‘Portlandia’ Review: Sketch Comedy Targets Liberal Culture with Good Natured Style
by Lee StranahanBecause of Hollywood’s default liberal culture, it’s almost impossible to watch comedy that has any social or political relevance that doesn’t go squarely after conservative targets with gleeful and mean-spirited offensiveness. For the most part, conservative comedy lovers would just do well to fasten their seat belts and get ready for the bumpy ride, because attack comedy on right-wing targets is just part of the territory.
But does it have to be that way? Imagine a sketch comedy show that pokes fun at clueless liberal mayors, politically correct feminists, and entitled hipster butt-inskys. Sound impossible in today’s climate? Surprisingly, the most politically incorrect comedy show out there right now might just be IFC’s “Portlandia.” All six episodes of the first season of the show are currently available for streaming on Netflix, and the second season starts January 21st on IFC.
“Portlandia” is the brainchild of “Saturday Night Live”’s Fred Armisen and musician Carrie Brownstein. It’s a half-hour show set entirely in the left-wing magnet city of Portland, Oregon. In the very first episode, they say that Portland is a city where the 1990s never ended (it’s “a place where young people go to retire”) and sure enough, Armisen and Brownstein have created a cast of Portland-based characters with the requisite tribal piercings, chin beards, and indigenous pantsuits.
Make no mistake — this isn’t a show created by conservatives. It’s clear that Armisen and Brownstein love Portland for all its ’90s grungy counter-culture, but they also understand how goofy it is and they aren’t afraid to goof on it. The result is a show full of sketches that skew liberal icons in a good-natured way. The show makes a few sexual references throughout the episodes and a bit of cursing so if you’re a parent, you might watch to decide if it’s adults only. You get a high dose of snark without the bitter aftertaste. The closest they come to a right-wing attack is saying “it’s like the Bush administration never happened.”
Armisen is a fairly known quantity from his work on “SNL,” but the sketches on “Portlandia” are much better — they play with a more experimental palette and don’t have to fit into the familiar SNL frameworks of fake TV game shows or recurring characters doing the same catchphrase week after week. The looser format of “Portlandia” allows Armisen to spread his wings beyond his uninspired Barack Obama impersonation and show his smarter, geekier and goofier side.
The show’s revelation is Carrie Brownstein, formally with the Pacific Northwest riot grrl band Sleater Kinney and now fronting a new band called Wild Flags. I’d never seen Brownstein act before, and she immediately became one of my favorite sketch comedy actresses. She’s able to pull off characters ranging from dour woman’s studies types, self-important activists and overly happy hippies. She even does a couple of gender bending bits. She has a smile that lights up the screen and, as one of the show’s four credited writers, she seems to be inhabiting characters she knows well.
Even though I’m guessing that neither Armisen or Brownstein would be caught dead voting Republican, the comedy premises of “Portlandia” could have been written by a conservative cultural commentator pointing out the hypocrisies and foibles of the modern liberal. Rather than try to describe the sketches, just take a look for yourself.
Here, a couple of literary name-droppers compete to see who’s more well read:
A type of political commercial we’ve seen a million times offers a unique plan to end unemployment:
And a feminist bookstore owner lusts after a girl who just wants to write about how awesome her boyfriend Chad is:
Given the choice between getting silly and going for the jugular, the good-natured “Portlandia” always veers towards the absurd, and that’s one of the show’s many virtues. It manages to make some points about human nature without getting preachy or forgetting that comedy should be entertaining. The show’s guest appearances like Heather Graham, Steve Buscemi, Aimee Mann, and the wacked out Portland mayor played by Kyle MacLachlan add a surprise to every episode.
“Portlandia” is sure to make some people want to move to Oregon right away and sure to make other people avoid it like the plague. However you feel, if you like quick sketch comedy that doesn’t go after the usual targets, you’ll enjoy your visit to “Portlandia.”
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53 Comments
I see commercials for this all the time, and I've wanted to see what it was all about but didn't want to waste my time if it was a liberal stroke-job.
Thanks for the heads up, I'll definitely check it out.
The states of Washington and Oregon ruined the 1990's.
God I hated that decade.
You're thinking of "The Goode Family".
If you have Comcast, IFC is showing episodes 4, 5 and 6 of the first season On Demand. I'll have to check it out when I get home from work.
The Goode Family
I caught a few episodes & it is pretty funny. Steve Buscemi getting trapped in an independent "womyn's" bookstore was one of my favorite moments. That & "Put a Bird on It!" Check it out, you'll like it.
No bro, it's more of a satire of art/slacker culture and very funny because most of the stereotypes about people in Portland, as with most artist/slacker types, are true.
Yes, that's it. Thanks!
It is a very funny show. The bike riding guy is hilarious. He shouts, 'Biker's rights!' and rides his bike in a bus. And the sketch about the recycling couple was hilarious, with a closing line about how they don't really save more money than anyone by recycling/reusing/dumpster diving because of all the time they spend on it.
Agreed on the bookstore–I watched it as a clip before the full episodes were available, and I am wondering what in the sam hill is going on there.
