Barack and Michelle Obama’s fast-paced antics reach the deepest depths – The Irish Times

American culture website Vulture recently drew the ire of the Irish Twittersphere for its embarrassing attempt to ridicule Barry Keoghan for the outfit he wore to this week’s Met Gala. Admittedly, Keoghan was dressed like a steampunk Willy Wonka and deserved a joke. But Vulture got the shillelagh wrong and imagined Keoghan speaking in a kind of Lucky Charms fever dream pattern, a speech pattern that, to non-Americans, read like the unreleased lyrics to Dexy’s Midnight Runners’ Come On Eileen.

Most Irish people rolled their eyes, but for those who didn’t, similar delights await in Netflix’s dramatic true crime comedy-drama Bodkin, set in west Cork (on Netflix from Thursday). It’s yet another entry in the worst genre of all time: the rural Irish picaresque where the booze flows, the nuns frown, and everyone mouths off like characters in an unproduced script by Martin McDonagh.

But for once, we can’t blame the Banshees for crazy Inisherin. Incredibly, Bodkin is produced by Barack and Michelle Obama under their $65 million deal with Netflix. In keeping with Obama’s thoughtful, socially conscious brand, he aims to criticize our obsession with true crime podcasts and have fun with Americans and their bleary-eyed view of Ireland. However, while he attacks Irish America, he indulges in many stereotypes of his own and is not as smart as he thinks he is.

Siobhán Cullen plays Dove, a Dublin-born Guardian reporter. She has a condescending, old-fashioned opinion of Ireland and is forced to return to Ireland to accompany irritating Irish-American Gilbert Power (Will Forte) as he podcasts about the folk horror ritual murders in west Cork.

Given her resentment of the old country, Dove is unsurprisingly desperate for Will’s romance. However, if it is gradually revealed that the Bodkin locals are acting cunningly in front of the naive American, the series nevertheless plumbs the depths of foolishness.

( Patrick Freyne: On Selling the OC, Alex has the recipe for a good relationship. It’s a nice alliterative list: all the C words. )

In particular, it does absolutely no justice to west Cork, a place which, depending on the time, the company and the quality of daylight, can seem overwhelmingly cosmopolitan and as if it were on its last approach to the confines of the earth. Here, it’s just Netflix recreating Father Ted without jokes or self-awareness.

Bodkin is the work of Londoner Jez Scharf, who spent time in west Cork as a teenager. A little knowledge is actually dangerous, as he’s populated his script with the typical rowdy, cunning, dysfunctional rednecks who say “I” instead of “mine” and curse like they’re getting paid with the f-bomb.

Amid all the grunting and murmuring, you have to feel for the Irish cast, who must be aware of the meaninglessness to which they are reduced (Pat Shortt plays a version of his D’Unbelievables character, although here it is presented as a purely dramatic). role).

A few words also about the title. Bodkin is the name of the town where the murders occurred and which now celebrates an annual Samhain festival.

“Bodkin” is obviously a fabrication and feels like a passive-aggressive commentary on silly Irish place names. But of course, these names are not stupid. No matter how whimsical they may seem to outside ears, they are compelling English translations of the Irish original. This is not an obscure point: Brian Friel’s Translations deal with precisely that topic.

The lesson, unfortunately, goes over the head of Bodkin, a deeply annoying show that believes it is criticizing clichés about Ireland when it actively increases them. Let’s ignore it and hope it goes away.

( Doireann Garrihy to leave RTÉ 2FM morning show after five years )