,520 --> 00:32:24,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, I think that's a good time for

577
00:32:24,960 --> 00:32:28,200
Speaker 1: a break, and we'll be right back right after.

578
00:32:28,080 --> 00:32:57,120
Speaker 2: This, okay, Chuck. So I think I said, like, I

579
00:32:57,160 --> 00:33:01,760
Speaker 2: feel like humans have like a hard wire intuition for

580
00:33:02,320 --> 00:33:05,200
Speaker 2: noticing irony, for being able to pick it out, and

581
00:33:05,280 --> 00:33:08,600
Speaker 2: it's been used as a device for a really long time,

582
00:33:09,320 --> 00:33:12,400
Speaker 2: so much so that it's been found that verbal irony

583
00:33:12,800 --> 00:33:18,600
Speaker 2: saying the opposite of what you mean is basically universal,

584
00:33:19,440 --> 00:33:23,520
Speaker 2: which is great. And kindergarten children have been shown to

585
00:33:23,560 --> 00:33:26,520
Speaker 2: be able to pick up verbal irony, like at that

586
00:33:26,640 --> 00:33:29,800
Speaker 2: young of an age. What's kindergarten age these days? Like five?

587
00:33:30,440 --> 00:33:34,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, like five or six? I think, not bad? Yeah, agreed.

588
00:33:35,120 --> 00:33:38,480
Speaker 1: I love the example Livia uses to She's like every

589
00:33:38,480 --> 00:33:42,120
Speaker 1: society comes up with ideas like nicknaming a big guy tiny, right,

590
00:33:42,600 --> 00:33:44,000
Speaker 1: But I love that I mean that is sort of

591
00:33:44,000 --> 00:33:47,239
Speaker 1: a universal thing. Like I love the idea that in

592
00:33:47,280 --> 00:33:52,440
Speaker 1: any culture if you had like a very large person

593
00:33:53,120 --> 00:33:55,880
Speaker 1: and their nickname was whatever that word is in their

594
00:33:55,960 --> 00:33:58,440
Speaker 1: language for like small or tiny, and like everyone gets

595
00:33:58,520 --> 00:33:58,920
Speaker 1: that joke.

596
00:33:59,240 --> 00:34:02,280
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly. So, yeah, it is universal, and it's been

597
00:34:02,400 --> 00:34:06,600
Speaker 2: used as a device long before anybody identified it what

598
00:34:06,680 --> 00:34:11,640
Speaker 2: irony was. Like. Remember, Oedipis Rex was written long before Irony,

599
00:34:11,760 --> 00:34:13,839
Speaker 2: even though I was dripping with irony. So that in

600
00:34:13,880 --> 00:34:16,759
Speaker 2: and of itself kind of shows that it's definitely been

601
00:34:16,800 --> 00:34:21,080
Speaker 2: a part of human communication and I guess human understanding

602
00:34:21,120 --> 00:34:25,480
Speaker 2: of the world for from time imorial.

603
00:34:26,120 --> 00:34:28,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. She gives a lot of examples. One

604
00:34:28,560 --> 00:34:31,000
Speaker 1: of my favorites here is and I think we've talked

605
00:34:31,000 --> 00:34:36,520
Speaker 1: about the huang Xi before the Taoist text, and this

606
00:34:36,600 --> 00:34:39,120
Speaker 1: was in like fourth century bcees it was a very

607
00:34:39,120 --> 00:34:41,120
Speaker 1: long time ago, and there was a story about a

608
00:34:41,120 --> 00:34:43,360
Speaker 1: tree that was so twisted and gnarl that it couldn't

609
00:34:43,360 --> 00:34:46,920
Speaker 1: be used for lumber, so it was useless, and because

610
00:34:46,920 --> 00:34:49,479
Speaker 1: it was so useless, it lived a very long life

611
00:34:49,520 --> 00:34:53,120
Speaker 1: as a tree, which is like that was the tree's

612
00:34:53,160 --> 00:34:54,720
Speaker 1: purpose in use, you know, right there.

613
00:34:55,800 --> 00:34:58,680
Speaker 2: I think that disproves my everything is funny in some way.

614
00:34:58,800 --> 00:35:02,239
Speaker 1: Theory though, well, that that's the jhuang Zi from Force

615
00:35:02,320 --> 00:35:05,160
Speaker 1: Entry BC, not a noted comedic dome.

