• Dex@sopuli.xyz
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    2 months ago

    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.

    • kinsnik@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      It’s also funny because It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is still airing too, and that is massively more edgy than anything seinfeld ever did.

      I think that the problem is that jerry want to be edgy and still be considered the good guy. Which is not how Curb, IASIP or even the Seinfeld tv show ever was. They always were presented as bad/flawed people doing bad stuff. You 100% can still do that type of comedy. But you can’t do comedy where the characters are supposed to be good but do bad stuff

      • ggtdbz@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 months ago

        It’s also funny because It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is still airing too, and that is massively more edgy than anything seinfeld ever did.

        And that’s always been my argument when it comes to this particular dead horse. I don’t think any jokes are off the table, you just really have to make whatever discomfort you’re summoning be worth the punchline. The edgier something is the more it has to be funny to compensate, the point of offensive humor is to be funny not to offend, right? This has to be common sense. I don’t get how it flies over the head of so many people.

        • Milk_Sheikh@lemm.ee
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          2 months ago

          Exactly. Either risk it and have a big payoff, or insert a point behind it. Make the audience think after they laugh, or search within themselves why that was funny, or the context behind the joke.

          Or if you go for the edgy or dark joke, and get called out - you rolled that die, live with it. Crying “it’s just a joke” or “comedy is cancelled” after your bit failed to land is hacky

        • jqubed@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          There are a lot of people who seem to think offending is all it takes. I think Sam McMurray’s character “Glen” in Raising Arizona, who is constantly telling “jokes” about Polish people being stupid that none of the other characters find funny, is a perfect example of the type.

      • funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works
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        2 months ago

        seinfeld pilot

        You know, why we’re here? [he means: here in the “Comedy club”] To be out, this is out…and out is one of the single most enjoyable experiences of life. People…did you ever hear people talking about “We should go out”? This is what they’re talking about…this whole thing, we’re all out now, no one is home. Not one person here is home, we’re all out! There are people tryin’ to find us, they don’t know where we are. [imitates one of these people “tryin’ to find us”; pretends his hand is a phone] “Did you ring?, I can’t find him.” [imitates other person on phone] “Where did he go?” [the first person again] “He didn’t tell me where he was going”. He must have gone out. You wanna go out: you get ready, you pick out the clothes, right? You take the shower, you get all ready, get the cash, get your friends, the car, the spot, the reservation…There you’re staring around, whatta you do? You go: “We gotta be getting back”. Once you’re out, you wanna get back! You wanna go to sleep, you wanna get up, you wanna go out again tomorrow, right? Where ever you are in life, it’s my feeling, you’ve gotta go.

        seinfeld final episode:

        It seems like whenever these office people call you in for a meeting, the whole thing is about the sitting down. I would really like to sit down with you. I think we need to sit down and talk. Why don’t you come in, and we’ll sit down. Well, sometimes the sitting down doesn’t work. People get mad at the sitting.You know, we’ve been sitting here for I don’t know how long. How much longer are we just going to sit here? I’ll tell you what I think we should do. I think we should all sleep on it. Maybe we’re not getting down low enough. Maybe if we all lie down, then our brains will work.

        …what particularly about these bits is either edgy or genius?

          • funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works
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            2 months ago

            I’m just saying that its pretty funny in and of itself that Jerry Seinfeld is like “you can’t say anything in comedy any more” and all his bits are about losing a sock in the washing machine

            • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              Yeah he’s obviously wrong about that and lives in N elite bubble. He’s colored by how he saw the left treat Dave Chappelle and Louie CK, for example. But he also saw how the right treated Lenny Bruce and Dice Clay, for example. He should know better that nobody on the left is actually wanting to put comedians in jail for their jokes, that’s exclusively the province of the right.

              Also, this is the daily mail. It’s probably not even real quote.

              • funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works
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                2 months ago

                Unfortunately for Chapelle and Seinfeld, James Acaster did that bit that absolutely destroyed their whining.

                And Unfortunately for Louis CK, his sex-pest-intimidation is just too memorable.

                Why don’t we mention Michael Richards (Cosmo Kramer) while we’re at it.

                Maybe the issue isn’t “you can’t say anything nowadays” and instead it’s “you can’t say the n-word, the t-slur, and look-its-my-dick-im-jacking-off-at-you nowadays”

                As for Andrew Dice Clay, the man’s schtick was just racism, sexism and pretending to light a cigarette. it was hardly one for the ages.

