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Journal of Popular and

ISSN: 0195-6051 (Print) 1930-6458 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vjpf20

The and the Schlimazl in

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.

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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, , and George.

116 The Schlemiel and the Schlimazl in Seinfeld

By CARLA JOHNSON

omeone has stolen George’s whose ‘accident’ spills ... 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. , , 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 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 “” ones are tal themes of ” 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 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 , 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 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- ” 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 . include the outsider, comically and clumsily alienated from bourgeois con- formity....” (16). George the schlemiel, although a man approaching middle age, has no home of his own but, unemployed and seemingly unem- ployable, lives at home with his par- ents. Even in , with the largest Jewish population in the United States of nearly two million , George perceives his environ- ment as alien, a backdrop of the sort of “ever-worsening environmental pres- sure’’ that heralded the literary evalua- tion of the schlemiel from to in 1878 with the publication of Masoes Binyomin Hashlishi’s The Reflecting America’s claustrophobia, Travels of Benjamin III (Wisse 40). Seinfeld rarely is set outside the confines The novel’s pivotal change in the way of rooms, multilevel buildings, and com- the schlemiel was viewed regarded pact cars. control. The ordinary Jew, it seemed, “could no longer be regarded as mas- Gimpel the fool, George lives in “total ter of his fate.” passivity and credulousness,” com- pletely open to suffering (Weaver 109). The Introduction of Control Jerry, on the other hand, simply has Appropriately, then, interest in con- This tightly framed interior shot shows bad luck. The word schlimazl derives trol is the theme of one of Seinfeld’s Kramer about to explode into action as from the German sclim (bad) coupled most controversial episodes, “The the others are frozen in closed positions. with the Hebrew mad (star); in other Contest.”6 In it, the concept of control words, “one born under a bad star” of one’s fate is reduced to the ability As a metaphor for control, the idea (Pinkster 6). Nevertheless, the real dis- to refrain from . After of “hand” resurfaces. In a 1994 episode, tinctions between the two types of George has been humiliated by his George verbalizes his awareness of his fools came centuries after the biblical mother’s discovery of his masturba- own lack of power and control, again account and the formations of the tion, the four sidekicks enter into a using the “hand” metaphor.’ He com- words. The word schlimazl was com- contest to see who can control his or plains to Jerry about problems with his mon in German usage before the nine- her fate-that is, refrain from mastur- current love interest: teenth century, appearing in Grimm’s bation-the longest. They refer to the dictionary as the “Hebrew word schli- competition in terms usually reserved GEORGE: I’m very uncomfortable. I have mazl, meaning luckless” and “traced for the highest levels of power and no power. Why should she have the to Jewish underworld slang” (Wisse control: upper hand? Once in my life, I’d 125). The “widespread popularity of like the upper hand. I have no JERRY:Are you still master of your the term schlemiel traced directly to hand, no hand at all. How do I get domain? Adalbert von Chamisso’s novel Peter the hand? ELAINE:I’m Queen of the Castle. Schlemiel [ 18131 which decisively JERRY:We all love the hand. The hand is tough to get. turned the proper name of its protago- Kramer, given his lucky status, is nist into a common noun.” The title obviously less concerned about con- George manages to get “hand” when character, suffering “the anxieties of trol of his life and “caves in” first, he threatens to break up with the 120 JPF&T-Journal of Popular Film and Television