616
00:35:06,560 --> 00:35:10,840
Speaker 2: There's trickster stories also, are always dripping with irony, and

617
00:35:10,880 --> 00:35:15,200
Speaker 2: they are super duper old Tom so well, way older

618
00:35:15,200 --> 00:35:16,920
Speaker 2: than Tom Sawyer. But the one that always comes to

619
00:35:16,960 --> 00:35:21,480
Speaker 2: mind for me is Tom Sawyer using reverse psychology to

620
00:35:21,680 --> 00:35:25,120
Speaker 2: trick his friends into taking over painting the fence for

621
00:35:25,200 --> 00:35:27,000
Speaker 2: him because he talks about how much fun it is

622
00:35:27,040 --> 00:35:29,080
Speaker 2: and he doesn't want to share. So now all of

623
00:35:29,120 --> 00:35:31,120
Speaker 2: a sudden, they all want to paint, so he just

624
00:35:31,560 --> 00:35:33,919
Speaker 2: gets to sit back and kind of laugh at him.

625
00:35:34,640 --> 00:35:39,879
Speaker 2: That is really old archetype. I think Joseph Campbell even

626
00:35:39,920 --> 00:35:44,160
Speaker 2: talked about that. Yeah, whole Mythology series, which I've not seen,

627
00:35:44,520 --> 00:35:48,920
Speaker 2: have you uh nold to watch it together?

628
00:35:49,120 --> 00:35:50,759
Speaker 1: He knew a thing or two about archetypes.

629
00:35:51,400 --> 00:35:51,759
Speaker 2: He did.

630
00:35:51,800 --> 00:35:57,400
Speaker 1: He was he was an archetype type archetypist. Don Quixote,

631
00:35:57,400 --> 00:36:00,960
Speaker 1: you knows, of course, is maybe the first modern There's

632
00:36:01,000 --> 00:36:04,480
Speaker 1: a lot of irony in that. The biggest one is

633
00:36:04,719 --> 00:36:08,600
Speaker 1: just that Quixodi himself is a very elevated sort of

634
00:36:08,760 --> 00:36:12,479
Speaker 1: ideas about his adventures and the reader knows the whole

635
00:36:12,480 --> 00:36:16,279
Speaker 1: time like this guy, it's got that kind of thing.

636
00:36:16,320 --> 00:36:18,560
Speaker 1: So that's that's also sort of dripping with irony.

637
00:36:19,200 --> 00:36:23,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, my favorite ironist of all time is Oh Henry.

638
00:36:23,920 --> 00:36:26,480
Speaker 2: He was, yeah, well known as the master of like

639
00:36:26,520 --> 00:36:29,960
Speaker 2: the ironic twist, like the Gift of the Magi and

640
00:36:30,120 --> 00:36:32,839
Speaker 2: getting better than that, you know, Yeah, I mean that's

641
00:36:32,920 --> 00:36:35,360
Speaker 2: just the one that everyone's read, Like every one of

642
00:36:35,400 --> 00:36:38,440
Speaker 2: his stories has an ironic twist to it, and you

643
00:36:38,520 --> 00:36:41,120
Speaker 2: know it's coming, and he's so good at it, you

644
00:36:41,320 --> 00:36:45,160
Speaker 2: very rarely can see what's coming, but it's never you know,

645
00:36:45,239 --> 00:36:47,840
Speaker 2: quickly assembled at the end out of whatever parts are

646
00:36:47,880 --> 00:36:50,280
Speaker 2: at hand, like it's it's the point of the story

647
00:36:50,320 --> 00:36:53,200
Speaker 2: all the way along. He was just a master of it.

648
00:36:53,719 --> 00:36:55,480
Speaker 2: And then another one that always stands out to me

649
00:36:55,600 --> 00:36:56,560
Speaker 2: is the Monkey's paw.

650
00:36:58,040 --> 00:36:59,799
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you do?

651
00:36:59,840 --> 00:37:01,360
Speaker 2: You you remember that one?

652
00:37:02,000 --> 00:37:04,520
Speaker 1: I remember a little bit about it. I remember being scary,

653
00:37:04,600 --> 00:37:07,520
Speaker 1: like the monkeys Paul moves in your hand or something. Yeah.

