Ticket 2 Ride

Jerry Seinfeld certainly isn’t happy with how comedy, at least on television, has been bridled by the political correctness police lately. In case you haven’t read his comments from an interview he gave to The New Yorker, here’s the gist of his concerns.

“Nothing really affects comedy. People always need it. They need it so badly and they don’t get it. It used to be, you would go home at the end of the day, most people would go, ‘Oh, Cheers is on. Oh, M*A*S*H is on…’ You just expected, ‘There’ll be some funny stuff we can watch on TV tonight’. Well, guess what—where is it?”

Censorship by network and corporate suits that worry about offending viewers. He says it wasn’t like this back when his series was on network television. The edgier comedy is done in the clubs and on the premium channels that present recorded concerts by Seinfeld and other standup comedians.

“This is the result of the extreme left and P.C. crap, and people worrying so much about offending other people. Now they’re going to see standup comics because we are not policed by anyone. The audience polices us. We know when we’re off track. We know instantly and we adjust to it instantly. But when you write a script and it goes into four or five different hands, committees, groups — ‘Here’s our thought about this joke.’ Well, that’s the end of your comedy.”

I am a big fan of Jerry Seinfeld’s work; his show Seinfeld was lighting in a bottle. Credit goes to a lot of people for that series, but much of it goes to his creativity. I’m not one to go toe-to-toe with Seinfeld on comedy, but I think his thinking is turned around. Is Seinfeld a Republican or Democrat? I done know, or even care, but he makes some very sweeping remarks that are unfair. Here’s my take.

American society is deeply divided, more so than when those shows he mentioned were airing, and especially when shows he didn’t mention, All in the Family, Maude and Sanford & Son were generating tremendous blowback for their characters, subject matter and dialogue. Those shows were also the work of Norman Lear (and Bud Yorkin), a well-known Hollywood liberal. Lear was very much against network censorship.

Speaking of censorship, Seinfeld may be confusing censorship with accountability. While there might be a razor sharp line between them at times, there is more spotlight on accountability in many ways. I believe there is a greater emphasis on personal accountability today, and having to own up for saying and doing things that might have been permitted, or overlooked in years past. I can think of a few standup comedians that have been held accountable for racial remarks and sexual harassment.

Is the consequence of accountability a form of censorship? Maybe. Networks are notoriously conservative, they enacted the family hour in the late 1970s under FCC pressure to restrict programming to family friend content early in the evenings. Family-friendly has been revisited through the years under the guise of protecting children, just like Moms for Liberty are other conservative groups crusade for what they feel is morally corruptive.

Writers and comedians still have opportunities to pitched their show ideas. Airing a comedy series on network television is not a right. Seinfeld said the networks bought no new comedy series this past season. Most of the series I’ve seen that were aired sucked. Quality may be the real issue. Admittedly, most network executives and programmers are morons and out-of-touch with audiences. It’s incredible that a show about nothing made Seinfeld and others a gazillion dollars.

Let me pontificate further, one only has to look at the late night network programming to see edgy and bold “comedy”. Saturday Night Live is so edgy is fails to be funny most weekends, but they get an A for effort.

Where are the censors or political correctness police when “news” channels like FoxNews constantly pushes and underscores false information and conspiracies? Thankfully they no longer use the fair and balanced tag, because it’s neither.

Seinfeld made the same inference that Hollywood is run by liberals and conservatives are punished for their views. That’s a cop out. What conservatives can’t get work?

The censorship that Seinfeld should be more concerned with is the removal of books from school libraries, restrictions on telling factual history about race and discrimination, limits or bans on providing information on birth control and health education to teens in some states, protections for whistleblowers, state legislatures that use underhanded means to limit or prohibit debate, and growing restrictions on the freedom to vote.

These are serious times, but rest assured, comedy will survive. Our democracy, the jury is out.