Did Seinfeld predict today's social climate?

[Prowler]

Seinfeld is my all-time famourite American sitcom. It holds up so well to this day, and this episode kind of proves it. What do you think?

[Leo656]

Oddly enough... I f*cking hate that show.

I've given it a few chances but it just doesn't grab me at all. And even if it did, my wife hates it even more and so I'd never get a chance to watch it anyway. I'm not "allowed" to watch shows she doesn't like. She agreed to give it a chance for a few days once, I think we watched one or two episodes per day for about a week but finally she just snapped and was like "I'm not watching this anymore", and that was that. I wasn't really having fun with it either so I didn't really put up a fight.

I don't know what it is about it that doesn't grab me. It's one of those things where I can kinda understand why other people like it, but I can't explain why I don't.

Could be because I absolutely hate New York and people who are from there, but that can't be the entire reason. I really don't know what it is.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Oddly enough... I f*cking hate that show.

I've given it a few chances but it just doesn't grab me at all. And even if it did, my wife hates it even more and so I'd never get a chance to watch it anyway. I'm not "allowed" to watch shows she doesn't like. She agreed to give it a chance for a few days once, I think we watched one or two episodes per day for about a week but finally she just snapped and was like "I'm not watching this anymore", and that was that. I wasn't really having fun with it either so I didn't really put up a fight.

I don't know what it is about it that doesn't grab me. It's one of those things where I can kinda understand why other people like it, but I can't explain why I don't.

Could be because I absolutely hate New York and people who are from there, but that can't be the entire reason. I really don't know what it is.

It's the whole character interactions, observational humour and also how everyone is selfish that appeals to me. Plus there's no sappy moments nor moral lessons. It's just straight up comedy. Even when George's fiance dies, he feels relieved about it and his friends are just like... "well, let's go to the coffee shop".

Curb Your Enthusiasm is great too. Also by Larry David. That one is set in Los Angeles. And its humour... it's like as if Seinfeld was R rated, more or less. It definitely isn't a clone by any means.

Also, for some reason, the guy who posted the video on YouTube cut the part where Elaine tells Jerry Winona left offended because she's a Native American.

[Andrew NDB]

I've seen maybe 10 episodes of it while it was airing. Never since. There's occasionally some ripe, awkward humor but it wasn't really for me. Maybe I'd feel different if I were to watch it now but I feel no burning desire to.

[superstaff]

I don't think it really predicted anything.

There was PC culture in the 90s, it just wasn't as enhanced as it is now (which the internet is a part of why it's spread so much). As you told Leo, the show was all about observational humor, and David and Seinfeld saw what was happening at the time. It was expertly done in this specific episode.

Although, to be totally honest, this was a horrible, horrible gift to give Elaine. Or anyone who isn't a cigar enthusiast (or weirdo) like Kramer was (the show knows this, thus why Kramer took it).

Anyway, Seinfeld's made a lot of commentary on the current political/SJW/PC climate in recent years. Look it up if you'd like.

[Leo656]

I feel like my sensibilities skew more towards Family Guy because while it has a similar "root", Family Guy is a lot more mean-spirited and offensive-on-purpose and that's what I really enjoy. It takes the whole "Terrible people being Terrible" premise of Seinfeld and dials it up to 20.

Plus, I tend to just rather watch cartoons.

What's funny is that I typically find Julia Louis-Dreyfuss to be pretty goddamn hot, and yet I don't watch Seinfeld. I guess because she's really "dressed-down" in that show and they never really presented her as being very attractive, which other shows did. Then again, I didn't watch those shows, either. I've never actually watched a show she was on, I'd just see it while I was passing through a room and be like, "Damn, she's hot," and keep walking.

But that's one thing about me I noticed a long time ago, if a live-action show doesn't prominently feature a really hot main cast member, I can't get into it. I need constant visual stimulation or I get distracted. For example, my wife is watching Sabrina the Teenage Witch right now, and while even as a kid I thought it was incredibly dumb and I can't say it's a "good" show, there's T&A everywhere with tons of chicks in tight shirts and short skirts constantly, so I'll never complain when that show's on even though it's really, really dumb. Like it's REALLY dumb. But there's hot chicks everywhere so I can tolerate it.