654
00:37:07,600 --> 00:37:10,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, granted wishes, but those wishes always came with an

655
00:37:10,560 --> 00:37:14,960
Speaker 2: ironic consequence, like right, the father wishes for one hundred

656
00:37:14,960 --> 00:37:18,640
Speaker 2: pounds sterling and he gets it, but it's as compensation

657
00:37:18,760 --> 00:37:22,680
Speaker 2: because his son died at a factory. So like all

658
00:37:22,719 --> 00:37:25,400
Speaker 2: of the wishes, the way that they're granted are in

659
00:37:25,560 --> 00:37:28,719
Speaker 2: ironic twists that don't pan out very well for the

660
00:37:28,760 --> 00:37:29,680
Speaker 2: family involved.

661
00:37:30,160 --> 00:37:33,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, and sometimes that's funny, but a lot of times

662
00:37:33,080 --> 00:37:35,759
Speaker 1: it's tragic. Like I don't know if the gift of

663
00:37:35,800 --> 00:37:39,560
Speaker 1: the Magi was supposed to be funny. Yeah, good point,

664
00:37:39,840 --> 00:37:42,600
Speaker 1: you know, but yeah, lots of ironic to us. I

665
00:37:42,600 --> 00:37:46,960
Speaker 1: guess he was the m Knight Shammelin of the literary world.

666
00:37:47,160 --> 00:37:47,640
Speaker 2: That's right.

667
00:37:48,440 --> 00:37:50,279
Speaker 1: There is something to that though, if you're known for

668
00:37:50,320 --> 00:37:52,120
Speaker 1: something like when you go see the m Night movies,

669
00:37:52,360 --> 00:37:53,920
Speaker 1: you're just waiting for it, you know.

670
00:37:54,040 --> 00:37:56,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, but he's like, oh, Henry, Like you don't really

671
00:37:56,719 --> 00:37:57,640
Speaker 2: see it coming.

672
00:37:58,600 --> 00:38:00,799
Speaker 1: You know. Sometimes some are better than others.

673
00:38:01,200 --> 00:38:03,680
Speaker 2: I will watch every single one of that guy's movies.

674
00:38:04,400 --> 00:38:05,360
Speaker 2: I love them.

675
00:38:05,560 --> 00:38:08,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean they're entertaining. Did you finally see the

676
00:38:08,400 --> 00:38:10,960
Speaker 1: one at the concert the pop star? I did?

677
00:38:11,200 --> 00:38:13,839
Speaker 2: That was his daughter who directed it? Right? No?

678
00:38:13,719 --> 00:38:15,880
Speaker 1: No, no, he directed it, so he did. She was

679
00:38:15,920 --> 00:38:16,319
Speaker 1: in it.

680
00:38:16,400 --> 00:38:17,560
Speaker 2: Oh she was the pop star?

681
00:38:17,960 --> 00:38:18,400
Speaker 1: Yeah?

682
00:38:18,480 --> 00:38:21,960
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah it was. It was entertaining and it went

683
00:38:22,080 --> 00:38:23,839
Speaker 2: just totally nuts. At the end, didn't it.

684
00:38:24,440 --> 00:38:26,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I thought it was a very fun

685
00:38:26,360 --> 00:38:26,920
Speaker 1: bad movie.

686
00:38:27,920 --> 00:38:28,320
Speaker 2: Yeah.

687
00:38:28,800 --> 00:38:29,000
Speaker 1: Yeah.

688
00:38:29,040 --> 00:38:31,400
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say all of his movies are bad movies,

689
00:38:31,440 --> 00:38:33,960
Speaker 2: but he has made some bad movies. But yes, agreed,

690
00:38:34,000 --> 00:38:34,840
Speaker 2: they're all fun.

691
00:38:35,360 --> 00:38:39,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't see the last one, old or whatever.

692
00:38:39,320 --> 00:38:43,160
Speaker 2: It's good. Yeah, I mean it's an m Night Shawmala movie.

