I’ve decided to start blogging here again (though we’ll see how long this resolution lasts). And as I see it, there is no better way to start again than by providing the internets with something they seem to lack (based on 5 minutes’ worth of googling): An irrefutable defense of Alanis Morissette’s widely criticized usage of the word "ironic" in the (aptly-named, as I will show) 90’s hit song, "Ironic." This will also provide me with motivation to continue blogging, since I will not want this ridiculous post to be associated with my name in google searches forever.
The Wikipedia page on this issue says that in response to her critics, Alanis has granted that her song contains no genuine irony, but claims that this is precisely what makes the song ironic. This strategy is cheating and I will not use it. Instead, I want to show that Alanis should have stuck to her guns. I think the scenarios in her song are ironic in several widely accepted senses of the word.
In the song, Alanis suggests that
(1) You have 10,000 spoons and all you need is a knife.
is ironic. This guy suggests that (1) is not ironic, but
(2) You have 10,000 spoons and all you need is a knife, and you’re in the break room of a cutlery factory.
is ironic. How’s that? Presumably, (2) is ironic because it’s the opposite of what you’d expect: you’d expect the break room of a cutlery factory to contain at least one knife. But (1) is also the opposite of what you’d expect: you’d expect anyone who has 10,000 spoons to have at least one knife. So it seems to me that if (2) succeeds in being ironic, (1) does, too.
A complaint about a different line is suggested by a parody, here. On Alanis’s view,
(3) An 88-year-old man wins the lottery, then dies the next day.
is ironic. The author of the parody seems to think that (3) isn’t ironic, but
(4) An 88-year-old man wins the lottery, then dies the next day "of chronic emphysema from inhalation of the latex particles scratched off decades’ worth of lottery tickets."
is ironic. Well, if we suppose unexpectedness is the criterion, then (4) might actually be less ironic than (3) (since, ceteris paribus, people who have chronic emphysema are more likely to die than those who don’t). Of course, there is something odd, and perhaps unexpected, about being killed by the very activity that provides you with vast riches, and that’s not what happens in (3). But there is also something odd and unexpected about dying the day after acquiring vast riches.
In light of these considerations, I suppose charity requires us to assume that the above critics of Alanis don’t take unexpectedness to be the criterion of irony. What else might they mean? Dictionary.com defines irony:
1. containing or exemplifying irony: an ironic novel; an ironic remark.
2. ironical.
3. coincidental; unexpected: It was ironic that I was seated next to my ex-husband at the dinner.
3 is the only immediately helpful part, and I’m not going to bother with anything that isn’t immediately helpful. 3, we have seen, is a count in Alanis’s favor. But the usage note on the same page seems to be at odds with Dictionary.com’s own definition:
The words ironic, irony, and ironically are sometimes used of events and circumstances that might better be described as simply "coincidental" or "improbable," in that they suggest no particular lessons about human vanity or folly.
OK; so maybe Alanis’s critics are taking it as required that a genuinely ironic scenario must contain a "lesson about human vanity or folly." The critics might rightly point out, for example, that there is no obvious vanity-folly lesson in (1). And I’m inclined to agree to this. But there’s no obvious such lesson in (2), either. Further, the situation with (3) and (4) is reversed: Perhaps there’s a vanity-folly lesson in (4), but it seems to me there might also be such a lesson in (3).
Anyway, I think that if critics are faulting Alanis for calling her scenarios ironic even though they contain no vanity-folly lessons, then their case against her is likely to be very weak. Arguably, there are lessons about human vanity and folly in just about everything that happens. In any case, it’s certainly never obvious that any given event contains no such lesson. (Exception: events that involve inanimate matter. But no such events are described in "Ironic.") Of course, I’ll grant that any lessons contained in Alanis’s song aren’t obvious, and probably aren’t interesting if they are there; but there is no requirement that one needs obvious or interesting vanity-folly lessons in order to be ironic.
So, by two different accepted criteria for irony — unexpectedness and vanity-folly lessons — I think Alanis’s attribution of irony to scenarios (1) and (3) are defensible. What about the other scenarios in the song? A few of them seem especially suspect. For example, Alanis thinks this is ironic:
(5) Alanis meets the man of her dreams, and then she meets his beautiful wife.
But for all we know, this happens to Alanis all the time. Anyway, there’s nothing in general unusual about someone being attracted to a married person. Similarly,
(6) You’re in a traffic jam, and you’re already late.
is the sort of thing that happens all the time.
Is there any hope for Alanis’s view that these scenarios are ironic? I think that these scenarios may be considered unexpected if one assumes a very optimistic view of life in which we normally get what we want. I think a lot of people hold this sort of view; a lucky few are even justified in holding it. For them, when any of their desires are frustrated, as in (5) and (6), it comes as unexpected. So I think (5) and (6) are, after all, unexpected: they are unexpected by extremely optimistic people.
Further note that (5) and (6) arguably contain vanity-folly lessons. (Again, I’m not claiming that the lessons are good lessons, and my case doesn’t require them to be.)
So, I think Alanis succeeds in providing irony of at least two types. But perhaps the critics have in mind some other sense(s) of irony. And there are plenty of alternatives out there. Many are listed in Wikipedia, which says that
There is some argument about what is or is not ironic, but all the different senses of irony revolve around the perceived notion of an incongruity between (i) what is said and what is meant; or (ii) between an understanding of reality, or an expectation of a reality, and what actually happens. [my numbering]
I think my argument above strongly supports thinking Alanis’s scenarios are ironic in the (ii) senses. But perhaps Alanis’s critics are assuming that all genuine forms irony are along the lines of (i). And it does seem fair to say Alanis has failed to be (i)-style ironic. So it seems everything hinges on whether (ii)-style irony is a genuine form of irony. But it seems to me to be generally accepted that it is. QED.
E.G. 
Leave a comment