On DVD This Week: Hipster Irony Edition
October 14th, 2008 | 3:03 pm est |
I’m convinced that a large portion of the TV-on-DVD market is fueled by irony. At least half the people who own a Walker Texas: Ranger box set, for instance, are probably in it for the lulz. Similarly, the appeal of all the shows on DVD this week seems to be kitsch, camp, and unintended comedy. So clear your schedule and put on a sarcastic t-shirt, because tonight, you’re having a Hipster Irony Party. Here’s the entertainment, and a drinking game to go with each.
TV:
Nash Bridges - Season 1: Don Johnson and Cheech Marin play buddy-cops, cruising the mean streets of San Francisco in a yellow ‘71 Barracuda. Take a drink every time: The pair talk to a past or future Maxim cover model. Double shot if you can spot Hunter S. Thompson in the first episode.
The Partridge Family - Season 3: Flamboyantly dressed family band provide vehicle to showcase David Cassidy’s raw, animal sexuality. Take a drink every time: You can tell Danny Bonaduce is stoned.
CSI - Season 8: An elite law enforcement team solve crimes exclusively through the analysis of semen. Take a drink every time: Somebody mentions semen.
Movies on DVD this week: 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days, The Edge of Heaven, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Mongol, The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything: A Veggie Tales Movie, Standard Operating Procedure, Still Life, Stuck, War, Inc., XXY, and YPF.
It seems as if there is a deeper pool of TV fans than one might think. Sure, somebody might shell out $40 on a season, but ironic Nash Bridges jokes don’t extend far beyond 4 or 5 episodes, let alone several seasons of 24 episodes. I’m sure tastelessness, last-minute gift shopping and plain ol’ Walmarting in Tennessee play a major role in the success.
In the case of Bridges, Carlton Cuse now has a cult following from Lost who probably want to see this as something germane in his artistic oeuvre.
I’ll just wait for Cop Rock and drink everytime a cop shows up or when rock occurs.
lol I do not think mr. Matt Scott here understands that this is a joke. Unless Matt Scott is short for CARLTON CUSE! Nice try Cuse.
I think, or at least hope it’s true, that a large percentage of people might actually like a TV show or book or movie or music whatever because, gasp, they like it, and it genuinely, truly entertains them, makes them feel good, gives them a laugh or cry or have fun or deep thought or escapism and they don’t care who gives them a hard time for it or whether it gets five stars or one star by critics or the fashion police or who’s-hot-who’s-not. Heck, it may be something that gets ordinary people through the day. And there’s a lot more ordinary people who can care less about trends or fashion than there are “hipster ironic” types.
And, believe it or not, not everyone cares or agrees with or can relate to what’s “supposed” to be cute and hip and cool and ironic, we aren’t all cute and hip and good and cool and ironic, and maybe we don’t care and never did. But someone has to have a job telling people who’s hot and who’s not, so all of a sudden there’s this imaginary, irrelevant, stupid line drawn in the sand everyone has to not step over, lest we become, er, open-minded and individual and REAL.
And maybe those who don’t want to let them enjoy who and what they enjoy don’t know how to be, or don’t want anyone else to be open=minded or individual or real, or they have a product or agenda to sell. :-P
My $0.02.
Isn’t it ironic that a professional writer doesn’t understand the difference between irony and sarcasm? This goes for all you hipsters out there as well: Wearing a stupid mustache or buying Walker: Texas Ranger, just to laugh at it is not, repeat, IS NOT irony, it is sarcasm. The two are similar but quite different. Get your collective heads out of your Palahniuk books for one minute and pick up an English text book sometime. Being smug about looking intellectual and actually being educated are two different things as well.
Do any of you people regularly read this writers weekly DVD posts? She always just makes some jokes about the weeks releases with a theme to tie them together. This blog is far from hip and if you can’t tell that this post is MAKING FUN of “hipster irony” then maybe you’re the one with the problem. And Chris Robinson: I’ll get a dictionary when you get in touch. Take your granddad grammatical complaints somewhere else, “hipster irony” is the name that the concept is known by in America. Next are you going to complain that people call them “movie trailers” even though they don’t come at the end of the movie anymore?