693
00:38:43,160 --> 00:38:46,960
Speaker 2: It's a little like a bottle episode. It's a little okay,

694
00:38:47,320 --> 00:38:50,200
Speaker 2: it all takes place on this beach, almost entirely takes

695
00:38:50,239 --> 00:38:52,720
Speaker 2: place on this beach, and that gets a little old

696
00:38:52,719 --> 00:38:55,600
Speaker 2: as it were, but you know, it still moves along

697
00:38:55,600 --> 00:38:56,280
Speaker 2: pretty quickly.

698
00:38:56,719 --> 00:38:59,120
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I remember early in his career when it

699
00:38:59,200 --> 00:39:02,120
Speaker 1: was like he was the with Sky and Seeing and

700
00:39:02,160 --> 00:39:04,640
Speaker 1: there's some spoilers coming everyone if you haven't seen these

701
00:39:04,760 --> 00:39:11,319
Speaker 1: very old movies. But when was it The Village? Yeah,

702
00:39:11,320 --> 00:39:13,319
Speaker 1: that was what it was called. Like I remember seeing

703
00:39:13,360 --> 00:39:16,239
Speaker 1: that movie and the whole time, I'm like, this is

704
00:39:17,120 --> 00:39:20,160
Speaker 1: so like gonna be revealed that it's modern times. Like

705
00:39:20,200 --> 00:39:21,200
Speaker 1: I was just waiting on it.

706
00:39:21,360 --> 00:39:23,960
Speaker 2: I had I was totally maybe that's it. Maybe I'm

707
00:39:24,040 --> 00:39:28,040
Speaker 2: just like super dupable because I had no idea that

708
00:39:28,120 --> 00:39:32,120
Speaker 2: was coming. I knew that the twist to the sixth

709
00:39:32,160 --> 00:39:35,400
Speaker 2: sense because some jackass told me before I went into it,

710
00:39:35,440 --> 00:39:39,040
Speaker 2: which is mean, and then all the other ones, I'm

711
00:39:39,080 --> 00:39:41,480
Speaker 2: like what every time, which I need to.

712
00:39:41,920 --> 00:39:43,560
Speaker 1: Did he say, hey, have you seen that new movie

713
00:39:43,600 --> 00:39:50,120
Speaker 1: where Bruce Willis is dead? The whole time? Yeah? I

714
00:39:50,160 --> 00:39:52,120
Speaker 1: don't think that makes you dupable. I think that means

715
00:39:52,160 --> 00:39:55,920
Speaker 1: you're like into it and like, can park park that stuff?

716
00:39:55,920 --> 00:39:59,040
Speaker 2: That's a good trait, Okay, as long as it's not

717
00:39:59,080 --> 00:40:02,439
Speaker 2: on the dance floor, right, no parking on the dance floor?

718
00:40:03,840 --> 00:40:08,319
Speaker 1: What else, chuck, Well, I mean we can keep going

719
00:40:08,320 --> 00:40:11,080
Speaker 1: through literary examples. Well, I mean we should probably definitely

720
00:40:11,120 --> 00:40:14,080
Speaker 1: mention catch twenty two because we'll get emails if we don't,

721
00:40:14,120 --> 00:40:18,240
Speaker 1: because that's sort of well, it's a satire, of course,

722
00:40:19,000 --> 00:40:21,880
Speaker 1: so you hate it, but it's built on it's built

723
00:40:21,880 --> 00:40:25,839
Speaker 1: on irony. The whole title is an ironic paradox in

724
00:40:25,880 --> 00:40:28,200
Speaker 1: that the catch twenty two of the film is that

725
00:40:28,239 --> 00:40:30,640
Speaker 1: anyone who wants to fly in one like a combat

726
00:40:30,640 --> 00:40:34,480
Speaker 1: mission as a pilot in war should be removed for

727
00:40:34,560 --> 00:40:37,600
Speaker 1: mental health reasons. But if you try to get out

728
00:40:37,600 --> 00:40:40,440
Speaker 1: of it by saying like I'm a Section eight or whatever,

729
00:40:40,600 --> 00:40:43,480
Speaker 1: then you're obviously sane for doing so.

730
00:40:43,040 --> 00:40:45,800
Speaker 2: So you have to fly. That's where you should be flying. Yeah,

731
00:40:46,000 --> 00:40:50,080
Speaker 2: it's a great, great ironic paradox of all time. And

732
00:40:50,360 --> 00:40:54,680
Speaker 2: so I okay, I figured out why I dislike satire,

733
00:40:54,719 --> 00:40:57,719
Speaker 2: because it hits you over the head with like this

734
00:40:57,920 --> 00:41:01,040
Speaker 2: is a problem, this is wrong. Of course it is,

735
00:41:01,200 --> 00:41:02,960
Speaker 2: like I think, that's what I don't like about it.

