The Alternative Number Ones: Alanis Morissette’s “Ironic”

In The Alternative Number Ones, I’m reviewing every #1 single in the history of the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks/Alternative Songs, starting with the moment that the chart launched in 1988. This column is a companion piece to The Number Ones, and it’s for members only. As Scott explains here, the column is now biweekly, alternating with The Number Ones on Mondays.

Winona Ryder needs a job. She really wants to be a documentary filmmaker, but she's just doing that in her free time for now. Ryder used to be a production assistant on a local TV morning show, but her boss, the dad from Frasier, was an absolute dick. So she tricked him into saying that he's a pedophile on live TV, and she got fired. She's out there on the local media landscape, looking for work. But this is the movie Reality Bites, so she's obviously going to have to learn that reality bites. When you try to make your living in the media, it's a lesson that you'll have to learn many times.

Winona Ryder's job search takes her to a local newspaper, but the icy editor lady, who's played by Reality Bites director Ben Stiller's mom Anne Meara, doesn't think she has what it takes to pivot from video. (Isn't it ironic?) In a last-ditch effort, Ryder says how important newspapers are to a functional democracy, so Meara gives her another chance. She says, "Define irony." With the elevator doors about to close in her face, Ryder splutters adorably for a few seconds: "It's when something is ironic." As the doors close on her promising newspaper career, Ryder can only say, "I know it when I see it!"