                And then as for Bruce, yes, him being arrested for saying cocksucker is the only legitimate example of being cancelled for comedy on the list - but also he impersonated a priest and stole donations meant for a leprosy charity, which you’d be cancelled for in 200BC as well as 2024 AD

                • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】@lemmy.world
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                  2 months ago

                  I don’t think anyone was “cancelled.” That’s a righty-wing bogeyman word with no definition.

                  Nothing any of these comedians said or did takes away the fact that when they deliver their acts, they bring down the house. They connect with the crowd and the crowd laughs, involuntarily! The crowds are voting with their laughs and any one of these legendary comedians on an average day can play any room and get laughs. You’d be lucky to witness it. Laughing is involuntary. If the crowd is laughing, can’t say the act isn’t funny, that’s some election denying bullshit. You certainly won’t find it funny if you don’t realize it’s an act. Punchlines aren’t true statements of the comedian’s personal point of view or opinion, they are an act. Sometimes the joke is that the thing was even said in the first place.

                  At any rate, all the examples I gave are real things that happened. The three most justifiable shit storms, against Kramer, CK, and to a lesser extent Chappelle, are examples I gave of the left coming after a comedian.

                  Bruce, you agree, is as an example of the right coming after a comedian. You are wrong to lump Dice Clay in with CK and Kramer; Dice Clay cleared the way for comedy as an artform, and, again, the crowds laughed.

                  A better example I’m sure you’ll also agree is not justified is South Africa, where the political right simply banned stand up comedy as a practice. That’s the usual example, too, in far right countries: no laughing allowed!

                  Man, if you can’t find the humor in these people’s acts, not just Seinfeld, but also Dice Clay, or whatever other dirty or sexist or whatever fart jokes you think you’re too whatever to laugh at, all these comics would laugh at your discomfort, which is with one person standing in front of a room full of people and talking for an hour straight. Anyone can buy a ticket. How provocative could it possibly get before they get booed off stage? You should go to a Chappelle set and turn the crowd against him; just explain why he’s not funny like you do online. Should be no problem for you.

      • suction@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Without the show and its success, he wouldn’t be a well known Stand up today. He’s still surfing that wave.

        • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          He was a well-known comic before he did the show. Perhaps not a household name but very few comics ever are. He had already been on Carson like a dozen times, as a stand up in the 80s that’s like the height of fame. You might even say that Seinfeld’s TV show elevated him to a status that no comic had ever before achieved.

        • wjrii@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          So much of his standup depends on making initial observations of seemingly absurd things and then not putting a single ounce of thought or research into them to determine if they’re actually absurd. It’s low-hanging fruit for tipsy people at a comedy club.

          He was utterly, perfectly cast as a supposed straight-man who’s just as callously thoughtless as his bizarre friends but with a veneer of “insight”. It was brilliant. I wonder if he quite realized why.

  • ringwraithfish@startrek.website
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    2 months ago

    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.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      But the thing is… writing by committee has always been the norm- including for Seinfeld, which makes me wonder how much he was actually involved in the writing process.

      The very idea of a writer’s room is writing by committee.

      • ringwraithfish@startrek.website
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        2 months ago

        I got the sense he meant more that it would go up through business-side committees to double check the work and make sure it wasn’t inappropriate. If that was the case that again would be an indication of corporations being risk adverse.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          That’s also always been the case.

          It’s stupid for Jerry Seinfeld, of all people, to claim that executives don’t constantly meddle in shows to make sure audiences don’t get pissed off.

      • Zess@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        But see, he wants it to be funny because he thinks making fun of homeless people is funny. It would instead be funny because of how fucking stupid Kramer is. That’s really the big turn in recent comedy: laughing at bad characters doing shitty things (and usually getting their comeuppance) instead of laughing at shitty things happening to people.

    • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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      2 months ago

      people seeing issues brought about by capitalism and concluding that the people who are fighting against capitalism are the REAL problem, a tale as old as time.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Yeah, things were so much less politically correct in- *checks notes* 2005.

        What the fuck are you talking about?

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            People still laugh at themselves now. People still recognize absurdity for what it is. Go watch a show like Abbott Elementary.

            • postmateDumbass@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              I have seen that show, and it was good, but alao focused to meet network standards that evolve glacially.

              Its not standup.

              • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                2 months ago

                Sorry… you think shows in 2005 weren’t focused? Really? I don’t know what golden age of comedy you think 2005 was, but it wasn’t one.

                • postmateDumbass@lemmy.world
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                  2 months ago

                  Chapelle Show, Its Always Sunny, several others from this very thread. Yes golden comedy was happening in 2005.

                  Even the Bill Burr Philly Rant is from 2006.

                  Good shit.

                  Edit: and Tough Crowd had just ended. Sadly.

  • Phegan@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    As a comedian you either die funny or live long enough to become a reactionary shit bag.

    • Stalinwolf@lemmy.ca
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      2 months ago

      I don’t think he was ever funny. Larry David may have been funny, and Seinfeld was fortunate enough to be involved with the show, but Jerry himself has always been a poor comedian and a tool.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        I think Seinfeld was pretty funny in the 80s. His style of observational comedy was fresh back then though. Then there were a million Seinfeld copycats and there wasn’t anything special about him anymore.

        The same thing happened with Carlin. So he kept reinventing himself and updating his comedy with the times and that’s why people loved him until the day he died.

        • thesilverpig@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Carlin got better as he got older. His shtick was always tight fast well rehearsed dense sets but he went from mostly irreverent to actually saying something. And he was still able to be so funny while clearly getting so angry.

  • NounsAndWords@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    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.

    What is the deal with airline food, anyway?

    • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      What’s the deal with time passing? It just happens! You don’t want it to, but it does. One day you’re riding high, one hand on Larry David’s coattails and the other up some high school girl’s skirt. You’re thinking, “I’m gonna be on top forever. Everyone loves me now and it’s always gonna be this way.” Then the next day you’re complaining about woke on a drive time radio show with Kid Rock. What’s his deal anyway? He’s not a rock, or even a kid. He’s a man. He should be called Man Man.

    • Nougat@fedia.io
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      2 months ago

      You know who had a 30 year old set that was still awesome and hysterical to the very end? The Amazing Jonathan.

      I got to see him in Vegas probably a few years before he died, he was doing shows in what amounted to a fancy conference room somewhere. I was the person called up to the stage, and even though I knew every single thing he was going to say and do, it was still just funny. I got to look him right in the eyes up close, and it was clear that he knew he was doing the same set he’s done forever, in a conference room. and it seemed like we both knew that “WTF am I doing here?” added a whole other layer of funny to the whole thing.

      Maybe I was reading too much into it. Maybe it was just the methamphetamine.

  • the_crotch@sh.itjust.works
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    2 months ago

    Why would he even be concerned about this? Seinfeld isn’t Richard Pryor or George Carlin, he’s the most milquetoast PG comic out there.

    • i_ben_fine@lemmy.one
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      2 months ago

      Exactly what comes to my mind every time he brings up his gripes about “PC culture”. Seinfeld isn’t worried about his comedy – he’s worried about his personal life.

    • smooth_tea@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Why does that matter? Is he wrong? Maybe your insinuation that this is about him is incorrect and he just sees it as a blemish on comedy as a whole? Could it be that he just cares about the profession?

      It’s so peculiar that people would rather argue something irrelevant rather than admit that they agree with someone they don’t like.

      • the_crotch@sh.itjust.works
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        2 months ago

        Is he wrong?

        Yes. There’s plenty of politically incorrect comics and they’re thriving. Dave Chappelle took a lot of heat on social media for being transphobic (not even as a joke) and he got 2 Netflix specials out of it.

        • smooth_tea@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          We haven’t just gone through a deadly pandemic because many people got ill and survived. It seems that you don’t know what a logical fallacy is.

          • the_crotch@sh.itjust.works
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            2 months ago

            Did you really just use a fallacy accuse me of using a fallacy? Ok. Point out a single ‘death’ in the comedy world due to woke culture. Just one. Or, alternatively, give me a single example of how it has negatively affected Jerry Seinfeld’s career.

              • the_crotch@sh.itjust.works
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                2 months ago

                Is that really a result of woke culture? If so, it’s been since around long before Matt groening or Jerry Seinfeld were born. They stopped doing minstrel shows over a hundred years ago.

                • smooth_tea@lemmy.world
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                  2 months ago

                  You’ve gone from name just one to it’s happening all the time pretty quick. Of course it’s something that’s always been around, but we tend to have the ability to gauge the gravity of a situation and react accordingly to address them. Of course that assumes you’re able to admit there’s an issue in the first place.

