The Show about Nothing and Everything (and Me): Seinfeld, Political Correctness, and Selfdom

By: Peter Thoma

For those born without a sense of humor, I apologize – this essay is not for you. Television in the 1990s was marked by an increase in the fragmentation of the audience (not to mention an increase in internet usage). With the proliferation in cable television shows, there was no reliable base viewership. Sitcoms in the 1990s targeted younger viewers who could appreciate parodies and references to other forms of media or popular culture. Most of the sitcoms ultimately followed Seinfeld’s example, and featured young, white, unmarried, urban, and upscale characters – precisely the demographics the networks were hoping to capture. But why do individuals consider Seinfeld important? Why is this sitcom significant? Was it because it was a “show about nothing”? The absence of a story does not necessarily mean that it lacked a plot. While a story is a series of events simply retold, a plot is a series of events that reveals dramatic and emotional significance. In truth, the characters and plot were probably more similar to the average viewer and their daily experience than any other television show could imagine. There was a reflective quality, and we witnessed the dramatic/emotional elements significant in our society at the time – for we are a narcissistic society.

Seinfeld owed its initial success not to sheer popularity, but rather to capturing a demographic group that wielded economic clout. Although televisions are owned and viewed by almost all classes and groups in America, viewing habits vary according to different demographics. Robert Hurd, an English and literature professor, notes that “the audience of a program is not only quantitatively analyzed by networks, but qualitatively analyzed according to income and cultural characteristics that forecast, more or less accurately, consumer habits. Before Seinfeld achieved its utmost popularity, it ranked high among middle-class white men,” a very desirable audience for advertisers because of their spending habits and disposable income (it failed to garner significant support from African-Americans and families with children).^[1] Its popularity among middle-class white men was partly due to the fact that that particular audience could more readily identify with particular situations and circumstances (hanging out with friends, dating, living in apartments). The focus is mainly squared on Jerry, a single, middle-class, white male, making the character relatable to the white, male audience.

There was a connection among the characters and the audience members. Vicariously, I was yelled at by the Soup Nazi, I waited for a table in a Chinese restaurant, and it was I who stole a marbled rye from an old woman. Still, the Seinfeld characters were soulless creatures, but they went beyond just being amoral, they were immoral without suffering any consequence, almost like a cartoon.^[2] TV Guide once boldly stated the characters “were the icons of a cynical age: the sarcastic Jerry, the apoplectic George, the fickly Elaine and the spastic Kramer. Hardly role models, these urban antiheroes helped define the ironic ’90s with an attitude of easily aggravated self-interest.”^[3] Ultimately, they showcased the preponderance of self-interest, as well as the futility of the facade of empathy and living for others. Together, they created a group dynamic rooted in jealousy, insecurity, and a lack of faith in fellow human beings.^[4] While magazines at the time were possibly melodramatic – hoping to cash-in on the perceived exceptionality of Seinfeld – the characters were simply caricatures of “normal” people. Jerry played himself, George was a blend of Woody Allen (more so in earlier seasons) and Larry David, Kramer was based on Kenny Kramer (Larry David’s neighbor/friend), and Elaine was simply an afterthought-female character; all characters were typical and unimpressive (though minimally more complex and developed with each passing season). This offers an opportunity for the audience to swap themselves out with one of the characters (or draw comparisons between themselves, family members, or friends). Jerry, George, Kramer, and Elaine were unexceptional (aside from the insider status maintained between the show and the audience – the secret commonality shared with the fans). They did not have special talents, and they did not have distinct jobs. They were not important – just a drop in a bucket, reciprocating myself and millions of other fans.

The playful commentary of political correctness helped connect the audience and the characters. By some accounts, the doctrine of political correctness is the 1990s’ equivalent of the McCarthyism of the 1950s or the witch-hunts and heresy trials.^[5] Now, I do not want to examine the “political” aspect of political correctness; rather, I merely will touch on its prevalence within Seinfeld and why it is historically important. The pushing of barriers of appropriate television discussion, as well as imaginative ideas for episodes became part of the appeal of the show. In part, this is what attracted people’s attention; the four main characters constantly fluctuated between absurd and crude (mirroring ourselves and experiences). The entertainment magazine, Variety, boasts that in the evenings, “Seinfeld managed to […bring] to the living room all the topics that make network censors (and Congressmen in an election year) twitch, foam, and rant: masturbation, […] urination, menage a trois, contraception, breast implants, … penile shrinkage.”^[6] However, the writers attempted to do this with style and tact. “The Contest,” became one of the most famous Seinfeld episodes. The name of the episode comes from the contest held among the four main characters to see who could go the longest without masturbating. While the actual word “masturbation” is never mentioned, inferences make it clear that the bulk of the episode centers on pleasuring one’s self (such as use of the phrase, “master of your domain”). Some advertisers felt so uncomfortable with the episode that they did not want to be associated with the show (and pulled their commercials from Seinfeld’s time slot).