However, as Wisse points out, main- stream America would not necessarily have responded favorably to this type of humor in the past. Wisse notes that the schlemiel “was not an indigenous American folk-type, and there is much in his makeup that still seems to go against the American grain” (74). She argues that not until the post-World War II period did the Jewish fool, who “made the transition from Europe to America at the level of popular cul- ture,’’ begin to “flourish in serious American fiction” (73). The idea of loser-as-hero came into the American mindset only recently: When America as a whole began to experience itself as a “loser” after World War II and ever more insistently in the 1950s, the schlemiel was lifted from his parochial setting into national promi- nence.... [Tlhe antiheroic mode inevitably [gained] the more America felt its age and shrinking opportuni- ties .... But the admission of a specifical- ly Jewish humor was only gradual, and the initial response to the schlemiel was frosty. (75) Although Jewish humor, in a broad- sense, achieved popular success in the early twentieth century in vaude- ville, minstrel shows, and stand-up comedy, Wisse rightly argues that the schlemiel’s acceptance into serious lit- erature came later. As the dramatic form for film and television derives from, especially, dramatic literature, her theory helps to explain the schlemiel’s later film appearance as ’s loser-as-hero in the 1970s. The United States may have come out of World War I1 as a euphoric vic- tor, but the Cold War, the Korean War, and especially the dam- George’s decision to convert to Latvian Orthodox for a girlfriend corresponds to aged the American psyche. Ernest mainstream America’s lack of faith. Hemingway’s Cohn in The Sun Also Rises marks the timely entrance of the woman, exacting her compliance in George not only loses “hand” but schlemiel into serious American litera- “thinking about him all the time” in also, with the insulting reference to mas- ture. Cohn’s adolescent behavior fore- order to maintain the relationship. turbation, his dignity. George, like the shadows the adolescent behavior of When she discovers that he has lied to schlemiel of Bernard Malamud’s fiction, to follow. Wisse explains her, however, she snatches back the is “the absolute loser” (Wisse 111). His that “emotional self-indulgence must “hand” she had given him: recourse to the irrational and absurd, the be puerile ....” (76). She describes GIRLFRIEND:I am breaking up with you. belief that self-control can be won sim- Cohn as “almost a classic schlemiel .... GEORGE: You can’t break up with me. ply by overpowering someone else, He accepts humiliation .... He is a tact- I’ve got hand. turns his hardship into laughter, linking less blunderer.” This adolescent tonal- GIRLFRIEND:And you’re gonna need it. him with traditional schlemiel humor. ity regularly dominates the Seinfeld Luckless in New York 121 show. George, in particular, evolves in a Jackie Mason joke in which a car like them .... [Elverything you have is from this model, evoking the same owned by gentiles breaks down: really a layer of clothing. Your body is your innermost and truest outfit. Your response in viewers that Cohn evokes house is another layer of wardrobe. in the novel: ‘‘I hate him.” saw Jake. “I In two seconds, they’re under the car, on I. Then your neighborhood, your city, top Of the Car.... It becomes airplane hate him says, ~~~tt,“1 hate his an your state. It’s all one giant outfit. We’re and [the gentile] flies away. But when a wearing everything. That’s why in cer- damned suffering.” Jewish-owned car breaks down, you tain towns, no matter what you’ve got Despite his frustrations, George, always hear the same thing: “It stopped.’’ on, you’re a bad dresser. Just for being (Telushkin 21) like Cohn, forges ahead. He develops there. Some places you’re better off just moving instead of changing. (103)