  • Striker@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    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.

    I wonder if the same thing is happening here.

  • Lad@reddthat.com
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    2 months ago

    “Extreme left” is such a ridiculous term to use for this sort of thing lmao

    • pachrist@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Yeah, but Jimmy Carr’s greatest achievement is beating Father Time by transforming himself into a plastic vampire. Jerry Seinfeld’s greatest achievement is making a movie where a bumblebee cucks Kronk.

      I love Kronk, but immortality > bee sex.

      • S_204@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        Jerry’s greatest achievement is his billion dollar bank account…

        • pachrist@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Nah, that came from the TV show Seinfeld, which is arguably Larry David’s greatest achievement.

    • TachyonTele@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      There’s a shit ton of good young comedians. Jerry is an old man telling kids to get off his lawn.

      • eldavi@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Jerry is an old man telling kids to get off his lawn.

        i think i crossed the middle aged boundary because my head is filled with “those damn kids!” thoughts and i hoping that the fact that i’m still a stereotypical broke ass millennial that will never be able to afford his own lawn will help keep me young somehow.

  • livus@kbin.social
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    2 months ago

    I somehow did not expect the 17 year old thing to be quite so creepy.

    She was a highschooler who he met in a public park when he was 38. JFC.

    • BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.worldOP
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      2 months ago

      I can understand maybe thinking she was older when he talked to her and then finding out later she was underage and backing off, but he definitely just went for it. Creep.

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Far-Right Influencers Celebrate Jerry Seinfeld Once Again Claiming ‘P.C. Crap’ Killed Comedy

    “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.

    • frostysauce@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Also his frame of reference is TV shows that aired at specific times. Few people under 60 watch TV like that anymore. Where is the funny stuff? On the fucking streaming services, YouTube, TikTok, etc.

      • Icaria@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Where is the funny stuff? On the fucking streaming services, YouTube, TikTok, etc.

        You may have just made his argument for him. If Ticktok is what passes for comedy today, loud, obnoxious reaction bits from people who think a bad hair day is literal, all delivered in 10 second disposable bytes, yeah nah.

        • frostysauce@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          First of all, that description tells me you’ve never used TikTok. I haven’t either, and fwiw I’m not a fan of TikTok one bit, but from what I hear coworkers listening to and laughing at that is like a telephone game description of it.

          But if tens of thousands of people are laughing with something… Yeah, that’s comedy.

          • Icaria@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            You don’t need to use meth to have an informed opinion on it, and dear lord its popularity has no bearing on its value.

            but from what I hear coworkers listening to and laughing at that is like a telephone game description of it.

            No, it is accurate. The three primary sources of inspiration for TikTok videos seems to be Facebook style outrage bait, black american subculture, and anime, which all rely heavily on zany and sassy and dramatic reactions to shit. Every time someone shows me something, I just have to smile and nod to be polite.

            It isn’t by accident, either, every social media platform is designed to appeal to the 14-25 demographic, the rest of us are just stuck along for the ride, and you get exactly the maturity and sophistication you’d expect from that design focus. The short format and pressure to grab people in 0.5 seconds before they scroll past aren’t helping, either.

            • frostysauce@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              I get it, you don’t like TikTok. Again, neither do I but I’m not making it my personality to shit on what others do like.

  • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
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    2 months ago

    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.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      But you have to look at it within the context of the time. At that point, even the horrible people had redeeming qualities. Archie Bunker was a right-wing racist, but his heart was often in the right place. Murphy Brown was horrible to her coworkers, but she fought for the right causes.

      And then Seinfeld came out. Everyone in it was horrible. Irredeemably so. There was just nothing else like it at the time.

      It also did some really interesting things in terms of experimentation with what you could do with a sitcom, like the episode that takes place entirely while they are waiting in a restaurant for Chinese takeout.

      It’s a totally outdated concept now because it’s been done again and again, but it was pretty revolutionary at the time. Personally, I credit this to Larry David, not Jerry Seinfeld.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Seinfeld is very exceptional in that it was a show which featured unapologetically bad people, and glorified them, very effectively.

      I think that’s more just the consequence of celebrity. They’re supposed to be normal New Yorkers, which is to say petty and superficial and cheap and rude. And that’s supposed to be a funny thing to watch.

