With the finale of the 2024 Paris Olympics upon us, two big cultural events of note this summer — the opening ceremony of the grand sporting event and the release of "Deadpool & Wolverine" — both offered dazzling spectacles saturated with irony.
But that is about all they have in common, and by analyzing their differences, we can better appreciate the profoundly ambiguous nature of irony today.
Ironic distance toward the prevailing social order often functions as a barely veiled form of conformism. As The Observer’s Wendy Ide wrote of "Deadpool & Wolverine," which is merely the latest installment in an apparently never-ending cycle of Marvel superhero blockbusters, the movie “can be obnoxious and simultaneously very funny. ... But it’s also slapdash, repetitive and shoddy looking, with an overreliance on meme-derived gags and achingly meta comic fan in-jokes.”
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