The edginess, pushing of limits, and controversy Seinfeld generated helped make it popular, while at the same time, sparked debate. This debate and discussion furthered public awareness of this sitcom, prompting individuals to weigh-in, therein forming an opinion on the show itself and the antics within the show. As more people tuned in over the years, Seinfeld’s clout and audience base increased. During a period of obsessive political correctness, Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld tapped into the social frustration against codes of conduct and social conventions, helping propel the show’s popularity.

In the episode entitled, “The Cigar Store Indian,” Jerry makes insensitive impersonations of Native Americans in front of a woman (Winona) he is trying to impress (who, unbeknownst to Jerry, is a Native American). He makes these comments as he is giving Elaine a cigar-store Indian statue. Larry David specifically told the writers to have Jerry give a gift that would offend someone. Later in the episode, as he is attempting to apologize, he suggests grabbing something to eat. When he approaches a mailman who is bending over, Jerry says, “You must know where the Chinese restaurant is around here.” The visibly upset mailman stands up and yells, “Why must I know? Because I’m Chinese?”^[7] After the incident, Jerry makes a concerted effort to practice political correctness by avoiding words and phrases that (in his eyes) could be considered insensitive toward Native Americans. When talking about dinner plans, he avoids using the word “reservation,” and when Winona asks how he acquired tickets to an event, Jerry dances around the term “scalper.” Toward the end of the episode, after giving Jerry a TV Guide, Winona asks for it back, prompting him to nearly call her an “Indian-giver.”

Two episodes standout as mocking the sensitivity of political correctness with regard to African-Americans: “The Diplomat’s Club” and “The Wizard.” In “The Diplomat’s Club,” George tells his African-American boss, Mr. Morgan, that he looks like Sugar Ray Leonard. Not amused, Mr. Morgan vocally questions if George thinks all African-Americans look the same. Throughout the episode, George is obsessed with trying to prove that he is not racist (ironically, Mr. Morgan is the one who constructed the entire issue centered on race). Coincidently, this story within the episode was inspired by Larry David; he said to someone that the actor playing Mr. Morgan looked like Sugar Ray Leonard, and they wondered to themselves whether or not he would take offense to that.^[8] In “The Wizard,” Elaine does not know the race of the man she is dating. When she introduces Darryl to Jerry and George, a debate ensues on whether or not he is black. At one point, George asks, “Should we be talking about this?” When an African-American waitress asks if she can take the money for the bill, the three of them, perhaps concerned about the political correctness surrounding the debate regarding Elaine’s boyfriend’s race, uncharacteristically leave a generous tip. Later in the episode, in a hushed voice, George suggests that he might be “mixed.” Elaine follows by furrowing her brow and asks if that is the right word to describe him. Uncomfortable, George states that he “really [doesn’t] think we’re suppose to be talking about this,” and he leaves the table. In the end, Darryl (who is in fact white) had mistaken Elaine as Hispanic, showcasing the absurdity of not openly discussing race (and, generally speaking, the utility/preponderance of racial categories). Clearly, political correctness is a highlight of Seinfeld, though not limited to Native Americans and African Americans.

“The Puerto Rican Day” is an episode that generated significant backlash over its political incorrectness. Within the episode, Kramer accidently throws a sparkler onto a Puerto Rican flag. When he notices that the flag is on fire, he throws it to the ground and stomps on it. Afterwards, he is chased by an angry mob. After losing sight of him, the mob begins to shake Jerry’s empty car, and ultimately throws it down a stairwell; Kramer remarks, “It’s like this every day in Puerto Rico.”^[9] According to the president of the National Puerto Rican Coalition, Manuel Mirabal, the scene was an “‘unconscionable insult’ to Puerto Ricans. […] It is unacceptable that the Puerto Rican flag be used by Seinfeld as a stage prop under any circumstances.”^[10] Bronx Borough President, Fernando Ferrer, said the Seinfeld episode “crossed the line between humor and bigotry,” and that it was a slur to depict men rioting and vandalizing a car and suggesting that it happens every day in Puerto Rico.^[11] After receiving complaints, NBC removed it from syndication (and to this day, it is not shown on television). These examples are clear indicators of Seinfeld’s poking fun of political correctness. They mock and demonstrate the limitations political correctness has on speech, how these limitations are constraining and can cause confusion, and how the fear of rousing a diatribe – against those who are perceived as acting against racial sensitivities – impedes freedoms and discourse.