736
00:41:03,000 --> 00:41:05,000
Speaker 2: I already know that there's a problem with that. I

737
00:41:05,000 --> 00:41:07,879
Speaker 2: already know there's something wrong with it. I guess I've

738
00:41:07,880 --> 00:41:11,920
Speaker 2: never seen satire that I didn't already agree was a problem.

739
00:41:11,960 --> 00:41:14,400
Speaker 2: So therefore, there was never any satire that really changed

740
00:41:14,400 --> 00:41:15,600
Speaker 2: my mind about something.

741
00:41:15,920 --> 00:41:17,919
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, I get you. I get what you're saying.

742
00:41:18,160 --> 00:41:20,600
Speaker 2: Yeah. Sometimes I just have to reflect on something for

743
00:41:20,760 --> 00:41:22,680
Speaker 2: ten to fifteen minutes and then I come to the

744
00:41:22,719 --> 00:41:23,400
Speaker 2: basis of it.

745
00:41:23,480 --> 00:41:24,120
Speaker 1: Then you got it.

746
00:41:24,760 --> 00:41:27,080
Speaker 2: Uh, something that I missed that I don't know if

747
00:41:27,160 --> 00:41:31,080
Speaker 2: you noticed too. But in Fight Club, apparently it was

748
00:41:31,120 --> 00:41:33,279
Speaker 2: meant to be ironic and that like, these guys were

749
00:41:33,280 --> 00:41:37,560
Speaker 2: rebelling against society and like a conformist society, and then

750
00:41:37,600 --> 00:41:41,279
Speaker 2: in doing so they ended up creating their own fascist

751
00:41:41,400 --> 00:41:44,160
Speaker 2: society of their own club.

752
00:41:44,640 --> 00:41:46,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, super conformist.

753
00:41:46,640 --> 00:41:50,160
Speaker 2: Sure, So did you recognize that that was basically the

754
00:41:50,160 --> 00:41:50,960
Speaker 2: theme of the movie.

755
00:41:51,440 --> 00:41:53,480
Speaker 1: I don't, you know. When I saw that movie, I

756
00:41:53,640 --> 00:41:56,600
Speaker 1: was in my twenties, and so I think I was

757
00:41:56,680 --> 00:42:00,640
Speaker 1: just more like I think I just were like like

758
00:42:00,680 --> 00:42:02,799
Speaker 1: the movie at chase value and it was like, oh

759
00:42:02,840 --> 00:42:05,120
Speaker 1: my god, here we go with spoilers again. It's like,

760
00:42:05,160 --> 00:42:07,799
Speaker 1: oh my god, there was no Tyler Durdon the whole time.

761
00:42:07,880 --> 00:42:09,880
Speaker 1: Like it's just kind of like I thought it was

762
00:42:09,880 --> 00:42:12,880
Speaker 1: a cool twist. Yeah, but yeah, like being older now

763
00:42:12,920 --> 00:42:16,960
Speaker 1: and looking back, it's like, yeah, these dopes wanted to

764
00:42:17,239 --> 00:42:19,640
Speaker 1: you know, they're doing the very thing that they said

765
00:42:19,640 --> 00:42:21,839
Speaker 1: they weren't. You know, we're fighting against right.

766
00:42:22,080 --> 00:42:24,360
Speaker 2: Yeah. I was totally lost on me too. I was

767
00:42:24,400 --> 00:42:27,280
Speaker 2: too busy going like maybe I should wear like floor

768
00:42:27,360 --> 00:42:33,239
Speaker 2: length for coats and underneath it's a good look. So

769
00:42:33,520 --> 00:42:36,160
Speaker 2: I guess we can kind of get to that last point,

770
00:42:36,280 --> 00:42:39,839
Speaker 2: like whether or not irony is not a good thing.

