Decoding the World of Portlandia
In the first episode of IFC's Portlandia, the critically-acclaimed comedy starring Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein, we learn that the dream of the '90s is still alive in Portland, Oregon, "the Greenest City in America" known for its microbreweries, fine coffees, and organic produce. And, as we find out in the various characters Armisen and Brownstein play in this sketch comedy, there are plenty of righteous do-gooders here in Yuppie-ville, USA. The show makes fun of obnoxious yuppies and hipsters, yes, but what makes it so hilarious is that the people Portlandia is ridiculing really do exist. They're types we all know captured perfectly by the show: the person with a bazillion mobile and electronic devices (all from the Apple store, of course); the person who references in conversation the many culturally elite publications he reads, like the New Yorker, the New York Times, Mother Jones, etc; the person who pays one dollar more for that organic orange, and tells you about it; the person who dons his canvas grocery bag to the Trader Joe's.
The people that Portlandia is satirizing are all better than the rest of us, or at least they think they are (you can watch some choice clips here). As a personal anecdote, one time several years ago, I was at the beach with my younger brother, who was then a toddler. He had found some sand dollars in the water so we were putting them out to dry. But a young yuppie who saw us came over and said disapprovingly, "You know, those are living beings."
And there's plenty of moral opprobrium in the show. One of Portlandia's stock characters is a manic bike rider (Armisen) who dons a whistle, yelling at people and cars to get out of his way, cheering "Go Vegan!" from time to time, and bragging "I don't have a driver's license"---all from the throne of his bicycle seat.
In another clip, this one from the first episode of season one, a young couple goes to a restaurant and asks the waitress if the chicken on the menu is from a local farm. When the waitress presents the chicken's "papers," the couple decides to go to the farm to ensure that it is a humanely run institution. As it turns out, the chickens are as happy as they would be in a Disney movie. But the farm's owner is a creep who is running some sort of cult full of young blond girls. At one point, they all--including Armisen and Brownstein--get on their knees and pray together at the farm.
So this is the dream of the 90s. A critic at the Huffington Post describes it as "our niche-ification and our lack of perspective about the trivial things that we so often latch on to." But it's more than that. There's a distinctively moral element to this nichification. The characters of Portlandia---who are cut-and-pasted from the real world of young adults, like that woman at the beach---are inordinately interested in the markers of living "ethically" in the new politically correct way. This lifestyle possesses them like a religion, complete with its trinkets, icons, and all.
That reminds me of one of my favorite clips, which is about a man who is about to check out at a Whole Foods-type grocery store. In this type of grocery store, which only sells local and organic food and includes a whole array of super-vegan products, the customers usually bring their own enviro-friendly grocery bags because, you know, it's one small step to help save Mother Earth. Well this man forgot his own bag, so he asks the teller at the cash register (Armisen) to put his items in a plastic bag, a Portlandia faux-pas if there ever was one.
Armisen is dumbfounded so calls his supervisor (Brownstein) to the scene. The bagless man guiltily explains, "I forgot my grocery bag." The supervisor is unrelenting and icily explains: "It doesn't matter what you're doing. When I wake up in the morning, my eyes don't forget to open; my heart doesn't forget to beat." In other words, the grocery bag is part of who you are. And if it's not, there's something morally and existentially wrong with you. After a standoff, the man eventually leaves carrying his many groceries---watermelon and all---in his hands.
These external markers are not just accessories that you own, they are part of your very self. In another scene that illustrates this point, Brownstein is about to get into her car, but she drops her phone. It's not just any phone, It's her treasured iPhone. As it's falling, soon to hit the pavement, her cherished memories with her phone flash across the screen---the time she first bought it, the time it helped her locate the perfect brunch spot, the time she kissed it good night, the time she texted from her lap at a dinner out with friends. When it finally smashes on the pavement, the viewer sees an image of the girl smashing at the same time. She's nothing without her phone.
