Considering how big of a deal it was to get Seinfeld onto the platform, it's interesting to see it hasn't broken the top 10 lists on any week. Maybe long tail viewing habits tell a different story.
This is tangential, but I tried watching it with a girlfriend relatively recently and found that I couldn't comfortably watch it with her. The first episode alone has all these not-so-subtle sexist jokes. I used to watch it a lot when I was younger, but I guess I just didn't notice back then. Certainly there are parts of the show that are endearing, but I just wasn't comfortable watching it casually with company and decided to change the show.
Just to confirm I read it right. You found that you couldn't comfortably watch Seinfeld with your girlfriend? Was that because she was uncomfortable watching it which made you uncomfortable too or you assumed that she would be offended and that's why it was uncomfortable to you?
She was ostensibly fine with it, but it made me feel weird. It felt like I was endorsing the kinds of thought patterns represented. I knew she wouldn't be offended per se, but I didn't want her to get the wrong impression of me, and I also don't want to be a person who acts like that's normal for my own sake. There are 100% appropriate contexts to watch that and know that it's antiquated and that nobody present is endorsing it, but I had put it on intentionally because I wanted something light, and at that point it started getting too stressful.
I had a similar feeling when we recently started watching The Office (US version) with my girlfriend. Lots of cringy sexist jokes in the beginning. I know they're made by the "bad" guys, and are a sign of their "badness", not something celebrated, but it's still pretty cringy. We're still binging it though, it wasn't a deal breaker.
Sure, "clean" as in doesn't do toilet/gross-out/sex humour, but a lot of his observational bits are "have you ever noticed how women are different from men in this way?"-type comparisons.
I can see how someone might find that kind of material sexist, especially if they've only encountered a few episodes where it seems like he's basically saying women are worse than men.
Personally, I don't have a problem with it because over lots and lots of episodes, whether he's punching down at men or women balances out. I'm not sure if the writers made a conscious choice to make it that way after maybe some initial criticism as I never followed the show when it was on air originally.
Good comedy was always uncomfortable. Saying something everyone was thinking but may be taboo. Comedy shines a light on a dark truth. Being uncomfortable isn't acceptable in 2021.
Good comedy has to be funny— that’s all good comedy has to do. It’s not that deep. If it makes you uncomfortable that’s a side thing, but first and foremost good comedy is funny. I read the post as saying that the jokes weren’t funny anymore in the context of why in-jokes with my pals aren’t funny to a total stranger.
This is something I think a lot of people fail to understand about comedy: As long as it's funny, it's good. That's it. Doesn't matter how offensive, dirty, clean, esoteric, or even "obvious" the joke is. As long as it's funny, it's a good joke.
I think a lot of big name comics think they're "owed" the laughs, and some people think that their personal taste is the only comedy. It's all subjective, but if you get the laugh, that's the only thing that matters in comedy.
I enjoy watching Seinfeld's "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee" to really understand what makes a comic, and you pretty much described what they all say. They just are trying to get a laugh 24x7. They all have different styles but the goal is the same. It really made me appreciate different types of comedians and that most of the successful ones really have a love for their craft.
Not true. Ricky Gervais makes the case that making animal jokes (e.g. where you tell a funny story, but the characters are animals having people-like problems) is too easy and so doesn't count as much.
(Actually, I'm not sure he said this on Comedians in Cars, or in a different show)
Maybe comedians are people too and have varied points of view on comedy gasp
I'm sorry to sound antagonistic, but that is a deeply lazy take.
It is so incredibly disrespectful of your fellow human to assume that "uncomfortable = illegitimate" by default, which is absolutely what your comment does.
Seinfeld absolutely has a lot of pretty blatantly sexist humor that would, sure, not be acceptable on TV today, but was also shitty, then. We just didn't do a particularly job of caring about it.
> Being uncomfortable isn't acceptable in 2021.
Says who? Watch Squid Game. Watch Parasite. Watch... I dunno, Big Mouth. These are just random things that come to mind, but they're huge, mainstream pieces of media that are actively challenging to watch and use that uncomfortable feeling to an end, without punching down.
At what point did you feel uncomfortable during squid game or parasite? His relative was selfish and some mild gore. Has a thriller / horror pace. But I never felt uncomfortable or questioned my humanity or my choices.
If those are the examples you have to offer you make my point stronger. Where is the 2021 crying game?
Dave Chappelle: Sticks & Stones made people uncomfortable in 2021. Have you seen it, most popular comedy standup special on netflix? Do you consider it as shitty of Seinfeld?
Speaking of comedy: the only people to whom being uncomfortable isn't acceptable in 2021 is...cis het white men.
There's a difference between feeling uncomfortable because someone is being misogynistic & feeling uncomfortable because of the realisation that--regardless of specifics of personal situation--anyone in that demographic benefits from systems of oppression.
You're reading this in part because not everyone in your life told you that you should seek an interest outside of technology & entrepreneurship to which you would be "better suited".