771
00:42:40,160 --> 00:42:45,000
Speaker 2: And I think overall, if I'm tossing out my two cents,

772
00:42:45,000 --> 00:42:48,080
Speaker 2: which I've basically tossed out fifty dollars already so far,

773
00:42:50,239 --> 00:42:54,439
Speaker 2: I think cosmic in situational irony is great and there's

774
00:42:54,480 --> 00:42:58,160
Speaker 2: nothing we can do about it but appreciate it. And

775
00:42:58,200 --> 00:43:02,520
Speaker 2: then on the other hand, Billy, I've heard human created irony.

776
00:43:03,160 --> 00:43:06,920
Speaker 2: If done well, then it's great, But most of the

777
00:43:06,960 --> 00:43:08,520
Speaker 2: time it's not done very well.

778
00:43:09,200 --> 00:43:12,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean. David Foster Wallace, you know, the great

779
00:43:12,000 --> 00:43:16,040
Speaker 1: writer and essayist, wrote that irony and ridicule were agents

780
00:43:16,080 --> 00:43:19,919
Speaker 1: of a great despair and stasis in US culture and

781
00:43:19,960 --> 00:43:24,560
Speaker 1: that like in the fifties and sixties, irony had like

782
00:43:24,760 --> 00:43:28,799
Speaker 1: great use in breaking down the hypocrisy of the establishment,

783
00:43:29,719 --> 00:43:32,520
Speaker 1: but since then it has sort of I think he

784
00:43:32,520 --> 00:43:35,680
Speaker 1: felt like it was overused in the literary world and

785
00:43:35,719 --> 00:43:39,560
Speaker 1: that sincerity had kind of been abandoned.

786
00:43:39,760 --> 00:43:42,759
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that even if you were being sincere, the

787
00:43:42,840 --> 00:43:46,040
Speaker 2: reader wouldn't recognize it because they were so primed to

788
00:43:46,280 --> 00:43:49,640
Speaker 2: write things as ironic. Right, So he had a really

789
00:43:49,680 --> 00:43:54,359
Speaker 2: good point, like JEDIXX really hammered the ironic thing home,

790
00:43:54,400 --> 00:43:58,000
Speaker 2: and part of it was elevating yourself above other people

791
00:43:58,080 --> 00:44:00,960
Speaker 2: who just kind of accepted things as they were and

792
00:44:01,080 --> 00:44:05,000
Speaker 2: couldn't see the reality of something right. And there was

793
00:44:05,080 --> 00:44:08,200
Speaker 2: a backlash to that what was called the Death of irony,

794
00:44:08,280 --> 00:44:14,160
Speaker 2: which lasted about ten years, where people like Dave Eggers

795
00:44:14,239 --> 00:44:17,680
Speaker 2: came along and were like, no, I'm earnest I really

796
00:44:17,680 --> 00:44:20,640
Speaker 2: am just gonna share everything, wear my heart on my sleeve,

797
00:44:20,719 --> 00:44:23,080
Speaker 2: and you're gonna suck it all down whether you like

798
00:44:23,120 --> 00:44:27,120
Speaker 2: it or not. And it came across as smarmy to

799
00:44:27,200 --> 00:44:29,839
Speaker 2: a lot of people. A lot of people consider Dave

800
00:44:29,880 --> 00:44:34,719
Speaker 2: Ager's work is very smarmy, where it's forced earnestness or

801
00:44:34,840 --> 00:44:38,440
Speaker 2: forced sincerity and it clubs you over the head with it.

802
00:44:38,880 --> 00:44:41,839
Speaker 2: And there's actually a gen z term now for that

803
00:44:41,920 --> 00:44:47,239
Speaker 2: little period through you know, the early twenty tens where

804
00:44:47,280 --> 00:44:53,000
Speaker 2: that kind of smarminess was very popular, I guess, especially

805
00:44:53,080 --> 00:44:53,800
Speaker 2: in literature.

806
00:44:54,400 --> 00:45:01,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, has that millennial cringe. That's the zinger that is

807
00:45:01,160 --> 00:45:06,319
Speaker 1: a singer. Yeah, I mean again, back to the generational

808
00:45:06,440 --> 00:45:08,440
Speaker 1: look at things. I'm a big fan of Beggers, by

809
00:45:08,440 --> 00:45:10,040
Speaker 1: the way, I just want to say that out loud.

810
00:45:10,120 --> 00:45:10,680
Speaker 2: Okay, great.

