Holy Fools

It seems we are in a post-ironic age. It was inevitable. The seriousness of our times was going to permeate popular culture. Irony is a luxury for superfluous matters.
Even comedy, the most impervious of genres, has caught the general earnestness (I feel like there should be a less awkward word for this--earnestosity?).
Last night I saw Borat in a pretty full (for a Tuesday night) theater in Hollywood and everyone, including me, was howling. The basic premise of this movie is that a severly uninformed journalist from Kazahkstan comes to America to learn something of value to bring back home. Hilarity and scathing social satire ensue. Borat is as far from ironic as you can get. He is deadly serious in his ignorance and bigotry. He requires the audience to take it seriously as well, and it's funnier if you do.
He reminded me of another earnest comedy this summer, which was something of a surprise hit (and also made me howl, particularly at the end): Little Miss Sunshine. In this movie, the Hoover family takes a road trip to California so their little girl can compete in the Little Miss Sunshine pageant. They are not ironic people, even the teenage brother goes along under protest, but harboring his own serious ambitions. And finally, when Olive Hoover has her moment to shine, it's killer comedy, but only becuase she has no idea what's so funny.
Actors like Will Farrell and Steve Carrell have made careers playing these happy idots on the big and small screens. Characters who make us laugh beucase they appraoch the world with a generally happy cluelessness that seems to invite comedic mayhem. And they never wink. There is no breaking character here, no aside to audience, implying that we're all laughing together. These characters demand that we laugh at them, even when they're crying. And they're crying because it really hurts.
Shows like My Name is Earl and The Office especially focus on making us laugh at serious people encountering a world they don't entirely get. The purposefully witty banter of the Friends and Seinfeld gangs' overly-educated and under-involved young urbanites is no where to be seen in these shows, and one-liner jokes are notably absent. Imagine Chandler or Jerry in The Office--no one would get him!
Irony had a good run, and it was definitely getting too easy. There's a formula to any sort of comedy (this one has it too), and once everyone has figured it out, it's not as funny any more. And if it also ceases to be relevant, then it must be replaced. In a way, I think irony set us up for sincerity: if we weren't all so cynical and world-weary then Borat and the Hoovers might actually seem like tragic figures.