The iPhone, the grocery bag, the bike---these are all ways of literally wearing the new religion of moral hedonism on your sleeve. It's all very superficial, of course. A patina of ethics masking behaviors that are all about you and how you feel. But don't tell the characters of Portlandia that. They have created an entire world built around them themselves and their accoutrements---a world that we can laugh at, but that we are all, in many ways, part of too.
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Re: Decoding the World of Portlandia
Another Portlandia fan! R.J. Moeller posted a few clips of the show here, including the one you reference about the couple who order chicken in a restaurant.
Jun '10
Re: Decoding the World of Portlandia
I only eat free-range tofu. Luckily, it's impossible to find, so I never have to eat tofu, thank goodness.
Aug '10
Re: Decoding the World of Portlandia
You neglected to mention the over-the-top transgendered girl character with the giant delivery box holding box within box within box, accompanied by a mountain of popcorn packaging fluff. Cacao !!
Aug '10
Re: Decoding the World of Portlandia
Cacao !
Edited on February 15, 2012 at 6:22pmMay '10
Re: Decoding the World of Portlandia
Don't know the show, but I do like the sound of it, and I especially love the term you use... "new religion of moral hedonism". That captures what I observe following cars around the SF area plastered with dozens of bumper-sticker slogans. I imagine their owner's confidence that the world is troubled only because of a lack of "awareness" or perhaps because of people who's lust for evil is only seen on comic books.
In other words, those not of their bumper-sticker morality are either innately evil or unimaginably ignorant. No wonder they are so self-satisfied.
Re: Decoding the World of Portlandia
My next door neighbor is the head of a local teachers union chapter. Because of the lavish pay and benefits she's been able to accumulate thanks to the muscle of the California Teachers Association, she's moved to this relatively affluent beach community so that her son doesn't have to attend the same run-down schools she teaches in (located in the heart of downtown Los Angeles). She lives with a man who is not her son's father, but won't marry him because it would diminish the amount of college aid her son will be eligible for come admissions time.
The couple has a canvas oil painting of Barack Obama over their fireplace. They drive a mint green Toyota Prius with an Obama 2008 sticker on the left side of the bumper and an Obama 2012 sticker on the right side. She casually mentioned in conversation once that the solution to the hardships faced by Golden State teachers was to fully unionize charter schools and private schools.
All that to say, count yourself lucky if you live in the liberal true believer version of Portlandia. Some of us inhabit the special interest version. Send help.
Mar '11
Re: Decoding the World of Portlandia
I visited Portland once, and it is indeed a foretaste of Ameritopia. I traveled on public transport, of course.
Oh, and I do have a Whole Foods shopping bag (they have the best bacon), as well as Safeways and Frys bags for when I shop there. It's a habit I picked up in England.
And I have an iPhone, drive a Volvo, and commute to work on an electric bike - you'd almost think I was a liberal.
Edited on February 15, 2012 at 6:18pmSep '11
Re: Decoding the World of Portlandia
Troy Senik, Ed.: The couple has a canvas oil painting of Barack Obama over their fireplace. They drive a mint green Toyota Prius with an Obama 2008 sticker on the left side of the bumper and an Obama 2012 sticker on the right side. She casually mentioned in conversation once that the solution to the hardships faced by Golden State teachers was to fully unionize charter schools and private schools.
All that to say, count yourself lucky if you live in the liberal true believer version of Portlandia. Some of us inhabit the special interest version. Send help. · 12 minutes ago
Troy, you had me until I read "canvas oil painting" of BO. This can't be true.
Aug '11
Re: Decoding the World of Portlandia
For years I was lectured by leftists that we conservatives were these pious church-lady types who needed to, y'know, unclench a bit.
But when it comes to pious busybodies, these freaks take the (whole grain) cake. Remember that vid we were all discussing recently where the dad shoots his daughter's computer? You know what set off my lefty associates? The fact that he was SMOKING in the video, and he DROPPED THE CIGARETTE BUTT ON HIS LAWN!
Oh yeah, they loathed his parenting, but the cigarette drove them bughouse.
I have a busybody neighbor up the block (complete with Recall Walker! sign in her yard). One day while I was out spraying our apple tree (so we could have tasty tasty apples in the fall) she screeched to a halt on her bicycle to ask if what I was spraying was organic.
