Dude, Not Ironic
A character wrongly declares some situation to be ironic, and another character corrects them.
Often, Irony seems to be something just not everyone can grasp.
Compare to Does Not Understand Sarcasm.
Film
- In the movie Reality Bites, Lelaina was refused a job because she was unable to define irony. She then complains to Troy that nobody knows what it means, and he promptly replies with a clear and succinct definition.
Literature
- A running gag in Discworld regarding dwarves is that they are so straightforward, serious, and unimaginative that they think that irony means "something like iron."
Live-Action TV
- Shawn from Psych in one episode.
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Gus: That's not irony, Shawn. |
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- And in another episode of Psych:
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Shawn: That's ironic, right? |
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- Jason Alexander as host of Saturday Night Live hosted the Show Within a Show "Tales of Irony," during which he complained that none were ironic.
- An episode of King of Queens had Doug call something ironic and Arthur insist that that's not what irony is. At the end of the episode, Arthur wakes Doug up in the middle of the night claiming he looked up ironic in the dictionary, and admits he was wrong: he thought "ironic" meant "made entirely of iron".
- From Blackadder:
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Blackadder: Baldrick, have you no idea what irony is? |
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- Just Shoot Me, "When Nina Met Elliot". After Nina realizes that she was the one who ran Elliot over that day he was going to propose to her girlfriend, the following exchange occurs:
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Nina: You know what's ironic? The same day I ran Elliot down, is the same day I ruined his life forever. |
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- And later, after Elliot's attempt to reunite with the girlfriend turned into a fiasco:
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Elliot: It's ironic, but you running me over that night may have been the best thing that ever happened to me. |
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- Ironically, this means that none of the three of them know what the word means.
- Inversion from Castle: Castle and Beckett are able to identify a murderer because he sends someone to retrieve the victim's mail, which contains evidence that points to him as the killer. Beckett notes that it's ironic that the murderer's efforts to cover for himself got him caught, since the cops weren't planning to check the victim's mail and would never have found the evidence. Castle immediately thanks her for using the word ironic correctly.
- An episode of the short-lived series The George Wendt Show: When someone said something sarcastic, George responded as if he took him seriously. Someone else then said condescendingly, "He was being ironic," to which George replied, "Actually, he was being sarcastic. But it's ironic that you didn't know that."
Music
- Many comedians (in particular Irish comic Ed Byrne) observed that the Alanis Morissette song "Ironic" did not contain a single thing that was ironic, but that may be the point of the song.
- Herbert Lindenberger, professor of comparative literature and English at Stanford, went on NPR to explain that the Morisette song had perfect examples of situational irony and cosmic irony. So apparently, it's pretty (drumroll please) ironic when people claim that the examples in the song are not ironic. According to people who are a lot more educated than most of us.
- One of Jon Lajoie's many rapper personas (from "WTF Collective") is MC Doesn't Know What Irony Is. He really, really doesn't.
Web Animation
- In the season 2 finale of Red vs. Blue, the majority of the cast had a (off-screen) two-hour discussion about whether or not the situation they had found themselves in was ironic. The opening lines to the discussion produces several examples of things which which aren't ironic, including this gem from Caboose:
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"I think it would be ironic if we were all made of iron." |
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Web Comics
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"The irony! Crushed by a giant gorilla... on my birthday!" |
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- In this strip of The Non-Adventures of Wonderella, Wonderella receives an ironic curse that isn't. And then another curse that isn't a curse at all.
Web Original
- Dave, the Inner Hipster of Film Conscience.
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"You're missing the point, man. Was Plan 9 purposefully ironic? Troll 2? The Room? What do those movies have in common?" |
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Western Animation
- Inverted in Frisky Dingo: when former billionaire Xander Crews winds up homeless, the documentarian says it's ironic how he's now living in cardboard boxes produced by the company he used to own. Xander says that's not what irony means, while the documentarian replies that that's exactly what irony means.
- A running gag in the Futurama episode "The Devil's Hands are Idle Playthings" is Bender correcting the Robot Devil on his use and abuse of the word "irony".
- Homer from The Simpsons: "How ironic. Now he's blind, after a life of being able to see."