The Politics of Seinfeld (w/ Gabe Winant and Jesse Brenneman)
Added 2024-01-26 02:13:00 +0000 UTCJourneyman actor Peter Crombie, who appeared in films such as Seven, Born on the Fourth of July, and Natural Born Killers, died earlier this month, on January 10, 2024, at the age of 71. But his most famous, or at least memorable, role probably was his five-episode arc in season four of Seinfeld as "Crazy" Joe Davola, a struggling writer who becomes obsessed with Elaine and believes Jerry is sabotaging his career.
The "Crazy" Joe Davola episodes come at a major turning point in Seinfeld's nine seasons. The grittier, nearly vanished working-class New York City that's depicted in its earliest episodes, filled with dingy laundromats, struggling actors, immigrant relatives, and people who are literally poor, begins to drop out of view as Jerry's career takes off and the settings, references, and concerns of the show becomes more absurd and removed from the day to day life of ordinary people in Manhattan and beyond.
Using the death of Peter Crombie as the thinnest of excuses to do an episode on the politics of Seinfeld, Matt was joined by KYE producer Jesse Brenneman and historian Gabe Winant to explain its "Jewish humor"; how the class politics of New York City in the 70s and 80s informed the show; the deeper meaning of its many references to dictators, Nazis, communists, and others; the Dinkins vs. Giuliani race for mayor; and more!
Comments
Elaine one the subway. And Jerry on the DMV https://youtu.be/PY7fjLSioO8?si=QqxlktLQS_hzpsbG
Jon Greenbaum
2024-02-29 18:58:36 +0000 UTCI love Seinfeld and I totally ate up this episode, especially conversations around ableism. As I watch the show now I can’t help but think about how central sexual harassment is to so many plots. Elaine is often having to consider her physical safety in interactions with men. In the Opera, Elaine discovers she’s being stalked by her partner who she has to spray in the face w Binaca to escape. She also met him while trying to break up with her therapist who she feels is coercing her. Throughout the series Elaine is forcibly kissed and groped, leered at, flashed (“he took it out”), etc. Other moments include Elaine grabbing a woman’s breasts in the sauna, the “stop short”, a woman laughing at George’s shrinkage and his follow up plot to walk in on her naked, Jerry and George drugging a woman to play w her toys, Elaine being seductive to drug someone’s drink for George, Jerry forcing a girlfriend to give him a massage, frequent cat calling, etc. Most notable though is when Jerry suspects he’s being sexually assaulted while under anesthesia at the dentist office. Some of these are absolutely wild! Part 2 on sexual harassment??
Kori Sparks
2024-02-22 23:35:46 +0000 UTCOddly enough, season 4 is the only season I've seen in its entirety because it's the one I happened to buy for my dad for his birthday back in 2007 and then just watch by myself the following summer. So this episode was tight up my alley.
Tim Combes
2024-02-20 22:00:10 +0000 UTC“The Red Dot” and “The Subway” are particularly interesting, George’s “what with Clarence Thomas” crack and his belief the blind man on the subway is t really blind, which gets validated, are pretty indicative of the themes discussed in the episode
Chad Stanton
2024-01-31 22:38:43 +0000 UTCThey fooled ME, Jerry!
Michael
2024-01-29 04:46:41 +0000 UTCA class angle not discussed much in the show is the movement from blue collar ethnic youth (on the part of Jerry and George, though not the WASP Elaine) to white collar middle class. The show illustrates this micro version of the end of history disorientation that goes with enculturation into that world. Cosmopolitanism is less a celebration of differences than an orientation toward difference that situates it primarily in the origin story. Winant discusses the white collar aversion to ethnic identity in contrast to its importance as a system of support in mid century working class Pittsburgh (for example). But this must have been a dynamic for the yuppie children of ethnics in NYC, too.
Michael
2024-01-29 04:42:10 +0000 UTCDidn't mean to make a new post, but also I had no idea the politics of Seinfeld were this... nuanced, because look at Jerry
Roflmaocopter
2024-01-29 04:04:05 +0000 UTCAs a Montanan, I need to know more about Jesse's upbringing.
Roflmaocopter
2024-01-29 04:02:14 +0000 UTCHad a great time, but I was definitely expecting this conversation to hit more on the disparity between the pioneering nature of Elaine’s character and the “men are hunters, women are nesters” flavor that runs through Jerry’s standup and interactions. I also thought there might be more talk on how much hate the public bus, the library, and the post office in particular get, but I’m sure this conversation could go on for a while.
Grace Gilker
2024-01-28 21:06:21 +0000 UTCSam is right to go skiing. Moses came down from the mountain, after all.