In some ways I'm pretty shallow. Go figure.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by superstaff

I don't think it really predicted anything.

There was PC culture in the 90s, it just wasn't as enhanced as it is now (which the internet is a part of why it's spread so much). As you told Leo, the show was all about observational humor, and David and Seinfeld saw what was happening at the time. It was expertly done in this specific episode.

Although, to be totally honest, this was a horrible, horrible gift to give Elaine. Or anyone who isn't a cigar enthusiast (or weirdo) like Kramer was (the show knows this, thus why Kramer took it).

Anyway, Seinfeld's made a lot of commentary on the current political/SJW/PC climate in recent years. Look it up if you'd like.

Of course it was. Politically correctness is a term that's always been around during my lifetime. I dunno who or when it was coined first. But must have been eya before the 90s even.

Difference being, there was no cancel culture and the Internet wasn't what it is today. Plus, people and politicians in general weren't that on board with it as they are today.

I remember vaguely how, in the 90s, when my country was now becoming a place where foreigners immigrate to instead of the other way around like it had been for most of the 20th century, the media was starting to introduce the whole PC thing here. Writing stories about African and East European immigrants and mentioning racism and xenophobia more frequently. From what I've heard, similar things happened in other European countries at the time.

Well yeah I dunno what made Jerry think Elaine would like that kind of gift, even if Einona wasn't her friend. That's just a strange gift to buy someone who doesn't even smoke . But it led to a funny episode.

Yes, I know. When asked about the whole diversity in the media thing he basically said he didn't care. The most important thing is "are you entertained?".

[Andrew NDB]

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by Leo656

I feel like my sensibilities skew more towards Family Guy because while it has a similar "root", Family Guy is a lot more mean-spirited and offensive-on-purpose and that's what I really enjoy. It takes the whole "Terrible people being Terrible" premise of Seinfeld and dials it up to 20.

Plus, I tend to just rather watch cartoons.

What's funny is that I typically find Julia Louis-Dreyfuss to be pretty goddamn hot, and yet I don't watch Seinfeld. I guess because she's really "dressed-down" in that show and they never really presented her as being very attractive, which other shows did. Then again, I didn't watch those shows, either. I've never actually watched a show she was on, I'd just see it while I was passing through a room and be like, "Damn, she's hot," and keep walking.

But that's one thing about me I noticed a long time ago, if a live-action show doesn't prominently feature a really hot main cast member, I can't get into it. I need constant visual stimulation or I get distracted. For example, my wife is watching Sabrina the Teenage Witch right now, and while even as a kid I thought it was incredibly dumb and I can't say it's a "good" show, there's T&A everywhere with tons of chicks in tight shirts and short skirts constantly, so I'll never complain when that show's on even though it's really, really dumb. Like it's REALLY dumb. But there's hot chicks everywhere so I can tolerate it.

In some ways I'm pretty shallow. Go figure.

Family Guy is better in small doses than in full episodes imo. The show is very all over the place. And Peter Griffin's flashback gags always seem out of place, even if they can be funny. It's not a very well written show overall even though it has a lot of funny moments. Compared to The Simpsons, Futurama and South Park, Family Guy just feels like a bunch of gags mashed together.

Oh yeah Julia was a beautiful woman back then. But in the early seasons of Seinfeld production values weren't that great and she wore dresses that didn't really favour her at all. After season 5 or so, she starts to dress better.

Well, you must not be the only one. Otherwise why would there be so many good looking people on TV? I guess no one wants to see ugly people when watching movies and TV shows...

I wouldn't say hot women help soothe the pain of a bad or not so great show though. At least not to the point of making me watch it. Look at How I Met Your Mother. It had Alysson Hannigan and Cobie Smulders. But the show just isn't funny or particularly good. I watched several episodes of it sometime ago and I don't understand the hype. So no, those two ladies don't save the show.

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

Haha yeah another classic.

[AquaParade]

I never got into Seinfeld but I recently fell in love with Curb Your Enthusiasm.
The lack of laugh-track probably helps.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by AquaParade

I never got into Seinfeld but I recently fell in love with Curb Your Enthusiasm.
The lack of laugh-track probably helps.

I never minded the laugh track.

