Communication Through Seinfeld in 1989, Comedian Jerry Seinfeld And
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Communication through Seinfeld In 1989, comedian Jerry Seinfeld and his friend, Larry David, created a sitcom called Seinfeld and within its 180 episodes, Seinfeld illustrates every possible problem modern people face. Seinfeld was pitched as 'a show about nothing,' a show that would parody the lives of four adults living in New York City. The main characters of Seinfeld are Jerry Seinfeld, co- writer and creator of the show, Elaine Benes, Jerry's ex-girlfriend, Cosmo Kramer, Jerry's neighbor, and George Costanza, Jerry's best friend. Through nine years of airtime, Seinfeld has touched base on every aspect of life, comedy, romance, sex, sports, religion, and sociology, and somehow made all of these aspects humorous. Through this semester in Communication 200, we have studied the five units, or lenses, that are the foundations of communication theories. These lenses include: interpersonal communication, group and public communication, persuasion, mass communication, and cultural context. Although these lenses contain many theories of communication, Seinfeld can be used as a tool to help illustrate the majority of these theories. Since I've been a viewer of Seinfeld since I can remember, I thought my knowledge of the sitcom would never get me anywhere past scoring a point on Trivial Pursuit, but through learning communication theories, I see Seinfeld as an excellent way to illustrate and explain communication. The first unit we looked at as a class was a general overview of communication and how to study the theories we would be looking at for the rest of the semester. Theories fall between two different approaches, the objective and interpretive. Objective theories have one solid truth while interpretive theories could contain multiple truths and answers. The first theory we studied was Ernest Bormann's theory of Symbolic Convergence and this theory has both interpretive and objective roots. According to Bormann, a fantasy is not limited to literature and sex. A fantasy is a creative interpretation of events that satisfies a psychological or rhetorical need in a small group. Many fantasies aren't shared by people in a group, but when one catches on, it creates a fantasy chain reaction which causes the people in the group to become energetic about the subject and lead them to share their fantasies as well. A large portion of Seinfeld is filmed in a coffee shop called Monks, a haven for the cast where most of the confessing, story telling, and relationship breaking up occurs. There are examples of fantasy in every episode of Seinfeld, but one example exists in the episode, “The Label Maker,” in which Jerry and Elaine share a fantasy of their dentist, Tim Watley, as being a 're-gifter'. Elaine suspects Whatley of re-wrapping her label maker gift and giving it to Jerry after Jerry gives him tickets to the Superbowl. Jerry is in on Elaine's fantasy of Whatley's behavior and while they discuss why regifting is inappropriate, George makes a comment on how he regifts often and sees it as a wise financial move. George often takes the role of what's wrong in normal social behavior. The sense of community that comes from sharing a fantasy creates symbolic convergence. In symbolic convergence, individuals build a sense of group consciousness and I, me, andmine are replaced with we, us, and ours. Every character on Seinfeld is selfish. Although there are 180 episodes, it is uncommon to see unity, cohesiveness, and solidarity within the group of the four friends. Research by Poole and Hollingshead (2005) explains, “Symbolic convergence theory, thus, explains how symbolic activity influences individuals to achieve a shared symbolic ground that allows them to function as a group” (p. 192). Notable examples of symbolic convergence between the four include when they were stuck in the limo with Nazis, began the infamous 'contest,' went to a wedding in India, and in the final episode, when they were sentenced to prison for not following the new good Samaritan law. Despite the selfishness of Jerry, Elaine, Kramer, and George, they do converge, but in most cases, only to gossip about other people or, in other cases, they converge when they get into a great deal of trouble. Symbolic convergence is prevalent in Seinfeld and many shows on television and it is a standard for many communication theories that have been studied this semester. The second lens of communication we looked at was interpersonal communication. The theory of the interpersonal communication lens I identified with the most was Judee Burgoon's Expectancy Violations Theory. Personal space is the invisible boundary people set for themselves that designates an their preferred distance from others. Edward Hall coined the termproxemics as the study of people's use of space. Hall determined the four proxemic