I wanted to tell her it was none of her business.
I wanted to tell her it was poison, and it would get into the ground water and all her hair would fall out.
I wanted to tell her to go away.
Instead I think I muttered something like "i . . . dunno . . . my wife bought it . . ."
Dec '10
Re: Decoding the World of Portlandia
David Williamson: Oh, and I do have a Whole Foods shopping bag (they have the best bacon), as well as Safeways and Frys bags for when I shop there. It's a habit I picked up in England.
And I have an iPhone, drive a Volvo, and commute to work on an electric bike - you'd almost think I was a liberal. · 3 minutes ago
The difference is why you do all those things. Utility vs. moral superiority.
Jun '11
Re: Decoding the World of Portlandia
I had a long-term customer in Portlandia and very much enjoyed my visits. But living there would have been exhausting; the whiff of anarcho-tyranny was everywhere.
Everything goes...until it doesn't and then one never knew what line was crossed. One day plastic bags were better than paper because they're recyclable, the next they're not because they strangle sea life.
Re: Decoding the World of Portlandia
That incredulity was exactly how I reacted when I first saw it. But, alas, it is true. It's an oil rendering of the "Hope" poster from 2008. I'm assuming they won it at a union raffle.
Flagg Taylor
Troy Senik, Ed.: The couple has a canvas oil painting of Barack Obama over their fireplace. They drive a mint green Toyota Prius with an Obama 2008 sticker on the left side of the bumper and an Obama 2012 sticker on the right side. She casually mentioned in conversation once that the solution to the hardships faced by Golden State teachers was to fully unionize charter schools and private schools.
All that to say, count yourself lucky if you live in the liberal true believer version of Portlandia. Some of us inhabit the special interest version. Send help. · 12 minutes ago
Troy, you had me until I read "canvas oil painting" of BO. This can't be true. · 11 minutes ago
Nov '10
Re: Decoding the World of Portlandia
"The characters of Portlandia . . . are inordinately interested in the markers of living "ethically" in the new politically correct way. This lifestyle possesses them like a religion, complete with its trinkets, icons, and all."
IOW, they're liberals. Their 'religion' is a constant search for a moral high ground --a late, dessicated form of Puritanism. Practically speaking, it is co-dependency writ large-- a type of grandiosity by which they fend of all anxieties by cultivating the illusion of control. A classic example is their reaction to terrorism: their first instinct is to wonder what "we" did to make them do that. Armed with the authority to certify victims, they are always ready to validate their moral bona-fides. Indeed, all problems are soluble, for in the end, we need only change ourselves. Even poor old Mother Nature is totally under humanity's malign sway. Middle East a problem? That's our fault too, since we support Israel. And whatever they can't shoehorn into their narrow little worldview can be ignored. Hence their characteristic selective indignation. Life is simple for the solipsist.
Nov '10
Re: Decoding the World of Portlandia
CACAO to canvas oil paintings of Obama.
Aug '10
Re: Decoding the World of Portlandia
cacao
Apr '11
Re: Decoding the World of Portlandia
I learned about that show late, but as an Oregon native who's lived near Portland for about half of his life, I find that show just brilliant.
To use the old cliché: It's funny because it's true.
Feb '11
Re: Decoding the World of Portlandia
It is essential to these people that they be able to display their superiority. That limits the venues they infest. In the wilderness areas I hike in, there is nobody to impress, so I usually have the 50 or 100 square miles all to myself. Unfortunately, at the end of the day I have to return the blight...
Aug '10
Re: Decoding the World of Portlandia
I make a high-protein, honey-sweetened, tofu-based chocolate creme pie that is to die for.
And now, I'm not gonna let you have a slice.
So there.
Aug '10
Re: Decoding the World of Portlandia
Just say yes. Anything is "organic" when one can simply make up one's own definitions for words.
Aug '10
Re: Decoding the World of Portlandia
Anybody else getting a banner ad on this thread for all-natural Indonesian Swallow Birds Nests?
Google's algorithms are so weird.