      But by the ninth season, you’ve developed a parasocial relationship with them. You find the petty rudeness and the stingy superficiality endearing. And they’ve been one-upping themselves for so long, a lot of it just looks absurd rather than obnoxious.

      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.

      Go back and listen to “I’m Telling You For The Last Time”, the comedy album he put out right after the show rapped.

      I think a lot of the show is Larry David’s own brand of cynical humor. But Seinfield was the perfect vehicle precisely because he’s just this soulless husk of a human being who has filled his emptiness with unlimited money.

    • BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.worldOP
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      2 months ago

      Found it on Reddit I think: https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/18oeiw/clip_from_jerry_seinfeld_standup_on_letterman_feb/

      I agree! I think just about anyone who has stupid amounts of money has no conscience, personally. Maybe Bill Gates a little. But I especially believe that Seinfeld was showing us who he really was during the whole show. Well maybe not the first year when he was relatively normal, but after success hit, I honestly think he just became a narcissist.

  • TubeTalkerX@kbin.social
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    2 months ago

    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.

    Howard kept making fun of this, even sang a song with video intercut during his PPV.

  • 🇰 🔵 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.net
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    2 months ago

    They’ve certainly killed right-leaning comedians like Seinfeld, Bill Maher, Dennis Miller and (can’t believe he made the list) Dave Chappelle.

    Or maybe they killed themselves by just getting even lamer with their unfunny jokes that punch down at marginalized groups. 🤔

      • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        I seem to remember Maher seeming more leftist at some point, but that might be because of his unabashed atheism. He’s always been insufferably arrogant though.

        • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          He’s a leftist that doesn’t like PC culture or identity politics. He does believe in equality, inclusion, and those sorts of principles, but he doesn’t agree with the way we’re going about seeking those things.

          • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            Economic reductionist would be the term, right? The “we fix the economy and regulate corporations and racism will fix itself” viewpoint?

            • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              That’s not a view that I’ve ever heard him express, but I haven’t heard much from him in years. He used to be outspoken about global warming, and the environment. He was the first celebrity to buy an electric car all the way back in like 1996, I think it was called the Honda Insight. He was pro-gay rights, pro-women’s rights, and a lot of other issues you’d consider Democrat. But he also mocked PC culture, and even had a show called Politically Incorrect. Last time I heard about him he seemed pretty much like the same person, but society has changed. I guess if you retain your same “progressive” views from 30 years ago, and social views change and progress, then you’re kind of “conserving” old views, even though you weren’t a conservative at one point. That’s probably why people appear to become more conservative as they get older. They haven’t actually changed, they just stopped agreeing with the direction of progress.

      • 🇰 🔵 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.net
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        2 months ago

        Both seemed to have turned recently. Both of them in recent stand up specials they’ve released since 2019 have said, on stage, they are Republicans and expressed views consistent with that in their routines. It was a shock to me, considering I remember them being very anti-conservative back in the 90’s.

    • K0W4L5K1@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 months ago

      Yeah the Dave Chappelle one came way outta right field lol that PIC with Taylor majore Greene idk how to spell it was unexpected or I’m uninformed

    • chazwhiz@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      That’s weird about this to me, I never would have called Seinfeld right leaning. Like every one of his standups I’ve ever seen is very neutral, and the show was actually pretty progressive for the time. Chapelle did the punching down, got called out on it (rightfully so), and then doubled down and swung to the right because now he’s the victim! But as far as I know, Jerry didn’t do anything (In terms of jokes, ignoring the… youthfulness… issues for the moment) He just decided to bust out with I’m a victim too stop censoring me? Was there any preface to all this?

      • cazssiew@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        I think it’s just anger about being out of touch. You can’t make comedy in a vacuum, it necessarily draws on contemporary culture, and Jerry’s probably feeling a bit left in the dust. But he frames it in a way where he feels victimized. That’s my reading for most embarrassing or offensive old comedians though, so maybe I’m painting with too broad a brush.

        • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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          2 months ago

          Real problem is that so many basic things, like we should treat each other decently, or that the earth is warming, shouldn’t be political issues. But here we are. And somehow these things become political in conservative circles and thus they are political to liberal circles too.

          Now you can’t even say “what’s the deal with airline food” because even that gets political. Greenhouse gas emissions from flying planes, vegetarian and kosher options in flight, paper straws, airline bailouts, take your pick of where to go next, all political.

  • kbal@fedia.io
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    2 months ago

    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.