811
00:45:11,680 --> 00:45:13,320
Speaker 1: I haven't read the most stuff, but I've read a

812
00:45:13,320 --> 00:45:15,640
Speaker 1: couple of his books and I like them both. I was.

813
00:45:15,880 --> 00:45:17,879
Speaker 2: I liked McSweeney's humor a lot for a.

814
00:45:17,800 --> 00:45:21,439
Speaker 1: While, Yeah, for sure. And he does great work through

815
00:45:22,360 --> 00:45:26,560
Speaker 1: his charity eight twenty six Valencia and eight twenty six

816
00:45:26,640 --> 00:45:28,759
Speaker 1: National I did a thing recently for them. I read

817
00:45:28,800 --> 00:45:32,560
Speaker 1: a I read like a passage from a book that

818
00:45:32,640 --> 00:45:37,000
Speaker 1: a kid wrote through his charity, and it was cool.

819
00:45:37,280 --> 00:45:38,240
Speaker 1: They did good horrible?

820
00:45:38,480 --> 00:45:39,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, was it any good?

821
00:45:40,400 --> 00:45:41,120
Speaker 1: Yeah? It was good.

822
00:45:41,280 --> 00:45:45,879
Speaker 2: Okay, good because they don't publish bad kids books.

823
00:45:45,800 --> 00:45:48,759
Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, But back to millennial cringe. That's what

824
00:45:48,800 --> 00:45:50,920
Speaker 1: gen Z is about, right, Yeah, And we.

825
00:45:50,920 --> 00:45:53,240
Speaker 2: Should kind of wrap it up with gen Z because

826
00:45:53,280 --> 00:45:56,080
Speaker 2: they have come up with their own version of irony.

827
00:45:56,520 --> 00:45:59,520
Speaker 2: They're pretty preoccupied with it too, but they've taken it

828
00:45:59,560 --> 00:46:04,840
Speaker 2: to such a degree that it's become absurdism rather than irony.

829
00:46:05,200 --> 00:46:09,279
Speaker 2: Whereas irony is very very well defined. It either is

830
00:46:09,400 --> 00:46:12,719
Speaker 2: or it isn't ironic, whatever the thing is. Gen Z

831
00:46:12,920 --> 00:46:15,200
Speaker 2: just mashes all sorts of stuff up and you can't

832
00:46:15,200 --> 00:46:19,000
Speaker 2: tell whether they're supposed to be ironic or not by

833
00:46:19,000 --> 00:46:19,640
Speaker 2: the end of it.

834
00:46:20,360 --> 00:46:22,520
Speaker 1: Maybe that's their aim, confuse the olds.

835
00:46:23,040 --> 00:46:24,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they do a good job of it. There's

836
00:46:25,080 --> 00:46:29,160
Speaker 2: it's called meta irony, where if you're an outsider looking in,

837
00:46:29,280 --> 00:46:32,120
Speaker 2: especially if you're not in the gen Z age group,

838
00:46:32,200 --> 00:46:36,239
Speaker 2: so you're not tapped into what's going on. We we

839
00:46:36,320 --> 00:46:38,320
Speaker 2: have a tendency to really kind of read into stuff

840
00:46:38,320 --> 00:46:40,359
Speaker 2: and try to find the answer to whatever the thing

841
00:46:40,440 --> 00:46:42,839
Speaker 2: is or understand it. Yeah, and if you do that

842
00:46:42,880 --> 00:46:46,480
Speaker 2: with like gen z meta ironic stuff or memes or whatever,

843
00:46:46,560 --> 00:46:51,400
Speaker 2: it's that there, there's that. That'd be madness. There be madness.

844
00:46:52,600 --> 00:46:53,600
Speaker 1: Madness. I like that better.

845
00:46:54,920 --> 00:46:56,600
Speaker 2: Yeah. I feel like I've been hanging on by my

846
00:46:56,640 --> 00:46:59,400
Speaker 2: fingernails this whole episode, and I hate those.

847
00:46:59,760 --> 00:47:01,600
Speaker 1: Well. Well, I mean this is a tough one. Again.

848
00:47:01,640 --> 00:47:03,600
Speaker 1: It's hard to define irony and it's hard to talk

849
00:47:03,680 --> 00:47:04,880
Speaker 1: forty five minutes about.

