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Seinfeld says that far left woke mobs have killed comedy. He also dated a 17-year-old.
(lemmy.world)
this post was submitted on 01 May 2024
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Far-Right Influencers Celebrate Jerry Seinfeld Once Again Claiming ‘P.C. Crap' Killed 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.
He also picked shows that were "extreme left" for their time. M*A*S*H was full of left-wing morals and speeches from the pens of both Larry Gelbart and Alan Alda and was savagely critical of an American war against communists while America was still in Vietnam.
Mary Tyler Moore was about an independent career woman in the 1960s, when women weren't allowed to have their own credit cards.
All in the Family was about a conservative racist constantly being shown that the world had moved on from his archaic ideas about the way things should be.
So what is his issue with the "extreme left" exactly if those were the shows he picked?
Seriously. MASH had episodes around racism, and every time denigrating the racism and the fool perpetuating it. It never pushed a racist message.. at least from what my memory can recall all these decades afterwards.
I think the two that come immediately to mind are racist general who is clearly looney toons asking a black soldier to dance cause its in his blood, properly being demonstrated as off his rocker and crazy to believe such racist bullshit and just a downright mockery of those who think like that.
and there was the one where the guy didnt want blood from any black person, and they spend the episode fucking with him with makeup and claiming he got the wrong color blood... and the episode ends with him thanking them for giving him something to think about, then salutes a black woman before leaving.
Weirdly enough, that role was played by the actor who portrayed Colonel Potter in later seasons.
Back when TV was like, "sure, we'll cast you in the same show in a different role three times."
Columbo practically thrived on it. "William Shatner is the murderer again?"
MASH also had a Black character in the first season whose nickname was "Spearchucker Jones," which is supposedly justified by him being a former javelin athlete (which strikes me as coming from the "Quiet has to be dressed in clubwear while doing Serious Military Stuff because she breathes through her skin!" school of poorly-justified writing choices). It also suffers from the conceit of Hawkeye being simultaneously the moral center of the show, and a shameless womanizer whose conquests only exist in the context of the show for as long as it takes him to bed them.
I love MASH for what it is, but there are aspects of it that are clearly of its era, which we wouldn't repeat in modern television. I think you can either accept that society has moved on from where it was in the 70s and 80s, or you can be like Seinfeld and be mad that you're no longer allowed to play sexism and racism for laughs with the perpetrator framed as the good guy.
MAS*H had an episode in 1974 about the injustice of a decorated soldier having to fear being dishonorably discharged for being a homosexual. That was way, way ahead of its time.
And guess what... they went woke and haven't aired a new episode in DECADES.
Checkmate libs.
That is utter nonsense. I remember watching it in re-runs more than once.
Why do people lie about shit like this?
that comment was a joke
Very, very obviously. It's like some people were born in a weekday comic strip without nuance!
Man, that reminds me of that idiot Shatner claiming that Star Trek wasn't political back in the day...
You could legit just read the screenshot and answer your own question.
Looks like Jerry is a pretty mainstream liberal who is okay with shows tackling issues of their own volition, but doesn't appreciate the current production model of everything having to pass through focus groups, committees, and wanker consultants, coming out the other side so impotent and safe that it doesn't arouse the intellect enough to really make a point or stand for anything specific.
Like if you watch Disney stuff and think that's normal, you're part of the problem.
Sorry... you think that's current? It's always been that way.
American television was always known for production interference, but it was mostly from advertisers, bored executives, and censors. Not even close to the same thing, widespread use of focus testing and demographic committees and having 12 different sensitivity consultants is all relatively modern, and that's on top of most of the traditional interference.
And you in all likelihood knew all this, but chose to waste our time anyway.
That is absolute nonsense. And I do know this because I worked in the entertainment industry for over 10 years. Did you?
Ignoring the my-uncle-works-for-microsoft flex for a moment, are you trying to pretend we're talking about changes that occurred in the last 10 years? Jerry was working in television 35 years ago, and is talking about programmes even prior to that. You probably weren't even born then.
It didn't take long for Lemmy to turn into a carbon copy of reddit, I barely post here and you're like the third dude in the last day to pull the same sleight of hand by trying to change the argument.
First of all, I'm almost 47. I watched Seinfeld episodes the day they aired.
Secondly, focus groups have been a thing for many, many decades. Long before Seinfeld existed. In fact, before television existed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focus_group
Did Seinfeld?
A person heavily involved in TV production since 1989 doesn't seem to agree
By "a person," do you mean Jerry Seinfeld?
That couldn't have been subtle enough to ask.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This isn't about 'not letting people enjoy things', you straight up equated tiktok with the likes of MASH, one of Seinfeld's examples. But lets just pretend we were arguing about something else.
Never even considered the fact that police procedurals are still the dramatized version of cops’n robbers kids games where good guy and bad guy are obvious and no thought is required. Just get the bad guy, throw them in jail. Seems to suit the simplified version of reality a segment of our population prefers, minus the police brutality the shows generally don’t include.
To be fair, many Youtuber and Tiktokers that are watched alternatively by younger people aren't intellectual powerhouses presenting super complex content. Not that it's not there, I have a couple of more informative-ish chanels I like to watch, but there is nothing intellectual challenging watching a video about the speedrun history of kings quest IV.
Lol, nobody suggested that the vapid and shallow content on YT or TikTok had any particular value to it. The point is that procedural dramas have an underlying format popular with an age group that might have an affinity for such a format because it aligns with personal narratives they prefer.
Unless of course you are suggesting that the generation viewing TikTok and YT are as vapid and shallow as the content they prefer?
After reading the comment again: yeah, you are right, I missed the point.
No, not what I was suggesting at all.
Did they not? Maybe that's exactly what he's talking about. Take a real close look at producer credits and compare those names politicians
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XieGJCKk9Ms here's the new bohemia that has me laughin my ass off. Wrt standups and writing rooms oprev generations? Ive always loved comedy but these punch-down clowns are wearing out their own welcome.
Noticing cultural mores and mocking them isn't going away unless you're a control freak fascist gains power.
What?
Is this guy actually invoking All in the Family in this discussion? Anyone reading this should find the pilot of All in the Family and watch it right now. That is so much more woke than anything that's been on TV lately. Yea Archie Bunker used racial slurs, because the era equivalent of a fox news viewer spoke exactly like that at the time and the whole point was to show how backward and ignorant that was. Jerry Seinfeld is ignorant if he is bringing that show up as an example of an era where TV wasnt woke.