zones: intimate distance- 0 to18 inches, personal distance 18” to 4 feet, social distance- 4 to 10', and public distance- 10' to infinity. Expectancy is what people predict rather than what they desire so any time something happens that is not expected, it is considered a violation whether it is a positive or negative one. In the Seinfeld episode, “The Raincoats,” Elaine dates Aaron, one of the most genuine men she had ever dated in the series, but there is one problem with him; He's a 'close-talker.' Aaron talks to everyone at the intimate proxemic distance, 0 to 18 inches. For an unknown reason, Elaine, and Jerry's visiting parents from Florida, do not mind Aaron's invasion of their personal space. However, Kramer and Jerry do find the intimate distance to violate their expectations. During their first encounter, Aaron comes basically nose-to-nose with Jerry in Jerry's apartment. Although Jerry does not attempt to remove Aaron from his personal space, the audience can tell by Jerry's demeanor that he hates Aaron within the first few moments of their contact. According to Frost (2009), “Communication and feedback can sometimes be nonverbal. Coaches and players often recognize each others’ states of mind simply by observing mannerisms and gestures. If their characteristics include skill at communicating, they can use nonverbal cues to promote success.” Jerry promotes nonverbal cues of hate as he glares back at Aaron. When Kramer enters the apartment, Aaron again violates Kramer's expectations by introducing himself at the intimate proxemic. Kramer whips back and hits his back on the refrigerator and slides into a trash can and ultimately falls onto the floor. A comedic response to Aarons invasion, but Kramer does not show any contempt toward Elaine's new boyfriend. Jerry's violation valence, his positive or negative value assigned to the encounter, would almost as low as you can go, perhaps a -8 out of a 10 to a -10 scale. I would think Kramer assigned positive value to the encounter. Although he tried to flee the situation and fell into trash, Kramer's character likes meeting new people. Jerry is one of the most shallow characters on the show and since Aaron made a poor first impression on him, Jerry sees no potential reward from knowing Aaron in the future. This is Jerry's communicator reward valence, or the sum of positive and negative attributes to a new encounter that determine if there will be future reward or punishment. After studying the theories in the interpersonal lens, we turned our attention to group and public communication and learned how groups work together. In the Functional Perspective on Group Decision Making theory by Randy Hirokawa and Dennis Gouran, we learned how groups perform tasks following the four communication functions. According to Hirokawa and Gouran, requirements for a positive group outcome include: analysis of the problem, goal setting, identification of alternatives, and evaluation of positive and negative characteristics. The finale of Seinfeld is a two-part episode where the four friends get into some trouble with the law in Latham, Massachusetts and are ultimately sentenced to one year in prison. As Jerry and his friends are looking for a place to eat, they witness a thief with a concealed weapon steal a fat man's wallet and car. The fat man looks to the four friends for help but they just watch and laugh and George remarks, “It's actually a good thing he's getting robbed. That's less money for him to buy food.” The friends analyze the problem: they are stuck in Massachusetts because their private jet had technical problems. They set a goal: to find food and wait for pilots to call. They identify alternatives: to help the fat man, to not help the fat man, to continue searching for food. Jerry and friends decide to ignore the cries for help and decide to find food instead. In complete Seinfeld style, Jerry laughs at the man and snickers, “That's a shame.” The friends are confronted by a police officer who wants to detain them for breaking the 'Good Samaritan' law. In the Good Samaritan law, a citizen is responsible to help another citizen in danger. After trial and sentencing, the friends evaluate the situation as negative because they could have easily helped the man and eaten something afterward. Being decent people was never a priority to the main characters in Seinfeld and in the finale, they finally pay for their social indecency. The fourth division we studied was about mass communication, how the media and culture communicate to us. In the cultivation theory by George Gerbner, Gerbner claims that television is not only a dominant force in shaping modern society, but it also has become society's institutional storyteller. Gerbner determined that minorities are grossly underrepresented in television. His anylisis showed that 50 percent of characters on television are white, middle-class males that outnumber women 3 to 1.