850
00:47:04,680 --> 00:47:07,520
Speaker 2: It, which is why we talked forty eight minutes about

851
00:47:08,080 --> 00:47:10,359
Speaker 2: good point. You got anything else?

852
00:47:10,600 --> 00:47:11,319
Speaker 1: I have nothing else.

853
00:47:11,480 --> 00:47:14,279
Speaker 2: All right, Well that's it for irony, everybody, and that

854
00:47:14,320 --> 00:47:15,440
Speaker 2: means it's time for listener.

855
00:47:15,520 --> 00:47:21,000
Speaker 1: May Hey, guys love the podcast, look forward to new episodes.

856
00:47:21,000 --> 00:47:23,760
Speaker 1: I wanted to mention a couple of clarifications. The first

857
00:47:23,760 --> 00:47:28,279
Speaker 1: one from the White Boy Rick episode was the pronunciation

858
00:47:28,320 --> 00:47:32,480
Speaker 1: of his last name to pronounce worshe as in Hershey,

859
00:47:32,480 --> 00:47:35,280
Speaker 1: I don't remember what we said. I don't either, Okay,

860
00:47:35,719 --> 00:47:39,960
Speaker 1: it's worshy. The second was Josh kept saying the phrase

861
00:47:40,000 --> 00:47:43,839
Speaker 1: East Detroit, White Boy Rick, the Curry Brothers, etc. Were

862
00:47:43,840 --> 00:47:46,400
Speaker 1: based out of the east side of Detroit at the

863
00:47:46,400 --> 00:47:49,080
Speaker 1: time of their prominence in the drug trade. We mentioned

864
00:47:49,080 --> 00:47:51,440
Speaker 1: this because there was a city just north of Detroit

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Speaker 1: called East Detroit. They're not the same place. In fact,

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00:47:55,080 --> 00:47:57,520
Speaker 1: the city of East Detroit even voted to change their

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00:47:57,600 --> 00:48:01,439
Speaker 1: name to East Point due to confus and negative connotations

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00:48:01,480 --> 00:48:04,960
Speaker 1: about the East side of Detroit. Well, keep up the

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00:48:04,960 --> 00:48:06,640
Speaker 1: great work. We can heard from a couple of people.

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Speaker 1: But that is from Mike in East Point, Michigan.

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00:48:10,320 --> 00:48:14,200
Speaker 2: Nice. Thanks a lot, Mike. We appreciate that. Of course,

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00:48:14,239 --> 00:48:17,560
Speaker 2: there was an East Detroit, right, Yeah.

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00:48:17,280 --> 00:48:21,760
Speaker 1: Well, it's like East Atlanta is an actual neighborhood in Atlanta,

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00:48:21,920 --> 00:48:24,520
Speaker 1: which is east of Atlanta. But it's still not the

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00:48:24,520 --> 00:48:26,080
Speaker 1: same as saying the east side of Atlanta.

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00:48:26,440 --> 00:48:29,600
Speaker 2: No, and I think there's an East Point around Atlanta too, right,

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00:48:30,640 --> 00:48:31,680
Speaker 2: thinking of Athens.

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00:48:31,920 --> 00:48:34,520
Speaker 1: No, no, no, there's an East Point. Okay, but I believe

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00:48:34,560 --> 00:48:38,640
Speaker 1: East Point is south. Isn't that down near the airport?

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00:48:39,000 --> 00:48:41,680
Speaker 2: I don't know. I have blood trickling out of my ears.

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00:48:42,280 --> 00:48:44,120
Speaker 1: All right, let's just wrap it up, Okay.

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00:48:44,640 --> 00:48:45,839
Speaker 2: Well, who was that from.

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00:48:46,040 --> 00:48:46,600
Speaker 1: That's from Mike.

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00:48:47,120 --> 00:48:49,320
Speaker 2: All right, Mike, thank you very much for that email.

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00:48:49,360 --> 00:48:51,279
Speaker 2: We appreciate it. And if you want to be like

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00:48:51,360 --> 00:48:55,040
Speaker 2: Mike and send us well an email address, it to

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Speaker 2: stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.

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00:49:02,280 --> 00:49:05,160
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For

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00:49:05,239 --> 00:49:09,440
Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.