This past spring, Jerry Seinfeld gave a series of very strange interviews. He edged up to making some okay points about how the film and television industry has changed and how comedy has evolved. But then he bungled it by saying a lot of dumb sh-t so no one paid attention to what arguments he was actually trying to make. Like, he started out by complaining about the dearth of good-quality network comedies, then he blamed that dearth on “the extreme left and P.C. crap, and people worrying so much about offending other people.” Well, months later, someone finally got to him. Seinfeld walked back all of that “extreme left is destroying comedy” bullsh-t in a new podcast interview:
Jerry Seinfeld is walking back polarizing comments he made to The New Yorker in April while promoting his Netflix movie “Unfrosted.” The comedian went viral for saying TV comedy had been killed by the extreme left and P.C. culture. Seinfeld noted at the time that “people [are] worrying so much about offending other people” and comedy is suffering as a result.
Seinfeld is now taking those comments back. He appeared on the latest episode of his friend and fellow comedian Tom Papa’s “Breaking Bread” podcast and said he “regrets” blaming P.C. culture for destroying comedy.
“I said that the ‘extreme left’ has suppressed the art of comedy. I did say that. That’s not true,” Seinfeld said. “It’s not true. If you’re a champion skier, you can put the gates anywhere you want on the mountain and you’re going to make the gate. That’s comedy. Whatever the culture is, we make the gate. You don’t make the gate, you’re out of the game. The game is where is the gate and how do I make the gate to get down the hill.”
“Does culture change and are there things that I used to say that [I can’t because] people are always moving [the gate]? Yes, but that’s the biggest and easiest target,” Seinfeld added. “You can’t say certain words about groups. So what? The accuracy of your observation has to be 100 times finer than that just to be a comedian…So I don’t think, as I said, the ‘extreme left’ has done anything to inhibit the art of comedy.”
Seinfeld also refuted claims that he once said he would never perform at colleges because the students have become so P.C, saying: “First of all, I never said it, but if you think I said it, it’s not true. I play colleges all the time. I have no problem with kids, performing for them. I was just at the University of Indiana. I do colleges all the time.”
I’ve watched a few dozen of Seinfeld’s Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee episodes, and from that show, I know that Seinfeld still longs for what he considers “the good old days” of stand-up comedy. It also feels like he really tries to pay attention to what’s currently happening in stand-up, which means he actually knows that there’s still fertile ground to cover in comedy, even with the cultural shifts in what’s funny and what’s harmful. Basically, I think Seinfeld completely miscommunicated his outlook earlier this year, and he sat there and really listened to the conversation in the months since then. Maybe he even talked to comedians who are still doing stand-up and writing for network comedies and he was like “you know what, I was wrong.”
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