Wake your kids and set your safe search to weird; it’s time for the final season of iCarly. And what better way to start a swan song than with cameos by Jimmy Fallon, Tina Fey and Gibby’s penis?
This season premiere, which follows the scandal and fines that erupt when Gibby’s pants fall down on a live broadcast of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, gives the eager iCarly viewers of the world a lot to talk about, but the most exciting part for me didn’t come until I began to write this article. I think I’m beginning to finally understand the larger philosophical commentary of Dan Schneider’s seminal work.
In 1946, Jorge Luis Borges published a short story titled “On Exactitude in Science.” Borrowing from Lewis Carroll’s Sylvie and Bruno Concluded, it tells the story of a society in which cartographers have created a map so exact that it literally covers the entirety of the landscape. This is the example that Jean Baudrillard drew when discussing the notion of hyperreality, the point at which simulation has so seamlessly blended with reality that the two become indistinguishable, leaving only the hyperreal.
iCarly is hyperreal.
Consider some examples from last night’s episode. We’ve always known that Dan Schneider is a fan of recreating popular brands with minor adjustments (Pear for Apple, Groovy Smoothie for Jamba Juice, etc.), but that could be written off as nothing more than adhering to copyrights. However, Schneider insists on making minor alterations to other societal institutions as well. In tonight’s episode, for example, Carly and Co faced the wrath not of the FCC, but the NCC. Schneider gave his world more than just a corporate facelift; he gave it a full-on societal makeover.
Even last night’s Seinfeldhomage– a quick diner scene featuring impersonations by Freddie, Gibby and Spencer – really didn’t poke fun at Kramer, George and Jerry. It simply imitated them without calling excessive attention to it. In a way, the emulation was the entire point. For a brief scene, iCarly became Seinfeld. Why? Well, they were in New York, so why not? Seinfeld is an important part of the media ‘map’ that has covered the city of New York. Dan Schneider recognized this and presented it to his tween audience, many of whom might not even be familiar with Seinfeld.
All our recognizable institutions have been slightly reshaped, so as to still have the familiarity of ‘reality’ without ever being more than imitations. There’s a sense that things just aren’t quite right. Even Schneider’s depiction of a real TV show like Late Night with Jimmy Fallon contained a few well-placed inconsistencies. Namely, the show really isn’t live, but in Carly’s world, it apparently is. Everything that enters into Schneider’s Bakery is glazed with a new and delicious post-modern veneer before being served up on a reflective platter.
So why go to such great lengths to construct a pop media commentary for a children’s television show? I believe the notion of hyperreality is central to the show’s meta roots. After all, this is a show about the production of a show. In creating the hyperreality, Dan Schneider has placed iCarly (the real TV show) and iCarly (the ‘fictitious’ webshow) on equal social planes. Both are equally real to us, and both are equally simulated. The show is as immersed in new media as we are, and in that milieu our protagonists have found youthful empowerment, a call to make themselves known in the virtual sphere. And they have undoubtedly succeeded and been embraced to the point that they’ve actually appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. It is fitting, then, that the episode with the citizens of Carly’s hyperreality coming together to pay the NCC’s fine, thereby saving iCarly. If this ending sounds familiar, that’s because it is. The episode concludes with a quick reference to It’s A Wonderful Life, again bringing the simulation to the surface.
With the last episode filmed and the last season underway, it’s all a viewer can do to say to himself that it’s a wonderful, hyperreal life, indeed.