Where Liberals Mock Themselves

“Portlandia” is a magical land where liberals satirize their own sacred cows.

I discovered Portlandia back in 2012, when it was in its second season, and have been watching it ever since. It hasn’t always been funny (few comedy shows are), but living in an area that sheds population to Portland, I find it relatable enough to tune in.

In my initial take, I wrote that Portlandia is the place where liberals feel free to mock themselves for their own amusement, and for that reason the show creates a unique window into the liberal worldview. I’m quite happy with this take.

Liberals would never do Portlandia humor in front of the middle-of-the-road national audience because this audience looks at them through different lenses. The schism is particularly obvious with Toni and Candice, owners of feminist bookstore Women And Women First. Believe it not, the comedy show creators Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownsten see the bookstore skits as gentle satire, and In Other Words, a real life feminist bookstore in Portland, allowed them to film on its premises. But to a viewer not inhabiting their ideological universe, Toni and, especially, Candace represent the dead end of ‘the personal is political’ Second Wave radicalism. Candice, played by Armisen outfitted in a wig and shapeless hippy dresses, is as pathetic as she is awful. Contrary to In Other Words’, it’s not the cross dressing itself that creates this impression (Armisen and Brownsten do it in other skits as well, and with a different effect) but the character of Candice.

In last Thursday’s episode Candice showed up at Toni’s house with a newspaper. A headline that reads “Planned Parenthood Attacked” gets the duo outraged. (Incidentally, I tried to locate the story in a Portland newspaper, but all I could come up with was a short notice on anti-abortion protesters attacked with Comet cleaner in front of Planned Parenthood. Presumably Planned Parenthood in Portland was attacked at some point, and I just can’t find the evidence.) Candice and Toni decide to volunteer for Planned Parenthood. They phone the organization, which asks them to come in for a group volunteer orientation. Candice senses that they’d be assigned entry level tasks but feels that as a post-structuralist feminist she should be the one running the show at Planned Parenthood. She begins screaming at the clerk who assures embarrassed Toni that her friend’s behavior doesn’t faze her because they get calls like that “all the time.”

All the time, huh? I trust Portlandia knows the people it satirizes. It makes sense, too, because a degree in post-structuralist feminism gets a college graduate a volunteer position at Planned Parenthood and a heart filled with resentment.

Abortion advocates complain that protesters outside Planned Parenthood are disruptive. I imagine their internal politics of Sisterhood are equally, if not more, demoralizing. Granted, internal politics tend to be that way.

The episode calls attention to the fact that Portlandia only got to the subject of abortion in its final season. By contrast, they had countless episodes on food and dining. Of course, Portlandia is a lighthearted show about the tastes and customs of the residents of Portland, Oregon. It does, however, like to dig into bigger issues, if only a little bit. It also featured many skits with the radical feminist duo. Could it be that termination of the unborn life is not a laughing matter?

Could it also be that abortion is not very important to the very women who use it as a central organizing principle of their movement? In the time and place where contraception is cheap and plentiful, most abortion advocates don’t have abortions. Most women don’t have abortions. Pro-abortion groups have to rely on largely theoretical points about maybe needing “the procedure”, but even then it’s hard to explain how abortion at week 20 can be so urgently required to keep women liberated.

Compared to, for instance, Soviet women, Americans don’t talk about abortion among themselves. It’s not a part of our everyday reality, thankfully, it doesn’t animate our thoughts. Contraception, on the other hand, is a frequent topic of conversation among young women here.

Tellingly, the only characters on Portlandia who venture into discussion of abortion are two lesbians. Could it be because on the pro-choice side abortion is important for reasons of political power and not any kind of lived experience that’s paramount elsewhere in progressive activism?

When In Other Words finally parted ways with Portlandia, it not because the show reflected poorly on feminism, but because they didn’t feel properly compensated for the inconvenience and conflicts associated with intersectionality. When Portlandia first aired, transsexuals were hardly on anyone’s radar, but today Portland’s feminists see the show as “trans-antagonistic and trans-misogynist”. They also want to see non-white characters, even though the comedy show is ostensibly about white liberals: Dream of The Nineties Is Alive In Portland. I suppose Portlandia is twice behind the times: first intentionally, as a comedy and as a 90’s California capsule, second tragically, for not keeping up with political correctness. The former can be forgiven. The latter, will not.