Portlandia’s Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein have taken it upon themselves to lend a voice to the men’s rights movement in a self-deprecating music video to herald the upcoming season of the popular IFC comedy series.
The sketch starts with Armisen and Brownstein (who is dressed in drag) biking by a feminist book store lamenting about how it’s en vogue to get involved with Black Lives Matter, transgender activism and other worthy causes.
“What I hate is that none of these movements are about us,” says Armisen, sounding defeated. “What is our movement?”
“In some ways it feels like we’re a minority all of a sudden,” Brownstein says.
From there, it launches into their rock anthem, titled What About Men?, during which they ask that question ad nauseam, flanked by other white men. There’s even a rap interlude (“I don’t need to ask permission to tell you what this hear is wishing; You talk about equality, but why don’t you hold the door for me?”).
In Other Words, the feminist book store and community center glimpsed at in the beginning of the clip, used to serve as the shooting location for Portlandia’s Women and Women’s first sketches featuring owners Candace (Armisen) and Toni (Brownstein). The characters have been around in the Portlandia universe since the show’s first incarnation as a web-based show, but in September its staff severed ties with the production citing in a statement that Portlandia has a “net negative effect on our neighborhood and the city of Portland as a whole”.
According to the post, the Candace and Toni sketches are also “trans-antagonistic and trans-misogynist” – a factor Armisen and Brownstein appear to skewer in the music video.
The Emmy-nominated series returns to IFC on 5 January for its seventh season with 10 new episodes.
