I love this! There are so many things going on here- is it irony or parody? and if it is an ironic or parodic take on Magritte's painting (which is ironic itself, no?) then is this double irony? Or is it just a double entendre? Or is this a triple entendre?
I know those are kind of boring questions to ask, but I think that one thing about our acculturation to irony is that we as a generation (or perhaps I'm just projecting here) tend to over use the word without really understanding what it means.
Thoughts? Definitions? Better questions or observations about these pieces??
3 comments:
sorry, my brain can't function right now (it's 2:45 am...just got out of my job [moffitt comp lab] 30 min ago gaaaaah), but -- i really like these images! it's very clever. i feel like the artist probably knows that those who would like/know magritte would be the same group of people who would enjoy this play on advertising. but i think that if you don't know magritte, it's more cutesy than clever ... aaaand i also think i need to go to bed.
Well, the reader will see what the reader wants to see, I suppose! I was so taken with the resemblance to Magritte's painting, that I missed the basic reference to Sherlock Holmes, which has now been pointed out to me a number of times! i think this definitely qualifies as a triple entendre! But what do you think? Do you think that this is even in conversation with the Magritte piece?? I really thought it was, but now i am not so sure...
I feel like a lot of the time, we respond to all this irony acculturation with sarcasm. Though we acknowledge the irony of ads, we can't help but buy into it just a little bit. Ads are an inextricable part of our existence. Like McQuade said, we put ourselves in a superior position to it... but even further, I think we try to justify our submersion in consumer culture by making oblique, indirect attacks at the inescapable irony by using sarcasm.
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