I love both Curb and Seinfeld for similar and yet different reasons. Honestl, Curb was what made me realise that Larry David was the true genius behind Seinfeld and not Jerry Seinfeld himself.

I do think Seinfeld wins for its iconic cast of actors and characters though. But Curb is pretty damn great too. I honestly didn't expect the quality gap between btih shows to be so small.

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by Prowler

Family Guy is better in small doses than in full episodes imo. The show is very all over the place. And Peter Griffin's flashback gags always seem out of place, even if they can be funny. It's not a very well written show overall even though it has a lot of funny moments. Compared to The Simpsons, Futurama and South Park, Family Guy just feels like a bunch of gags mashed together.

Oh yeah Julia was a beautiful woman back then. But in the early seasons of Seinfeld production values weren't that great and she wore dresses that didn't really favour her at all. After season 5 or so, she starts to dress better.

Well, you must not be the only one. Otherwise why would there be so many good looking people on TV? I guess no one wants to see ugly people when watching movies and TV shows...

I wouldn't say hot women help soothe the pain of a bad or not so great show though. At least not to the point of making me watch it. Look at How I Met Your Mother. It had Alysson Hannigan and Cobie Smulders. But the show just isn't funny or particularly good. I watched several episodes of it sometime ago and I don't understand the hype. So no, those two ladies don't save the show.

Well, that's kind of the entire point of Family Guy. The "plot" is only a delivery system for racist jokes and "You can't say THAT on TV" type of humor, which is my favorite kind. The show got a lot more fun when it stopped pretending to be "about" anything sometime in the second Season. They lampshaded it at the very end of an early episode when Meg or someone pointed out that the episode's plot hadn't been resolved, and Lois was like, "I mean, does anyone REALLY care?" And obviously, no, they don't. If anyone watches Family Guy for anything but Shock Humor they're missing the entire point.

The "plot" absolutely doesn't matter, and that's by design, and I personally never take points off of anything for being exactly what it's trying to be. It exists to "trick" people into laughing at things they know they shouldn't be laughing at. And that's terrific.

Conversely, South Park and even Futurama annoy me because while they're good shows, they try and be "too smart" sometimes, South Park especially. When they started dragging a joke out over an entire Season, that was awful. Like the "PC Principal" and "Member Berries" stuff was fun for an episode and agonizing over a Season (or worse, MULTIPLE Seasons). I'm like "You made your point, we get the joke, put the damn sledgehammer away, you're a f*cking dick-and-fart joke show stop trying to be so goddamn 'clever'."

My wife watches a ton of South Park and Futurama - which means I do too, even when I'm only half in the mood for it - and sometimes they'll do something that the writers very obviously jizzed themselves over, and I'll just be like "A-HA-HA-HA, YOU'RE SO FUNNY!"

They're not bad shows at all but I guess I prefer my cartoons to not be so goddamn pretentious. They're cartoons!
--------------

And yeah, I never watched "How I Met Your Mother" either, I saw a few episodes at the gym and it looked awful. Really, I don't bother much with newer shows. I pretty much get into a show after it's already over with, if I hear good things about it from enough people. Like, if I get into a show and it starts to suck, I'm gonna feel like I wasted my time and I just can't be bothered with that. If a show's already over with and I can just binge the DVDs over a few days, the lesser episodes won't bother me and even if the quality dips I know it'll all be over soon. I can't imagine what it's like watching a once-good show go to Hell in real time, dragged out over weeks and months and years. Seems awful, going by how most people react.

As I've mentioned many times, as I'm getting older my patience and free time are both diminishing and so I'm very picky-choosy with how I entertain myself.

As for Allyson Hannigan, she was Goddess-Tier once upon a time (not enough for me to actually watch shows or movies with her in them, but she was still one who'd always turn my head)... but going by the most recent episodes of "Penn & Teller's Fool Us", she's getting pretty f*cking fat. That's a goddamn shame.

[superstaff]

I only enjoyed the first three seasons of Family Guy, the ones before the show was brought back. I feel the show just amped up on everything, including random gore, toilet humor, and sex jokes (including those involving Stewie), and went off the rails. I've tried to watch the s4+ episodes since I enjoyed the first three, but...it just seems to rely mostly on shock value, and has way more cutaways than ever, some of which aren't funny like the Conway Twitty ones. I guess I just preferred it when FG parodied sitcom conventions, and wasn't trying so hard. I also liked Peter and Brian as a duo than Stewie and Brian (the original seasons had shades of this, but the Peter-Brian stuff has been mostly dropped nowadays).