Disclaimer: Have stood on a stage with a microphone and made a paying audience laugh.
Used to watch re-runs of it all the time but I tried re-watching it on Netflix and found it really sticks out how almost every major character on the show is white, and any time a non-white character appears they really ramp up their ethnic characteristics to an uncomfortable degree.
Particularly an episode where Jerry inadvertently makes several racist remarks in front of a Native American character while the laugh track is going nuts just left me speechless.
You have to measure it with the standards of that time, but this kind of obliviousness to any kind of ethnic character is just off-putting now.
I don't know, maybe it's an American thing, but to a person from Europe this reads like an attempt at parody. I cannot believe one can watch Seinfeld (likely one of the most benign tv shows there are) and somehow find it problematic.
I think we really reached a point when a big part of American culture (especially the constant racialization of everything) is not understandable to an average person from another country.
No it's definitely not an 'American' thing, in the broader sense- it is the most popular show of all time, I believe. I'm with you, I love Seinfeld but consider it very milquetoast- the comedy is centered around mundane daily events, just like Curb, and their over-the-top reactions, it shied away from anything remotely controversial. Various social norms have changed since the 90s, of course, so apparently that can offend people (?!), but there's no accounting for taste, as they say.
I only saw periodic episodes as a kid (had no TV), but watching it now, the physical comedy really stands out to me- a genre I've never been into, but Kramer, Elaine and George are great at it.
To your point about the show, watch the clip yourself [0] and see how you feel. To me, this plays in pretty bad taste.
I understand that this episode was made 28 years ago and was probably fairly on par with attitudes at the time, but just like our attitudes to race have changed so has my attitude to comedy. Watching this today I react with cringe rather than laughing anywhere near as hard as the laugh track seems to imply I should be.
I'm also not singling out one particular episode, there are other examples of this. Another episode featuring a Pakistani-American character called "Babhu" also plays poorly to me today [1].
If you can watch these clips and think they're still benign then that's ok, we'll just have to agree to disagree, but I don't think you can watch them and still find it incomprehensible why someone might have an issue with them.
Wow you really missed the joke. The Indian joke is making fun of Jerry and his tone deafness. The girl that he’s interested in is a Native American and he’s making a fool of himself when he gave Elaine the “cigar store Indian” thinking he was going to get points in her mind
I'm not sure what from my comment makes you feel I don't understand this is the premise of the episode?
My criticism would be that a scene where the main character of a show makes a series of demeaning remarks about someone's race to the point where they are so offended that they leave the apartment isn't funny. The fact that Jerry is trying to get laid and blows his chances is beside the point.
The Winona character is humiliated and the episode gives this no weight at all. The only consequences for Jerry and Kramer's racism is that Jerry doesn't get into a relationship with Winona.
Looking back on this from 2021, it hasn't aged well for me.
I don't think that nuance is lost on anyone. But does it succeed? That's debatable. After all, in order to make the point that "making fun of native Americans is bad", the show still ends up making fun of native Americans. Making fun of native Americans might be "bad," but hey it's hilarious, just another one of Jerry's silly hijinks, so how bad could it really be?
Additionally Winona comes off as an oversensitive snowflake when she accuses Jerry of lowkey calling her an "Indian giver." In other words, maybe Jerry's a little racist, and that's wrong and silly, but being sensitive about it is equally wrong and silly, is the message. Fortunately Winona breaks it off and the show can go back to forgetting Native Americans exist as anything but a foil to Jerry's gang.
Furthermore, because real-life Jerry is so "brave" as to skewer character-Jerry's racism, real-life Jerry gets to congratulate himself for being woke.
To sum up, Jerry Seinfeld scores points for himself at the expense of native Americans, is one way to interpret what happened.
Seinfeld himself has conceded that the episode didn't age well, so whether or not you agree with parent poster, it's not like he's really being so "odd" and out-there in his reasoning.
> the show still ends up making fun of native Americans.
I disagree that it does.
Also in the link you've provided Seinfeld only says "You could never do that today". You've interpreted that as him conceding that the episode didn't age well. That's a stretch. (To be fair, the title of the article suggests he's admitting it's offensive but there doesn't seem to be anything to back that up).
This is what happens when large portions of a demographic are terminally online and their only hobby is doomscrolling on Twitter looking for something to get outraged about.
I find I can still enjoy it, in the context of when it was made. It does not seem mean spirited, and I am not white. I grew up with it though, so it could be my frame of reference allows for it.
tbh I personally think in that episode Jerry Seinfeld illustrated quite well the awkwardness some people feel when discussing race and it was quite ahead of its time.
On one hand he's guilty of everyday racism (and doesn't even notice it) and on the other he tries to be ridiculously cautious to the point of paternalism (avoiding saying "dinner reservations" to a native American).
I'm only speculating but almost surely it doesnt need to crack top 10 to be a success. On regular TV Seinfeld reruns have been money makers for years though on any given week they of course have paltry ratings compared to new stuff.
