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I get it.  I get that the world views us Portlanders as quirky bike-loving, greenies.  A lot of us are…and there’s a lot of things to make fun of here in Portland.  Portlandia is a parody of all the typical stereotypes Portland is known for.  There’s the wacky mayor, the freak-show independent bookstore owners, the super-agressive biker.  I watched the first episode and laughed and cringed in equal parts.  Perhaps we are that earnest and..gasp…stuck in the 90s.   However, as the series has progressed, each episode has gotten further off base and less funny.  The last 2 episodes I watched were painful to watch.  Painful because they were so NOT FUNNY.  It was time to take Portlandia off the DVR.  I don’t mind a good joke at our expense. Hell, I laugh at myself at least once a day. If the show kept being funny I would continue to watch it even though it only shows a small subculture in Portland. The show has gone further and further away from the true essence of Portland.  Where’s the jokes about Voodoo Donuts and the food cart scene and the tattoo culture and ….gasp….all the rain in Portland?  I can think of a hundred things that make Portland unique, and yet laugh-worthy.  Where are they?   So if you continue to watch Portlandia, keep in mind that you are seeing a couple of ideas about Portland…not always true…and certainly not always funny.

Update April 2012:  I decided to go back and try a few of the newest episodes to see if I would change my mind.  While I thought they did a much better job in recent episodes capturing the essence of the true Portland experience…I still didn’t find them very funny.  Sometimes the concept was funny…execution not so much.  Such is life.  Not everyone seems to feel I have the right to an opinion about this, however.  One guy out there left me a pretty scathing comment.  Told me to get over myself.  He seems like the type of guy who doesn’t like women to have opinions.  Hey, if you are going to read a blog post that’s titled Why I won’t watch Portlandia anymore than you can pretty much expect what my post is going to say. If you worship Portlandia more power to you….let’s have an interesting discussion about it, instead of leaving negativity…under a false name, no less.  That’s cowardly, in my book.  And that’s….my update.