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Well, that's kind of the entire point of Family Guy. The "plot" is only a delivery system for racist jokes and "You can't say THAT on TV" type of humor, which is my favorite kind. The show got a lot more fun when it stopped pretending to be "about" anything sometime in the second Season. They lampshaded it at the very end of an early episode when Meg or someone pointed out that the episode's plot hadn't been resolved, and Lois was like, "I mean, does anyone REALLY care?" And obviously, no, they don't. If anyone watches Family Guy for anything but Shock Humor they're missing the entire point.

The "plot" absolutely doesn't matter, and that's by design, and I personally never take points off of anything for being exactly what it's trying to be. It exists to "trick" people into laughing at things they know they shouldn't be laughing at. And that's terrific.

Conversely, South Park and even Futurama annoy me because while they're good shows, they try and be "too smart" sometimes, South Park especially. When they started dragging a joke out over an entire Season, that was awful. Like the "PC Principal" and "Member Berries" stuff was fun for an episode and agonizing over a Season (or worse, MULTIPLE Seasons). I'm like "You made your point, we get the joke, put the damn sledgehammer away, you're a f*cking dick-and-fart joke show stop trying to be so goddamn 'clever'."

My wife watches a ton of South Park and Futurama - which means I do too, even when I'm only half in the mood for it - and sometimes they'll do something that the writers very obviously jizzed themselves over, and I'll just be like "A-HA-HA-HA, YOU'RE SO FUNNY!"

They're not bad shows at all but I guess I prefer my cartoons to not be so goddamn pretentious. They're cartoons!
--------------

And yeah, I never watched "How I Met Your Mother" either, I saw a few episodes at the gym and it looked awful. Really, I don't bother much with newer shows. I pretty much get into a show after it's already over with, if I hear good things about it from enough people. Like, if I get into a show and it starts to suck, I'm gonna feel like I wasted my time and I just can't be bothered with that. If a show's already over with and I can just binge the DVDs over a few days, the lesser episodes won't bother me and even if the quality dips I know it'll all be over soon. I can't imagine what it's like watching a once-good show go to Hell in real time, dragged out over weeks and months and years. Seems awful, going by how most people react.

As I've mentioned many times, as I'm getting older my patience and free time are both diminishing and so I'm very picky-choosy with how I entertain myself.

As for Allyson Hannigan, she was Goddess-Tier once upon a time (not enough for me to actually watch shows or movies with her in them, but she was still one who'd always turn my head)... but going by the most recent episodes of "Penn & Teller's Fool Us", she's getting pretty f*cking fat. That's a goddamn shame.

Yeah I'm aware. But Family Guy just isn't something I can see myself sitting down and watching all day long know what I mean?

I think the best Family Guy seasons were the early ones. When Stewie wanted to kill Lois and wasn't gay. Last time I checked Family Guy, Quagmire suddenly hated Brian for some reason.

South Park does get a bit preachy and pseudo intellectual at times, sure. I agree.

A good show with mean humor and also good writing is Archer, imo.

I forgot to mention Sabrina the Teenage Witch. I watched that when I was a kid back in the early-mid 2000s. It was actually a pretty fun show. But I don't think I'd enjoy it much these days.

Didn't know Alysson Hannigan got fat lately. Sounds like she's going Dow the Tia Carrere route. Remember how hot she looked in Wayne's World? Shame, but everyone ages.

I feel like half the people out there get sorta fat once they hit middle age. Guys get their beer bellies and women get bloated after having a couple of kids.

But there's also plenty of skinny middle aged people as well. I hope I'm still thin when I'm 50.

[Leo656]

Archer WAS great, but then like a lot of shows it started sucking its own dick. The Seasons after he went into the coma were f*cking awful. And it was obvious that they had no idea what they were going to do once they brought him out of the coma, so for like three years or so they just did Random Bullsh*t Seasons that weren't even very funny, just to kill time and give themselves more time to try and figure out how to move forward.