The Jewish experience has come to mirror In Seinfeld’s world, there is really nowhere to go. He writes, “I love to the frustrations of mainstream America: travel. Much more than I’ve ever enjoyed getting anywhere. Arrival is the rhrinkinj opportunities, the overrated” (67). The show features establishing shots of the familiar clau/trophobic urbanization, the stallinj of Seinfeld haunts: Jerry’s apartment and American dream. the generic restaurant. Interior shots the show the small rooms in which the sidekicks congregate-Jerry ’s effi- an adolescent crush on Elaine’s good- Such a Jewish-gentile dichotomy cre- ciency apartment with the kitchen and looking “mimbo” Tony; he lures an ates irony in Seinfeld. In a TV Guide living room blended into one; the attractive woman to his parents’ house interview with David Rensin, Julia crowded restaurant with the familiar for sex while they are away, only to be Louis-Dreyfus (Elaine on the show) booth just big enough for the four pals, exposed when his mother discovers a commented on Kramer’s capabilities: who are eternally subjected to eaves- condom wrapper in her bed. He, ironi- “If Kramer came in through the ceiling dropping by those in breath-close, cally, is rewarded for possessing love- with a parachute, nobody would ques- neighboring booths. A recumng claus- ly hands (although, remember, he tion it. Kramer’s capable of anything....” trophobic image is created by tight lacks “hand”), only to be deflated (22). Getting somewhere in Seinfeld‘s shots of any number of the group when his hubris leads to their destruc- world belongs to the fantastic realm of pressed together in a car. Even scenes tion. This continued tension between the Other. Although the lucky Kramer located at Elaine’s health club reveal a possibility and frustration exemplifies might manage to fly away, the other space no larger than the misnomered the American schlemiel. three sidekicks are victims of stasis. hotel “fitness center.” Leslie Fiedler, Hemingway’s Cohn was followed The writing on Saul Bellow and His by Saul Bellow’s intense, passionate Critics, describes the “gradual break- The point is that Jewish experience schlemiels, whose erratic and irra- ing up of the Anglo-Saxon domination has come to mirror the frustrations of tional behaviors constitute their of our imaginations; the relentless mainstream America in the : the charm. Their complexity becomes “an urbanization which makes rural myths shrinking opportunities, the claustro- index of humanity”; for human life is and images no longer central to our phobic urbanization, the limitations on more “complex than animal life” experience” (Wisse 78). The movement in a country filled all the Seinfeld (Wisse 81). Thus, Jerry asserts his camera rarely travels outside the con- way to the west coast, the stalling of humanity, his belief that he deserves fines of rooms, multilevel buildings, the American dream. Jews have under- human dignity, in an episode in which and compact cars. stood the necessity for and yet difi- he is spotted in his car, caught in traf- Jewish literature and humor thus culty of movement since the diaspora; fic, seemingly picking his nose. He moved into mainstream America as they have centuries of experience with later tries to defend himself for some- the gentile world discovered “a people the often depersonalizing, degrading thing he actually did not do; blocking essentially urban, essentially Europe- conditions of urban life. Jewish humor an elevator full of people, he shouts, “I oriented, a ready-made image for what comes from understanding the suffer- am not an animal!” As the situation- the American longs to or fears he is ing and alienation of the outsider, the being stopped in city traffic-sug- being forced to become” (78). Ironic equally degrading option of assimila- gests, the fool, like Bellow’s, tensions that have grown to trouble Seinfeld tion, the pain of judgments based on suffers “the inevitable consequences American minds-“gun-toting neigh- the physical self-the nose, the hair, of urban, democratic living.” Even bors’’ (now no longer across the globe the clothes. In Seinfeld vehicles of motion--cars and eleva- Seinhnguage, but down the block) and frightening writes: tors-stall out just at the right moment political realities-are “not at all to degrade unwitting modem man. Like it or not things represent us. Most unlike the ironic tension of the Jew.... The dilemma also recalls the situation of the time, people’s things even look [Tlhe schlemiel, who embodied so 122 JPF&T-Journal of Popular Film and Television much of the irony of the Jewish situa- on the show), Jane Pauley commented, humanity by loving and suffering in tion” that it has become an “ironic “You burst onto the scene!” Richards defiance of the forces of depersonaliza- vehicle on a national scale.” Seinfeld agreed, adding, “I come right into life!”