I love Portlandia, and if you're checking out IFC you should give The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret a look. David Cross as a fish out of water in London who makes increasingly poor decisions
It is a cute and easygoing show. Not sure if I will watch all episodes, but it does have its moments.
The final skit was the epitome of liberal thought.
If everyone is not as miserable as they are…
…they will damned sure see to it that you become so very soon.
Fortunately, DTV includes IFC in the 'F-U' package. I call it the F-U package because going from having every channel known to man to nothing but every channel I never watched was a bit of a shock. Scrolling through hundreds of channels only to find nothing on to having IFC as the only movie channel to scroll through felt like I was getting reamed.
To the contrary. Just the right amount. I just noticed the Portlandia promos and thought about giving it a test drive. Thanks to the trust we instill in Lee the DVR is locked & loaded on Portlandia. They should give you a commission.
The wild rivers in Oregon rock. The voters are as dumb as door nails.
This show is pretty funny, and spot on. I was in Portland about a year before it came out and was asked when I got back to Jersey, 'So what's Portland like?' and all I could say was 'Very 90s'. Very much a city of extremes too…I've never seen so many health food nuts and crazy donut shops in one place. Probably the weirdest thing happened to me when I happened to be wearing my Reagan T-shirt in the style of Obama's Hope poster that says 'Right'. It had me getting stopped left and right(no pun intended), stared at for a second, then complete strangers would give me the thumbs up and say 'cool t-shirt' or something along those lines. It got to the point where my girlfriend at the time told me I couldn't wear that on any vacations anymore.
Thanks for this article. I LOVE PORTLANDIA!
This show is so funny, I've had the Season 2 premiere data on my calendar for a couple of weeks. I bought Season 1's episodes on Amazon last year and it is PRICELESS. Although the creators themselves are left-leaning hipsters, they routinely poke fun of the hipster culture (thus usually the Left) and how seriously it takes itself. For example, they blast the ardent-feminist types who own a local bookstore, the organic-food lovers who question whether their chicken was treated well and what his name was, etc.
Thanks GobBluth. I love Portlandia and hadn't heard of this other show. Looked it up and it seems great. Thanks for the heads up
The best line of that scene: "When I see a man pull out money away from a cash register… I have to wonder" (if Buscemi is a pimp). Hilarous.
Check out the adult hide-and-seek league sketch.
And now whenever I see a bird on something I think, "put a bird on it. put. a. bird. on. it."
Don't blame us Washingtonians. 90% of what your whining about was the result of all the wacko fringe Californians that moved here in the late 80's. The other 10% I blame on the Canadians.
As far as Oregon goes, I won't try and defend them – they are looney tunes
Thanks for the review Lee Stranahan. I like this show.
The bike rider skit is actually closer to the truth that most people would guess. Portland riders are horrible, but thanks to Seattles pedal pushing mayor, bike riders in Seattle are giving Portland's riders a run for their money when it comes to dickish behavior.
That chicken skit, I remember it. That was some funny stuff.
FWIW, I grew up in the suburbs of Portland, and rest assured, though what they spoof is pretty spot-on, that pretty much only applies to Portland proper. The suburbs are pretty much like any other suburbs — much less hipster craziness, more normalcy.
Intriguing.
I love this show. I've lived in Portland for 17 years and when I saw this advertised last year I thought it would be something to avoid. Then a friend starting watching it and said she's not sure if she likes it because it makes fun of all the great things in Portland. After that I had to watch it and it really is funny. I was so surprised they were poking fun at all the ridiculous things in this town. Being a commercial photographer I end up working with many of the Portland "hipsters", the ones that actually have jobs. It can get tiresome driving amongst all the Volvos and Subarus with their hope and change stickers that are pasted over the Kerry / Edwards stickers, and right next to the "Keep Portland Weird" stickers. I hope the second season can stay on the same track and not do the typical Hollywood thing and start bashing conservatives.
You know – that is what Seinfeld was like. They skewered liberal ideas all the time (The New York City liberal.) I didn't even realize that when I watched it in the 90s – I just thought it was funny. Now I see how they are kind of attacking the typical Liberal attitudes of the time, even if the main writers are liberals themselves. I'll have to check out this and see if it has the same type of humor.
Curb Your Enthusiasm does this as well.
Love this show! Have been to Portland a few times (had a a bookgasm in Powells, greatest bookstore on Earth) and they do seem to nail it. This is how you do satire.
Hank, the clips above are a good sampling. If you liked them you'll like the show. I have been looking forward to the second season, myself.
I absolutely LOVE Portlandia! It's a breath of fresh air. Even though it's done by probable liberals, it's never mean-spirited and it's just a fun show to watch. I briefly lived in Portland in the early 90s and it takes me back each time I watch it.
Grew up in "Moscow on the Willamette" aka Eugene. Spent many weekends in Portland
The chicken skit was fabulous ("here are his papers"), also the one with the couple competing over who'd read the most newly relevant articles.
I watched several episodes last year. It is indeed funny, and very typical of the "enlightened" ones we have in our own area. However, it is SO accurate that I end up getting depressed when I realize they are allowed to vote.
