What's funny about this is there's never been anything edgy about Jerry Seinfeld's standup act. And as far as Seinfeld goes he was barely involved in the writing. That was all Larry David and other talented writers. Of 180 episodes Jerry Seinfeld had 18 writing credits and all of them were shared with Larry David. Of those 18 credits 5 were in the first season which is undeniably the show's weakest and most forgettable. Jerry was always just the name. Larry was the talent.
I guess that's probably why Larry David just wrapped the final season of Curb this year while never once complaining about "not being allowed to do comedy" anymore like Jerry is. Turns out, you've always been allowed to do whatever comedy you like, you just have to actually be funny.
Weird how these woke kids keep killing comedy while still being the best comedians, and it's always the ones leaning on their 30+ year old sets that think it's a problem.
I listened to much of the interview on the radio. He touched on a lot of good points and then came to the absolutely wrong conclusion. He talked about how many writing rooms are "writing by committee" where jokes will go through a review by many different groups. If this is truly the case (I don't know) that is not an issue if the "far left mob" but rather the enshitification of comedy due to corporations and Wall Street bankrolling these productions wanting to ensure return on investment. This kills creativity by reducing risks. Topical comedy is a risky medium by default.
Also, shout out to Rob McElhenney for his sarcastic one word response. In Jerry's imagined world, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia can't exist.
I remember seeing a post on r/agedlikemilk which theorised that Russell Brand was leaning more into right wing talking points in anticipation of the looming rape accusations being made public.
my favorite part of Seinfeld complaining that woke has killed comedy is that Curb Your Enthusiasm just finished a 24 year, 12 season run and their last season has a 94% on Rotten Tomatoes.
During the first two years of Seinfeld Jerry would stop by The Howard Stern show once a week trying to get the word out about the show. Howard said multiple times when the show takes off and is doing well Jerry would find a reason to stop coming in. Sure enough Robin reported the story of Jerry dating Shoshanna and Jerry stopped coming on.
Normally when people identify all the "P.C. crap" that Seinfeld complains about as coming from the "extreme left" I figure it's because they've gone so far to the right that from way out there Bill Gates looks like a communist. But it's tempting to give Seinfeld the benefit of the doubt and assume that he might just be confused and ill-informed. The same refusal to accept reality that leaves him unable to let go of the urge to put a llama with a human head in his movie about Pop-Tarts may also have been sufficient to prevent him learning anything at all about politics for the past 30 years.
Seinfeld is very exceptional in that it was a show which featured unapologetically bad people, and glorified them, very effectively.
You can be extremely cynical in your scripting while still holding up characters who have some sort of moral center and are trying to do the right thing. Old-season Simpsons did this very well. The characters are not bad. They are not nice and they have genuine failings, and the situations they find themselves in are not sugarcoated. But, it's still a show about trying to maintain your humanity, in a pretty realistic portrayal of the grim reality we all find ourselves in. The original "Arrested Development" is similar although a little more upper-class and light hearted.
Maybe I am a corny motherfucker but I do think that it's important to try to keep your eye on doing the right thing instead of the wrong thing, because it's real shit that every human being runs into and it's definitely not easy. Art does influence the ways people behave and the way they perceive the world. Seinfeld is a show about absolute horrible sociopaths, who ruin relationships and other people's lives over and over again because of their commitment to selfishness, and if you only look superficially, how relatable and fun and entertaining they can be to spend time with, and how easy it is to overlook what abominably bad people they are as long as it all seems fun.
Somewhere there is a video talking about how Jerry Seinfeld is actually one of the darkest comedians working. I don't even know where I could start to find it, but the guy talks about watching a Seinfeld bit about throwing trash in the movie theater before he leaves for someone else to clean up, and how the guy watching got this chilling feeling he never got from much more serious topics: Like it's not an act, he genuinely just feels nothing below surface level, and doesn't give a fuck what happens.
Jerry, kids aren't laughing at you because you're still doing the same style of comedy you did in the 90s and they don't think it's funny.
And I say that as someone who does think he's funny.
Edit: I did standup in the 90s too (obviously nowhere near his level). There are many reasons why I don't do it anymore, but realizing that what I was doing was getting out of date was definitely a factor. Get out when you can and people might still think of you fondly.
"It used to be you would go home at the end of the day, most people would go, ‘Oh, Cheers is on," he said in the interview. "‘Oh, M.A.S.H. is on, oh, Mary Tyler Moore is on. All in the Family is on.' You just expected, there'll be some funny stuff we can watch on TV tonight. Well, guess what? Where is it? This is the result of the extreme left and P.C. crap and people worrying so much about offending other people. When you write a script and it goes into four or five different hands, committees, groups - ‘Here's our thought about this joke' - well, that's the end of your comedy."
So he picks shows that had some racism in them as justification that we should still have racism around for entertainment purposes?
What an idiot. I’ve heard plenty of comedy that’s funny as hell without being a knuckle dragging buffoon and going after low hanging fruit like racism or making fun of women.
The clown admits he’s just not creative or smart enough to make decent comedy that isn’t easy cheap shots.
Dude was dating a 16y old I believe when he was near 40. In fact, if you look at the female secondary cast (like Jerry’s love interests), they all got increasingly more beautiful as the show went on, where he was basically casting models near the end.
Dude is a pedophile but since he was making $1m per show and Hollywood is just a scum bucket, he was featured on People and the media was like awwwww, Seinfeld found love!
Jerry Seinfeld has never been considered a controversial comic. His jokes are all very tame observational humor. If he's complaining he's getting canceled by the "woke mob" (whatever the fuck that's supposed to mean), it's probably not for that reason. Either his material just isn't funny or he's being genuinely bigoted/racist and trying to hide it behind a smokescreen of comedic license.
I partly agree. It’s okay to make fun of just about anyhing as long as it’s not biased(repetitive jokes always agaisnt the same people/group). It feels like nowadays people will be offended by everything. You can make fun of, say, gays, without being agaisnt them. Look at South Park, they’ve made fun of literally every possible group but it feels like so many of these episodes wouldn’t be received well id they came out today.