Journal of Popular Film and Television ISSN: 0195-6051 (Print) 1930-6458 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vjpf20 The Schlemiel and the Schlimazl in Seinfeld Carla Johnson To cite this article: Carla Johnson (1994) The Schlemiel and the Schlimazl in Seinfeld, Journal of Popular Film and Television, 22:3, 116-124, DOI: 10.1080/01956051.1994.9943676 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/01956051.1994.9943676 Published online: 14 Jul 2010. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 44 Citing articles: 7 View citing articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=vjpf20 ~~ ~ ~~ ~~ ~ Over five seasons, America has witnessed the schlemiel-and-schlimazlstyle idiocies of sidekicks Elaine, Jerry Seinfeld, and George. 116 The Schlemiel and the Schlimazl in Seinfeld By CARLA JOHNSON omeone has stolen George’s whose ‘accident’ spills the soup ... onto glasses, or so he thinks. He others” (Pinkster 6). In the above has actually left them on top episode (aired 2 December 1993), Jerry of his locker at the health plays the schlimazl to George’s club. He steps out from the optical schlemiel. Over five seasons, in episode shop, where he is trying on new after well-watched episode, America frames, squints down the street, and has witnessed the schlemiel-and- “sees” Jerry’s girlfriend Amy kissing schlimazl style idiocies of sidekicks Jerry’s cousin. Never mind that the Jerry, George, and Elaine.2 Whereas frames he is wearing have no lenses. George Costanza, Elaine Benes, and He reports the siting to Jerry. Despite Jerry Seinfeld exemplify the luckless Elaine’s caution (“He couldn’t tell an Jewish fools, the man with one apple from an onion, and he’s your star name-Kramer-has all the luck. The witness!”), Jerry believes George. predominant comic business of the Confronting Amy, Jerry says, “Let’s show resides in the lucklessness of its cut the bull, sister!” In the process of presumably Jewish characters con- trying to extract the supposed truth trasted with the uncanny luck of the from Amy, Jerry loses her. Eventually, lone gentile-apparent. In The George realizes that he actually saw a Schlemiel as Modem Hero, Ruth R. police officer kissing her horse. “I was Wisse contends that “[s]chlemiel an idiot for listening to you,” Jerry humor ... would have been as unpalat- complains. I able to earlier generations of Americans If Jerry is an “idiot,” he is a special as gefilte fish, a similar device for kind of idiot. The hit show Seinfeld camouflaging rotten leavings for a del- regularly employs the schlemiel/schli- icacy” (74). The show’s roots in mazl shtick evolved from Yiddish Jewish folklore, literature, and humor folklore and literature. In Joy of may, ironically, explain its current Yiddish, Leo Roslin defines the two popularity with mainstream America. types of classic Yiddish fools: “... the According to folklorist Nathan schlimazl is the one who gets soup spilt Ausubel, the schlemiel traditionally on him .... It is the schlemiel, of course, was linked in Yiddish folklore with 117 118 JPF&T-Journal of Popular Film and Television “his equally unlucky cousin, the schli- able, ineffectual in his efforts at self- going to be successful, and God’s going mazl .... The two types did have an advancement and self-preservation, he to give me a threatening disease.” affinity; they both had their origin in emerged as the archetypal Jew, espe- However, when he receives the nega- the same economic swamp of ghetto- cially in his capacity of potential vic- tive test results, he shouts into the stagnation. Also their end product was tim” (4-5). As the Jewish fool evolved phone and into a universe he perceives identical-failure” (Pinkster 6). As and traveled from Europe to America, as constantly threatening, “Negative?! Jerry’s romance fails, George fails to the language and modes that present Why? Why? Why?’ get a suitable pair of glasses and, fur- him have changed, but the “fundamen- As the schlemiel’s world centers ther, to realize that his “lost” ones are tal themes of Jewish humor” are basi- around his essential lucklessness, the still sitting on top of his locker, a fact cally unchanged (Novak and Waldoks schlimazl’s world centers around situ- revealed to the audience in the last xv). The world of business and “the ations, the mundane, everyday pains shot of the episode. By definition, the eternal comedy of food, health, and and pleasures of life. Thus, in another episode, when George cries out, “There’s a void, Jerry, there’s a void. What gives you pleasure?’ Jerry, the As the schlemiel? world centers around his schlimazl, replies, “Listening to you. Your misery is my pleasure.” Here, essential lucklessness, the schlimazlDsworld Seinfeld has described his character’s philosophy on life, which is “To out- centers around situations-the mundane, order someone in a restaurant, to get the better thing, that’s the true contest everyday pains and pleasures of life. of life.”5 Jerry is like the Hasidic fool of the nineteenth century, a “simple man who lives happily, one day at a two types also have important differ- manners” (xiv) and the grimmer time”’ (Wisse 16). The contrasting ences. The schlimazl, like Sholem themes of frustration, futility, alien- mindsets of George and Jerry provide Aleichem’s Tevye, is a “man more ation, and humiliation characterize the much of the tension and intellectual sinned against than sinning, as the vic- themes of the Seirzfeld show as easily framework for the show. tim of ‘accidents’ he did not engineer” as those of Yiddish folklore. However, the two characters share a (Pinkster 31). The schlemiel “has a Several kinds of fools exist in classic sense of Jewish alienation. If hand in his [own] destruction; the Yiddish folklore, but Wisse believes George feels alienated from an entire more he attempts, the greater seem his that the schlemiel is derived from “the universe, Jerry finds pleasure in the chances for comic failure.” Thus, category of the luckless or inept, like trivial, assuming nothing beyond the when George pursues his potential to the schlimazl....” (13). She differenti- mundane would be possible or desirable become a star hand model in another ates the schlemiel and the schlimazl in anyway. Although Seinfeld describes episode, he ruins his own chances for this way: the show as “a show about nothing,” star status and financial SUCC~SS.~ the show is, in fact, about the necessi- Caught up in his own importance, he The schlemiel is the active disseminator of bad luck, and the schlimazl its pas- ty to care about nothing of impor- unintentionally blurts out insults that sive victim.... [Tlhe schlimazl happens tance. Both George and Jerry reflect further rile a miffed fashion designer; upon mischance, he has a penchant for the currents of anxiety and skepticism she shoves him into a burning embrace lucklessness.... [Tlhe schlemiel’s mis- that William Novak and Moshe Waldoks with a hot iron sitting on an ironing fortune is his character. It is not acci- identify as typical of European shtetl board. Here the schlemiel’s “hand” in dental, but essential. humor (xiv). They challenge not just his own destruction becomes literal. Whereas comedy involving the schli- the possibility of classic heroism but The idea of “hand” signifying manipu- mazl tends to be situational, the that it is ever desirable (Wisse 39). lation and control or the lack thereof, a schlemiel’s comedy is existential, deriv- Better to be a loser than to “risk believ- frequent theme in the show, is rooted ing from his very nature in its con- ing in a newfound strength” (73). in classic Jewish humor. frontation with reality. (14) George’s sense of universal alien- Wisse argues that the schlemiel has Thus, the character of George fol- ation suggests the ultimate exile. A traditionally symbolized the Jewish lows the pattern of the classic schlemiel. possible source for the word schlemiel people in their “encounter with sur- In the 1993 season finale George dis- is the Hebrew phrase shelvuch min ‘el, rounding cultures and [their] opposi- covers a growth on his mouth, has a which means “sent away from God.” tion to their opposition” (4). The biopsy, and awaits the results, assuming With its suggestions of exile and alien- Jewish fool emerged in the Middle the worst! He sees the situation as exis- ation, the phrase reveals the religious Ages “as a typical prankster and wit,” tential: “I was a total failure. Every- connection between “recurrent bad his “utility as a metaphor for European thing was fine. Now this thing [the luck with one ... out of God’s graces” Jewry” only later perceived. “Vulner- show he and Jerry plan to co-write] is (Pinkster 58). Like Isaac B. Singer’s Luckless in New York 119 exclusion,”was modeled on the Wander- with no regret, after peeping at a nude ing Jew, as a sort of “comic Faust who woman in an apartment window across sells his shadow ... for a lucky purse” the street. As the others toss and turn at (Wisse 16). The selling of the shadow, night, suffering as they struggle with Wisse contends, “is the closest meta- control, Kramer sleeps peacefully. The phorical equivalent for the lack of a contrast between Kramer, whose uncan- homeland” of a man “fated to be dif- ny good luck relieves him from anxi- ferent, homeless, alien, and Jewish” eties about fate and control, and the (126). The book “broadened the luckless sidekicks creates one of the meaning of the word schlemiel to show’s most powerful ironies.