The Season where he finally woke up wasn't THAT bad, but it still wasn't that great. I hated how the first few episodes beat you over the head with the fact that "These people are all better off without Archer and that his entire presence is the only reason they're all terrible people with terrible lives", to the point of rubbing his face in it constantly. I kept expecting the Season to end with him killing himself because "They're all better off without me, anyway." Because it just felt like that was the point they were making. It was a little too dark and depressing.

Since then it's just been meandering. It WAS the best show on TV once upon a time but now it's Just Another Show and that's a shame. As I've said before, I feel like every show should have an Exit Strategy before it even gets greenlit, so they can bail out in a hurry once the momentum shifts. Archer's a great example, it was fantastic but should have ended a long time ago. It was arguably starting to drift even before the Coma happened, and it'll never be what it was. It's a shame what it turned into. It's obvious the cast loves working together, and that's cool, but the show just isn't good anymore.

Originally Posted by Prowler

I feel like half the people out there get sorta fat once they hit middle age. Guys get their beer bellies and women get bloated after having a couple of kids.

Yeah, but rich people can fix that sh*t. If they insist on being out in public or on TV where we can see them, then they have a responsibility to the public to present well. Nobody wants to see Pretty People get fat. They look in the mirror for that. Celebrities are supposed to be aspirational figures.

Yes, I know this is shallow and dehumanizing. I don't care. I don't want to see fat people on TV, I see them every time I leave the house as it is.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Archer WAS great, but then like a lot of shows it started sucking its own dick. The Seasons after he went into the coma were f*cking awful. And it was obvious that they had no idea what they were going to do once they brought him out of the coma, so for like three years or so they just did Random Bullsh*t Seasons that weren't even very funny, just to kill time and give themselves more time to try and figure out how to move forward.

The Season where he finally woke up wasn't THAT bad, but it still wasn't that great. I hated how the first few episodes beat you over the head with the fact that "These people are all better off without Archer and that his entire presence is the only reason they're all terrible people with terrible lives", to the point of rubbing his face in it constantly. I kept expecting the Season to end with him killing himself because "They're all better off without me, anyway." Because it just felt like that was the point they were making. It was a little too dark and depressing.

Since then it's just been meandering. It WAS the best show on TV once upon a time but now it's Just Another Show and that's a shame. As I've said before, I feel like every show should have an Exit Strategy before it even gets greenlit, so they can bail out in a hurry once the momentum shifts. Archer's a great example, it was fantastic but should have ended a long time ago. It was arguably starting to drift even before the Coma happened, and it'll never be what it was. It's a shame what it turned into. It's obvious the cast loves working together, and that's cool, but the show just isn't good anymore.

I have only watched about 20 episodes of Archer tbh, so I didn't know that. But I guess you saved me time from watching the whole series, so thanks for that.

Also, he was in a coma for 3 seasons?! The main character?! That doesn't seem like a good business decision by the studio.

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by Prowler

I have only watched about 20 episodes of Archer tbh, so I didn't know that. But I guess you saved me time from watching the whole series, so thanks for that.

Also, he was in a coma for 3 seasons?! The main character?! That doesn't seem like a good business decision by the studio.

While he was in the coma they started doing nonsense seasons where it was in his coma dreams. First they did a whole "noir" type Season where he was a detective, then they did a whole Season based on the movie "Fantastic Voyage", and there was one where everyone was on a tropical island dealing with pirates.

Some of the bits were funny but it was VERY obvious that they were just killing time, and that the writers had no idea how to get Archer out of the coma OR what they were gonna do once they did so. It just dragged on and on, and frankly, by the time they went back to normal, nobody watching the show even really cared anymore. Most people had already given up on it.

And then, as stated, the entire cast of characters had moved on and their lives were infinitely better off without him, and it just seemed really bleak. All the "jokes" were about how everyone's worst traits and bad decisions were directly related to him, and it was like "Jesus, this show absolutely hates its main character." It just wasn't a fun show to watch, anymore.