Harking back to the notion that the Seinfeld characters were similar to cartoons in that there were no permanent repercussions from their actions, Jerry, George, Kramer, and Elaine were able to mock and ridicule at leisure, unfettered by social norms. We openly chuckled at (though privately identified with) the Seinfeld characters. We sympathized with them, though their antics brought us a moment of playful excitement – much like a young boy might find a playful moment with just himself, a magnifying-glass, and an ant. Constantly, there is a power-powerless struggle. Individuals within a society are compelled and held under the eye of law, order, societal norms, and higher powers. We are but ants under a magnifying-glass. For the Seinfeld characters, their luck ended with the final episode. The eye of law, decency, and civility caught them. Of course, this episode ultimately raises the question, “for whom do we live?” Invariably, we must live for our fallible selves, though we run the risk of a society’s indignation.

The final show entails a trial against Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer. On their way to Paris, they have airplane issues, forcing them to land in a small town in New England. They witness an obese man getting robbed, videotaping the crime and mocking the man in the process. Jerry laughs and says, “Well, there goes the money for the lipo;” Elaine then laughs, noting that “the great thing about robbing a fat guy is it’s an easy getaway […]. They can’t really chase you,” and afterwards, they all smile and George chimes in, claiming that the robber is doing him a favor, for “it’s less money for him to buy food.”^[12] Again, they are staring at the struggling man, smiling and laughing, amused. In the end, Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer are arrested for failing to help someone in trouble (on the grounds of the Good Samaritan Law). While it was not really a funny episode, and failed to yield any cute catchphrases, it did end the series. Throughout the trial, a long parade of “victims” lamented over the maltreatment they received from Seinfeld and his crew. A jury of “peers” denounced them and the judge decided to remove them from society. Imprisoned in a jail or trapped within the confines of society, we are ostensibly doomed to conform or fail.

Sometimes, the characters did things we only wished we could have done; they circumvented and transcended social expectations and political correctness. While watching Seinfeld, America seemingly cheered the demise of civility. Lines blurred between mocking political correctness and mocking benevolence and good. Seinfeld mirrors the ills of American society, underscores and scoffs social codes, and presents (to a mainstream audience) an acceptable presentation and performance of the derision of basic human respect. America fell in love with these characters, and the audience embraced their actions. In what can be described as narcissism, mass media and individuals saw themselves in Seinfeld, embracing the situational comedy, along with the ambivalence and apathy toward others. In the end, Seinfeld, through its comical concern with social manners and customs, seemed to assert not the decline of civility, but rather its preponderance in American society.^[13] The obsession with codes of conduct is illustrated, and the silliness of social manners is examined; the sitcom is used as a forum to subvert the very parameters that limit the discourse of the 1990s. Political correctness is mocked, dismissed, and contorted throughout Seinfeld, paralleling American society’s struggle with oversensitivity with race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and many other social aspects. An outsider’s constraints on free thought/action will inevitably lead to frustration.

Seinfeld enabled a mass audience to join in the mocking of values and morals. When Jerry steals a marbled rye, from an old lady, the audience laughed at the absurdity, forgetting or consciously ignoring the criminality of the action.^[14] The viewer is invested in Jerry’s needs and selfdom – not in the wellbeing of the elderly woman. Similarly, kidnapping a dog, stabbing someone with a fork in the forehead, laughing during the middle of a piano concert, making out during Schindler’s List, and many other antics generated laugh after laugh. In the episode “The Parking Garage,” Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer are in a parking structure, trying in vain to locate their vehicle. This episode highlights a struggle with society; the group asks a number of people to drive them around to search for their car, but no one comes to their aid. After failed attempts, Elaine asks a gentleman to help them, only to be rebuffed. She pleads with him, asking “Why can’t you do it?” He responds that he “can’t,” but after further badgering, he comes out and makes it known that he does not want to help, and that he would not get any satisfaction from helping someone.^[15] This not only speaks to the hypocritical nature of a caring society, but the fact that in a PC-age, no one wants to come out and say they do not want to help others; rather, individuals prefer to make excuses, for society finds this more acceptable. We live for ourselves; society must not be the crux of thought and action.