Ian Derk
2024-01-28 03:20:28 +0000 UTCBonus meta reference in the recreation of the trial scene from JFK. Wayne Knight was in JFK, and Seinfeld incorporated Newman into the recreation in the same position that Knight took in the original film.
Kyle
2024-01-27 22:50:17 +0000 UTCCare to back up that ridiculous accusation?
Alex Alvarez
2024-01-27 19:17:07 +0000 UTCMatt and Sam caught a lot of shit for having Nate Hochman on, but Winant is a depraved antisemite and “platforming” him is a much more striking choice.
VE
2024-01-27 14:23:54 +0000 UTCListening to this right now and just paused to chime in that the subsidized housing development Larry David (and Kramer) lived in in Midtown Manhattan IS still there, and IS still subsidized housing (Manhattan Plaza, 42nd + 43rd st between 9th and 10th ave).
Samuel Stein
2024-01-26 22:41:30 +0000 UTCYou see, it's these pretzels
Mark K
2024-01-26 19:39:08 +0000 UTCThis was another fantastic episode. I had very similar early experience with Seinfeld as Jesse, watching the show in syndication almost every night with my dad starting at a very young age. I remember not fully grasping The Contest episode until reaching a certain age, lol. And in response to Matt's inquiry about younger listeners, as a millennial/gen Z cusp (born in 97), I still felt a lot of parallels in the consumption of the show that he and Jesse talked about as well. I also grew up in an area with very few jews (small town Maine) so the discussion of not recognizing the Jewish nature of the show and its humor until after watching the show for many years deeply resonated as well. This discussion also made me think of the one other show that I watched over and over in syndication with my dad, MASH, which I think would also be the subject of a great episode of KYE if you all have similar familiarity with that show as Seinfeld
Brendan Kane
2024-01-26 17:10:52 +0000 UTCIn college, around this time, I took a class called ‘Nihilism in Popular Culture’ with Thomas Hibbs. It was rooted in his book that took Seinfeld as a jumping off point, ‘Shows about Nothing Nihilism in Popular Culture from the Exorcist to Seinfeld’ Perhaps of interest to you all. Not sure how the book holds up all these years later…
Kevin Burke
2024-01-26 13:17:53 +0000 UTCI thought a similar thing but of 30 Rock with the same kind of metanarrative about a liberal WASPy post-working-class New York entertainment industry.
Temple Miller-Hodgkin
2024-01-26 12:32:34 +0000 UTCOr at least Lloyd Braun.
John Presnall
2024-01-26 08:00:59 +0000 UTCCrazy Joe Davola throat clearing regarding disability is a bit too much. Of course all the characters are disabled. Better to have taken the unseen Bob Sacamano as an angle to get into an interpretation into the show.
John Presnall
2024-01-26 07:53:57 +0000 UTCSuper fun episode. I have to give a shoutout to one of those mid series very Jewish episodes, The Bris, and the amazing rant from the guy who plays the mohel. I remember crying laughing the first time I saw it. https://youtu.be/rnJER7MaKbo?t=51 Guy who played the mohel even got a sort of obit in the NYT! https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/15/arts/television/charles-levin-found-seinfeld.html Overall just a classic episode -- suicide on George's car, the pigman, the baby's parents revoking Jerry's godparent status and giving it to Kramer because Kramer convinced them circumcision is bad, etc.
marshall beckrich
2024-01-26 05:57:14 +0000 UTCi could listen to sooo much more of this. and i think extending some of the lines of thought to Curb would be interesting too, mining Larry’s preoccupations. disability again comes up a lot (eg the bathroom stall, Larry dating multiple women using wheelchairs). another one there’s a million of is Larry being perceived as racist. and so much fighting with people working service industry jobs
Scott Metzger
2024-01-26 05:32:54 +0000 UTCYou guys are such my era. Watching Seinfeld reruns after Simpsons, before even knowing the deeper culture lore. Adams Cty, PA. Matt knows. :)
mysticwerebadger
2024-01-26 03:08:49 +0000 UTCI cannot wait to listen to this
Matthew Ryan
2024-01-26 03:01:09 +0000 UTCOmg I have never hit the Play button so hard in my life
Maurice Marion
2024-01-26 02:26:44 +0000 UTCI’m gonna need some WATER HERE
Steve from Philly
2024-01-26 02:17:33 +0000 UTCall-time lineup, all-time topic ❤️
Where there’s a Wills there’s a Way
2024-01-26 02:15:55 +0000 UTCwee don't deserve you guys ✨
Where there’s a Wills there’s a Way
2024-01-26 02:15:28 +0000 UTC