Like yes, Sterling Archer was a terrible person and by no means a "role model", but that was the entire point of the show and it reveled in that by design. Like Family Guy, the point of the show was "tricking" people into laughing at things they know are "wrong", and rooting for a protagonist they know is a bad person just because he's so charismatic. The newer episodes seemed like the point was undoing all of that, and that we're supposed to hate Sterling because he's a bad person, rather than loving him in spite of it. In the early Seasons ALL the characters were bad people, and again, like Family Guy, that was the entire point. Now they've reframed it so that "Well, they're all only terrible people because of This One Idiot", and it just feels... off.

It stays a pretty good show up until the stuff with Veronica Dean, and even that Season is tolerable. So I'd still recommend all of that stuff from the first few Seasons. But once she shoots him and he goes into the coma, just pretend he died and the show ended there.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Yeah, but rich people can fix that sh*t. If they insist on being out in public or on TV where we can see them, then they have a responsibility to the public to present well. Nobody wants to see Pretty People get fat. They look in the mirror for that. Celebrities are supposed to be aspirational figures.

Yes, I know this is shallow and dehumanizing. I don't care. I don't want to see fat people on TV, I see them every time I leave the house as it is.

Well, I don't view celebrities as aspirational figures at all.

I do agree that it's always a shame when a very attractive woman suddenly gets fat and/or ugly but I don't take offence to Hannigan putting on weight. She's pretty cute but not in my personal top 5 or anything.

Monica Bellucci is getting older. And she was very hot for a long time. She'd be in her 40s and putting to shame women half her age in terms of good looks. But age is clearly getting to her even though she hasn't gotten fat.

Scarlett Johansson will be 80 years old eventually as well. Have all the surgery you want but by the time you're 80, no man is gonna find you physically attractive.

Anyway, actresses in general don't age that quickly compared to let's say, pornstars. Now those should be more careful considering their sole purpose is to get guys hard. But a lot of pornstars stop being attractive or age significantly by the time they reach 30. It's kinda crazy and scary. I guess all the drugs they do leads to fast aging.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by Leo656

While he was in the coma they started doing nonsense seasons where it was in his coma dreams. First they did a whole "noir" type Season where he was a detective, then they did a whole Season based on the movie "Fantastic Voyage", and there was one where everyone was on a tropical island dealing with pirates.

Some of the bits were funny but it was VERY obvious that they were just killing time, and that the writers had no idea how to get Archer out of the coma OR what they were gonna do once they did so. It just dragged on and on, and frankly, by the time they went back to normal, nobody watching the show even really cared anymore. Most people had already given up on it.

And then, as stated, the entire cast of characters had moved on and their lives were infinitely better off without him, and it just seemed really bleak. All the "jokes" were about how everyone's worst traits and bad decisions were directly related to him, and it was like "Jesus, this show absolutely hates its main character." It just wasn't a fun show to watch, anymore.

Like yes, Sterling Archer was a terrible person and by no means a "role model", but that was the entire point of the show and it reveled in that by design. Like Family Guy, the point of the show was "tricking" people into laughing at things they know are "wrong", and rooting for a protagonist they know is a bad person just because he's so charismatic. The newer episodes seemed like the point was undoing all of that, and that we're supposed to hate Sterling because he's a bad person, rather than loving him in spite of it. In the early Seasons ALL the characters were bad people, and again, like Family Guy, that was the entire point. Now they've reframed it so that "Well, they're all only terrible people because of This One Idiot", and it just feels... off.

It stays a pretty good show up until the stuff with Veronica Dean, and even that Season is tolerable. So I'd still recommend all of that stuff from the first few Seasons. But once she shoots him and he goes into the coma, just pretend he died and the show ended there.

That sounds crazy considering none of the people in the show are good people. Cyril Feegus has always been a piece of **** and I could tell it from as early as episode 1 already.

[Coola Yagami]

Originally Posted by Prowler

Anyway, actresses in general don't age that quickly compared to let's say, pornstars. Now those should be more careful considering their sole purpose is to get guys hard. But a lot of pornstars stop being attractive or age significantly by the time they reach 30. It's kinda crazy and scary. I guess all the drugs they do leads to fast aging.

It's crazy though, cause if they age gracefully then they're moved to the milf category. It's kinda funny sometimes to see the same porn actress portray the naive teen next door in one vid and then be the horny milf in another vid since time has passed.

Not that I'm into watching that kind of filth, mind you. Heavens no.