purposed irony is our way to sincerity

When New Sincerity emerged in the early scatters of the millennium, as has been well-espoused in this blog, the pundits all unverifiably claimed irony itself finito. dunndada. see ya later innovator. We, the culture of our collective esteem, were on an exacting track toward a struggle of extremes - a struggle we're still in the midst of & trying to find compromise & consummation in.

Did you catch my rhetorical wink-nod using unverifiably? wah wah wah.

Thing is, Life, our very root existence itself as gamed by Godhead, is an inherent contradiction. We are of the most dynamic romantic dramedy. But, you know what God wants of Us... extraordinary me and you, to finally become God. The elder statesman, the mama-papa bear's getting old (somewhere in Time), and the Will's been signed. But before we can inherit the diaspora of splendor, cool things of great worth & superfly magic vision, as only a well-meaning, somewhat masochistic parent would, God has given his children a series of obstacles, or rather holistically speaking, one very labyrinthine obstacle. A divinely assembled coalescing of temptations, vanities & intellectual smut to test our emotional reasoning, also known as our soul power. Judgment Day, or those last filial nudges a parent gives to their son or daughter whom is transitioning from the immaturity & apathy of adolescence to the actionable, focused resolve of young adulthood.

...From young adulthood, it'll be up to us to become sage, but first thing's first, let's work on presence and now.

In this struggle, irony has become a surgeon's knife, albeit sometimes blunted & not always disinfected. First out of a young generation seeped in sarcasm's yearning for something real, or more real, instead of the contrived hypercapitalist gloss they were born & cultivated in. Not to say, we're not contrived & mirror-adoring, we are, but we understand it, we self-mock it. Therein lies the intervention of our self-involvement, our supreme sense of self-authorship.

Rather than the closeted, nose-thumbing & wrap-around perverse exploitation of it, the impossible blockbuster action movie with meta-erectile dysfunction or the male hegemonic packaged rom-coms with meta-silicone sandbags pawning themselves off as this is how it should be. We embrace it. We were raised, innocents, in the pinnacle of postmodernity's takeover & took with us the sardonic sword & have learned the fullest grasp of aesthetic. We have all the tools of the hegemony to use against it. And we're more skilled & less self-deceiving about it. We've used self-effacing kitsch & irony to deconstruct every gloss-lipstick of former cultures, pop & otherwise, integrating them tongue-in-cheek into our hyper-mash-up style. Now the final piece of the puzzle, the consummation: Can we find focus of our potential? Because irony without purpose is a dead end. Rather, irony, ultimately speaking, that deconstructs without the intention of reconstructing is ironic, tragically so. So, can we get our tongues off outta our cheeks & smile sincere?

The above trailer, Van Damme's newest, is an exemplar of this deconstruction, this perceptive & economical shift that promises one step closer to sincerity, or as I like to see it, our kingdom of heaven.

deadpan to pan the man

There was this deceptive approximation of 'personality' that emerged and that was embellished by the postmodern construction. It was overzealous to please, to be clever, to stand out. A guise of artifice that masked us from being considered 'boring'. In recent years, springing from post 9-11 undercurrent, there's been a segue, a reaction into deadpan humor. To name drop: Apatow, Steve Carrell, Will Ferrell, and perhaps, a sign that deadpan has gone its course, Flight of the Condors , a show so indulgent in deadpan it's plain lazy (I do enjoy the music video segments though. The Bowie one was memorable).

Deadpan reflected post 9-11, dissensitized, drained, numb, and more tellingly, fed up with spiteful-sarcasm overload. Consider even the semiotics of the term itself. But deadpan is giving way to true sincerity, comedy giving way to its truer form, dramedy. It's made possible a transition to a sense of humor where we laugh at our own jokes, at the funny things we say and do. Not have be loud or obnoxious to have our jokes appreciated. To be confident in our distinct comedic senses. To laugh at each other for our silly behavioral moments and idiosyncrasies, and not try to trump them with sarcastic rebuttals. Which are cheap and bland anyways.

Steve Carell, at his best, is a pioneer toward the comedic sincere. Dan in Real Life glimpses into this potential. Unfortunately, the marketing, especially the trailers, were unable to showcase the subtlety, tenderness, and charm of the film.

Pan is alive. Peter that is. Consider the comedic giants that arose in the 80s (Chevy, Murray, Murphy), and those of today (Carell, Ferrell). The prior, smartasses. The latter, you might say, dumbasses, but more specifically, naive, mislead, filled with childlike wonderment waiting to escape from this postmodern construct of 'adult'. Recommendations: Forster-Helm's Stranger Than Fiction, McKay-Ferrell's Talladega Nights.

Pan is still alive. He never left.