* tion ...” (82). The forms of Jewish humor reflects the claustrophobia that Amen- Kramer, ever savvy, resists despair. For have changed: the American schlemiel ca is experiencing. Seinfeld concludes example, when Jerry’s car is stolen, speaks English rather than Yiddish, though it’s an English enriched “with Yiddish phrases and rhythms ... the sphrirzes (spontaneous monologues of Jewish ),” which are the ver- bal equivalents to (Novak xviii). But the most dramatic difference between the European and American schlemiels regards faith. Elaine and Jerry, asked to be godparents at a his, show complete ignorance about the rit- ual of circumcision. George decides to convert to Latvian Orthodox to keep a girlfriend of that faith. “Why not?’ he asks, “What do I care? I could actually do this. What’s the difference? You make a contribution, have a little cere- mony.” This aspect of the American schlemiel represents the most troubling area of correspondence to mainstream America: lack of faith. The Emergence of the Jewish Fool As America’s attitudes toward itself changed, the Jewish fool rose quickly to the forefront. Woody Allen’s bitter- Jerry’s pomposity is kicked in the pants when a talk-show host humiliates him for his sweet urban sagas came along “at a appearance in a “puffed-up” shirt. cultural moment when ethnicity was becoming a box-offce ‘plus’ rather SeinLanguage with his most profound Kramer talks to the thief on the car than the marginal minus it had always observation about life: phone, exhorting him to look into the been considered” (Pinkster 168). The car’s glove compartment to first verify “same cultural changes affected what a To me, if life boils down to one signifi- that Gamer’s gloves are there and then stand-up comic could, or could not, do cant thing, it’s movement. To live is to keep moving. Unfortunately, this means to return them to him. By the end of the behind a mike.” Taboo subjects were that for the rest of our lives we’re going episode, Kramer has his gloves, but the broached, including sex, race, and reli- to be looking for boxes. (179) thief has chosen not to return the car as gion. Originally a stand-up , Jerry requested. Kramer believed he Seinfeld has pushed the boundaries of On the show, the sidekicks demon- could get his gloves back; Jerry, pes- the taboo subjects for television. “The strate life’s limitations in their darting simistic, never believed that the thief Contest” was followed by an episode movements around their box-like would return the car. In the show’s in which Jerry discovered that Elaine enclosures. Elaine’s office is the size scheme of things, one must believe in had faked orgasm throughout their of a closet, stuffed full of furniture, luck to have it. The distinction could be entire love affair. In a 1994 episode, piled high with paperwork. Even the viewed as a didactic message; the show Jerry arranged a blind date for Elaine streets are oppressive: people find a belongs, after all, to the genre of satire. with a friend of his who, at the end of space to park their cars, then are afraid However, Jerry’s lack of faith also sug- the date, exposed himself to her. to move them for weeks, fearful anoth- gests the key difference between the Another episode exploded the taboo er space will not be available. A beep European and the American Jewish grammar of political incorrectness heard through an open window on the fool. with racial and ethnic insults uttered show signifies the need for someone to In depersonalized America, faith alongside the offensive physical pres- move a double-parked car. seems lost. Whereas the Yiddish fool ence of a cigar-store Indian. Religion In contrast to the other characters, “was an expression of faith in the face received irreverent treatment in an Kramer is all about motion. In an inter- of material disproofs,” Wisse asserts, episode in which a novice nun fell view with (Kramer the American schlemiel “declares his madly in love with Kramer while her Luckless in New York 123 superiors approved George’s obviously sight of the bearded, hungry homeless On 4 February 1993, Seinfeld moved insincere conversion. wearing the cast-off, prideful shirts. from Wednesday, in a tough slot oppo- Importantly, the show bears other Pomposity has, indeed, been kicked in site the baby boomers’ beloved Home characteristics ascribed to Jewish the pants, and American society has Improvement, to Thursday night. humor that have been, typically, satir- been chastised for its prosperity in the Already in its fourth season, the show ic. Its critical edge “deals with conflict face of widespread homelessness, suddenly shot from its lowly number between the people and the power national pride personified and ridiculed 40 in the to 10 structure....” (Novak xx). In its satiric in a puffy-shirted Jerry. (Schwarzbaum 16). During the fall of quest, the show typifies the tendency Of course, Jewish folklore, literature, 1993 the show dominated all demo- of Jewish humor to ridicule “grandi- and humor are not the sole domain of graphics, sharing the number 2, 3, and osity and self-indulgence,” to expose luckless fools, irony, certain themes, 4 slots with and . hypocrisy, and to kick “pomposity in and satire. But Seinfeld shows strong The successful marketing of Seinfeld t- the pants” (Novak xx). The show’s evidence of evolution from Jewish tradi- shirts, cups, and greeting cards gives satiric thrust impugns George’s arro- tion. As producer, writer, and star, Jerry the a status that, in the gance and self-indulgence when he Seinfeld shapes the material into his film world, would be called “block- becomes a hand model. He looks own image, for certainly the comic busi- buster.’’ The show’s one-liners have ridiculous, wearing oven mitts to pro- ness of the shticks bears the imprint of entered the repertoire of American tect his now precious hands. He bullies the man whose stand-ups begin and end idiom; for instance, “not that there’s his mother into waiting on him, literal- the show. And the stuff of his comedy anything wrong with it” may now be ly, hand and foot. When she plays the exists as a continuum of Jewish tradi- appended to comments about homosex- part of “scrub nurse” during one of his tion. In the first pages of Seinhnguage, uals or other volatile subjects affected primping sessions, handing him a scis- he describes the immediate source of by American political correctness. Even sors, he yells at her: “Don’t hand them his own inspiration-his Jewish father: the show’s rhythms and phrases, like the to me with the points facing!” Her Yiddish from which they derive, have There has never been a professional sheepish response is, “I’ll try to be comedian with better stage presence, become part of everyday conversation: I more careful.” Pride, George’s exag- attitude, timing, or delivery. He was a love the show. Don’t you love the show? gerated vice, will surely lead to his comic genius selling painted plastic Everyone loves the show! downfall, and it does. signs.... He hated to see those serious NOTES In the same episode in which businessman faces .... Often when I’m on stage I’ll catch myself imitating a little George’s vanity destroys his lucrative 1. Seinfeld, prod. Jerry Seinfeld and Larry physical move or certain kind of timing David, Castle Rock Entertainment, Beverly career as a hand model, Jerry is pun- that he would do. ished for the same vice. Too proud to Hills, 1992-94. Quotes from the show have “To break a face.” been transcripted from episodes aired on admit that he did not hear what some- NBC in 1992 and 1993. Writers vary from one said to him, Jerry agrees to wear an It was a valued thing in my house. I episode to episode. This one was written by outlandish puffy shirt on national tele- remember when would walk Tom Gammill and Max Pross. vision. The shirt itself is the image of out on the Show hearing my 2. The show will go into syndication in mother say, “Now, quiet.” We could talk the fall of 1994. pride. Kramer says, “People want to during the news but not during Alan 3. This episode wa. written by the show’s look like pirates, be all puffy and devil King. This was an important man. co-creator and co-producer . may care.” When Elaine sees Jerry 4. Larry David wrote the 1993 season ready to go on the show, she articulates Seinfeld’s reluctance, evident in his finale. the travesty: show, to “accept anything at face 5. This quote is from Jane Pauley’s 1993 value,” has been defined as the core of interview with the Seinfeld cast on “Sein of You can’t wear that on the show! You’re the Times,” Dateline NBC, prod. Margaret promoting a benefit to clothe homeless Jewish thought, the result of constant Murphy and dir. Robert Brandel. people! You can’t come out dressed like searching “for evidences of storm 6. “” was written by Larry that. You’re all puffed up! You’re sup- beneath the surface of the tranquility of David. posed to be a compassionate person that everyday” (Novak xvi). 7. This episode was written by Lany cares about poor people. The show’s unexpected success David. The fact that I have chosen so many examples of the show’s themes from The shirt becomes the scarlet letter attests to a new sensibility on the part episodes written by David suggests the for Jerry’s hypocrisy, causing even the of American viewers. Americans con- validity of an auteur approach. Since David show’s tech people to openly ridicule fronted with an increasingly grim land- and Seinfeld are co-creators and often co- his puffed-up appearance. The show’s scape4losed-in, littered with prob- writers, a study of David’s role might be. illu- host humiliates him on the air: “You’re lems-find a way to laugh at their trou- minating. 8. See note 5. all kind of puffed up.” The episode bles in humor born in “one of the ends with all the puffy shirts that had grimmest stretches ... of Jewish histo- WORKS CITED ry” and characterized by the ironic been manufactured being given to Novak, William, and Waldoks, Moshe. The Goodwill. As Jerry leaves the televi- byproducts of forced urbanization- Big Book of Jewish Humor. New York: sion station, he is confronted with the alienation and frustration (Novak xiv). Harper and Row, 198 I. 124 JPF&T-Journal of Popular Film and Television

Pinkster, Sanford. The Schlemiel as Apr. 1993): 15-19. Wisse, Ruth R. The Schlemiel as Modem Metaphor. Carbondale: Southern Seinfeld, Jerry. Seinhnguage. New York: Hero. : U of Chicago P, 197 I. UP, 1971. Bantam, 1993. CARLA JOHNSON is an assistant profes- Telushkin, Rabbi Joseph. Jewish Humor. Rensin, David. “Julia’s Delightful Talk sor in the Department of Communication at About ... Nothing.” TV Guide, 18 Dec. New York William Morrow, 1992. Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Indiana. 1993: 18-22. Weaver, Gordon, gen. ed. Isaac Bashevis She has been a special assignment writer for Schwarzbaum, Lisa. “Much Ado about Singer: A Study of the Short Fiction. The South Bend Tribune since 1976. Nothing.” 165 (9 Boston: Twayne, 1990.

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