I've just watched the first 3 episodes. You know what show it reminds me of? The Kids in the Hall. Except…cleaner XD
Although in the 90's I was a "tweener" (that stage between an 18 year old and a 21 year old), I never got the whole grunge movement, and IMO, Nirvana sucked balls…I thought oily greasy hair was supposed to be a big turn-off as I grew up? From then on, whiny music sounds just like nails on chalk boards to me. So while I can say that I must love the 90's, since that is the decade when my three children were born, but I hate the 90's too for the spew that came out of the left coast. I am with ya, MiM.
liberal show, wont watch, dont care.
It was the music and the self absorbed teens of the time I was referring to. Namely music like grunge and neo-hippie bands like Phish and Dave Matthews that kids my age were obsessed with. I didn't relate to my generation at all by that point.
I had to turn to Europe for good music through pretty much the whole decade. Good American bands were few and far between.
Those teens your describing have always been around, and the reason they have gotten so much attention since the 90s is because the media and the music industry finally found a way to market to them, and extract money from their pockets. Someday I'm sure they'll wake up and realize that the entire grunge movement was just another rock n roll marketing scheme that they bought hook line and sinker.
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Right on Lee! Portlandia is the most radical (and hilarious) show on TV because it isn't afraid to to poke fun at the sacred cows of the Left. As you said, with good nature. It's funny because it's accurate. The reason why SNL isn't funny is because the "Right-wing" characterizations are simply off-base and just snarky.
The funniest stuff is based on things that we all know to be true–and we can identify with. In "Extras" Ricky Gervais was genius with "real life" funny/humiliating situations.
It just proves there is a way of doing political/cultural comedy that's not brutal and slashing. I'm not afraid to laugh at some of the silliness of conservative/libertarian culture (God knows there's quite a bit to laugh at), but Hollywood doesn't produce anything that isn't also mean-spirited and thus not actually funny. Of course they're able to make fun of fellow liberals. For comedy to work, there has to be an element of true understanding and even some common ground. That's why the political comedy of the left aimed at the right doesn't work most of the time.
Portlandia is funny in part because you sense that the writers are close to their targets. It's not just that it's targeting liberals. It's just actually good comedy. Just like Jeff Foxworthy's comedy about rednecks works, because he is one. He gets it. He understands the internal thought-process. Liberals don't understand conservatives, and their attempts at humor often highlight their own ignorance, rather than enlighten.
Just watched the first episode on Netflix. It totally reminds me of a friend who lives in Portland, the Greek-Jewish Lesbian Wiccan Vegan who works at Planned Parenthood and was a delegate for Obama in 2008 and literally called me a sexist because I don't date women ( though she's not sexist for not dating men since, in her words, gay relationships are purer and truer ).
I giggled all through the episode and when not laughing was nodding my head at all the times something like -that- has happened to me or within ear-shot. Portlandia is funny because the people it lampoons are just that messed up. God love 'em.
"His name was Craig…"
Like how George's parents were in near ecstasy over the mention of Mayor Dinkin's name
I saw that — the one in the library with the elderly lady going: "What are you DOING?" lol
I liked the premier for Season II of Portlandia, but it is not as good as Season I. Still, I would recommend it. And Portland does remind me of my home town, Madison, WI. Only less snow. Here is my review. http://evilbloggerlady.blogspot.com/2012/01/portl...
Finally they made fun of a pet pieve of mine, the chopped up preachy commercials where they divide up the sentences with different shots of different people. Always used in commercials with some type of liberal cause, it became the default style when celebrities want to say "we are really serious about this," no matter what the cause was.
Thank you Fred Armisen.
Haven't watched it; will after reading this thread.
Liberals are the funniest people on earth, mainly because they take themselves so seriously. Sometimes one wants to ask one, "do you listen to what you're saying?" Talking to a liberal results in mental eye rolling.What was super amusing about the skits above was how identifiable the characters were. I've never been to Portland (drove through once on the way from Alaska to Houston), but I have been to the Chapel Hill area of NC and it is virtually indistinguishable from the characters in the skits. I don't know about Portland, but what's most amusing about Chapel Hill environs is just how far left they are and just how white. Volvos and Subarus dominate. And they are SOOOOO SERIOUS about themselves and their ideology. It's a hoot. Fertile ground for satire–just surprised that "Portlandia" has the insight and guts to send them up.
You sound like a sweet person with kindness and love in your heart and you are an awesome friend.
Your "friend" sounds like a total wack job.
She's a dear, great big heart… for those that aren't the sworn enemy. We managed to get close outside of a political environment and thus have stayed friendly so long as politics is never discussed. She can't help but break that rule.
I've loved this show since the first episode.
Wacthed it. Pretty lame. Gender confusion and adult childish behavior are the main themes. Just sophmoric same sex crap. Same old thing. Lorne Michaels produced it. What do you expect. Sorry give it a thumbs down.
I'm thinking they don't have to expend much effort to write this show. All they need to do is hang around in Portland for a bit…
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