As a part of mass culture, Seinfeld also underscores the collective mass of humanity, indifferent to individuality. The show’s main characters identify themselves as the anti-community, an alternate way of life which ignores the thoughts and feelings of others. The masses consist of a large quantity of people unable to express their human qualities because they are related to each other neither as individuals nor as members of a community; rather, they are only loosely, impersonally, abstractly joined.^[16] Set in New York, amongst a sea of people, Jerry and his friends exist purely for themselves – no sense of community. Mass culture often degrades the public by objectifying individuals; Similarly, Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer regard others (including girlfriends and boyfriends) as objects – objects for their personal/individual benefit. As the main characters are removed from significant and/or positive interaction with family, they bind together, not as a cross-section of an impersonal mass, but as individuals. In “The Bizarro Jerry,” Elaine is friends with a man named Kevin, who happens to have an apartment and friends physically similar to George and Kramer; however, their personalities and traits are the opposite. Kevin and his two friends are nice, giving, helpful, and caring.^[17] Elaine, tired of her life and her relationship with Jerry, George, and Kramer, finds herself wanting to divorce from her selfish companions. In the end though, she does not fit with Kevin and his friends, and Elaine returns to avarice and self-concern. Within the final episode, the four main characters are removed from New York, and their antics do not belong in the small New England community. During their trial, they are referred to as the “New York Four,” an impersonal collective, objectified, void of individuality, something “other.”^[18] Ultimately, this is the overarching self-referential aspect of Seinfeld. This show is part of mass culture, and showcases the day-to-day antics of a disingenuous microcosm of mass mentality. As television charmed and hypnotized the American public during the 1960s and 1970s, the 1980s and 1990s were witness to sitcoms grappling an increasingly fractured and consumer-based society – a society obsessed with watching itself portrayed on the small screen. Parents and children during the 1950s through the 1970s were witness to idyllic family life (for the most part), but by the 1990s, the single life – a life where the focus was squarely on one’s self – became the norm on television.

These characters were not creative or exceptional. Their occupations and actions were not heroic, rewarding, or thoughtful. Within the final episode, the “New York Four” were portrayed as individuals, but merely apparitions among apparitions – monsters to be jailed. They were the people we should not be; yet, they were who we are. For these reasons, we identified with them, and subsequently, other television shows attempted to duplicate the “Seinfeld-model.” The reign of a mainstream sitcom came to a crawling end. Now, only the coagulation of the depraved, degenerate, and insipid forms the behemoth known as “entertainment,” constructed by music, movie, television/internet, and fashion “artists.” Base, jejune, and callow, American society is stuck in front of a mirror – and it is not master of its domain. Desperate to be relevant, television does what it has always done – project images the audience wants to see. They want to see themselves.

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[1] Robert Hurd, “Taking Seinfeld Seriously: Modernism in Popular Culture.” New Literary History, Vol. 37, No. 4, Autumn 2006, 770-771.

[2] Stephen Winzenburg, TV’s Greatest Sitcoms. Baltimore, MD: Publish America, 2004, 60.

[3] Matt Roush, “Sayonara Seinfeld.” TV Guide, Vol. 46, No. 19, May 9, 1998, 20-21.

[4] Ken Tucker, “The Fantastic 4.” Entertainment Weekly, May 4, 1998, 13.

[5] William S. Livingston, “‘PC’- Issues Behind the Phrase.” The Alcalde, Sep-Oct 1991, 21.

[6] Claude Brodesser, “‘Seinfeld’ Verdict in: Show was Without Peer.” Variety, May 18, 1998 – May 24, 1998, 36.

[7] “The Cigar Store Indian,” Seinfeld: Season 5, Vol. 4 DVD – Disk 2. Culver City, CA: Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment, 2005.

[8] “The Diplomat’s Club (Commentary with Writers Tom Gammill and Max Pross),” Seinfeld: Season 6, Vol. 5 DVD – Disk 4. Culver City, CA: Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment, 2005.

[9] “The Puerto Rican Day,” Seinfeld: Season 9, Vol. 8 DVD – Disk 4. Culver City, CA: Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment, 2007.

[10] “NBC Apologizes for ‘Seinfeld’ Episode on the Puerto Rican Day Parade.” New York Times, May 9, 1998, Section B, 3.

[11] Ibid., 3.

[12] “The Finale.” Seinfeld: Season 9, Vol. 8 DVD – Disk 4. Culver City, CA: Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment, 2007.

[13] Mary M. Dalton and Laura R. Linder, eds., The Sitcom Reader: America Viewed and Skewed. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2005, 43.

[14] “The Rye.” Seinfeld: Season 7, Vol. 6 DVD – Disk 2. Culver City, CA: Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment, 2006.

[15] “The Parking Garage.” Seinfeld: Season 3, Vol. 2 DVD – Disk 2. Culver City, CA: Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment, 2004.

[16] Dwight Macdonald, Against the American Grain. New York, NY: Random House, 1962, 8.

[17] “The Bizarro Jerry,” Seinfeld: Season 8, Vol. 7 DVD – Disk 1. Culver City, CA: Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment, 2007.

[18] “The Finale.” Seinfeld: Season 9, Vol. 8 DVD – Disk 4. Culver City, CA: Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment, 2007.