I’m considered kind of a media snob. I refuse to watch Avatar, and I thought Black Swan was one of worst films of the year. Because of my particular taste in entertainment, the staff of the Valencia Voice has decided to subject me to the latest in popular media.
Every week, the staff will decide on something to force me to watch, listen or play. This week, it was the new MTV show, “I Just Want My Pants Back.”
As the show began, I experienced a feeling of dread, as if some portal to an evil nether realm were beginning to open, releasing slobbering horrors to drag me off to unmentionable torture. If only I were so lucky.
Let me just begin by saying that I’ll be glad when the hipster movement is over. It’s spawned a huge market of distressed t-shirts bearing logos of products from the 80’s, and is pretty much the only thing keeping Pabst in business. It’s also overloading the entertainment industry.
With “Pants” I could tell right away that it would be trying too hard. The first joke is about self-abuse, and almost immediately dives into a stereotypically hot chick smoking pot in a men’s room and complaining about feeling like she has to poop. I like poop jokes as much as anyone, but poop jokes are only funny when they’re not forced (see what I did there?)
The main character, Jason, who is now sober after smoking what was apparently oregano,  decides to hit on a random girl at the bar. They instantly click when she quotes Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure. Jason exclaims that this is the “best movie starring a sex offender ever!”
Number one, this dingus hasn’t unironically seen “Big Adventure” in his life. Number two, he’s obviously never seen “Moonwalker.”
Jason takes this girl back to his apartment and she demands that they do the deed in his totally ironic 1950’s refrigerator. Instead of calling the men in white coats, this sunken-chested D-bag falls in love with her instead.
Jason is depressed because refrigerator girl gave him a fake number, so he hooks up with a promiscuous, drunken lawyer who instructs him to insert his thumb in a rather uncomfortable place. This is a position I’m convinced is familiar to everyone involved in the creation of this show.
The show is nothing but blatantly scripted, painfully unfunny one liners traded back and forth. It’s like Juno meets Willy Waterbug (there’s a retro reference for the hipsters) and it left me feeling the same way: wet, miserable and covered in welts.