LARRY: [watching Girls Gone Wild!] You know what a woman would do if I ever asked her to lift up her top?
JEFF: Why do you have to analyze this? Can’t we just watch this?
LARRY: She would spit on me! If I ever asked a woman to lift up her top, she would kick me in the balls and spit on me!
JEFF: We’ve waited a long time to see this and all you’re doing is yakking. Be quiet, come on!
—Season Four, “Wandering Bear”
Bosom buddies Larry and Jeff represent two extreme variations of masculinity in contemporary American society.
Jeff has an extremely successful private life, with a wife, daughter, and stable home. However, his philandering ways have created more than a few sticky situations during the course of the past eight seasons of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Larry has failed at his marriage (whether or not he and Cheryl get back together), has awkward relationships with children, and has lived in several different homes over the course of the series. Meanwhile, rather than reveling in his bachelor status, Larry is nervous around other women and self-sabotages several opportunities for sexual encounters.
In psychoanalytic theory and feminist social theory, narcissistic philanderers are womanizing men who are self-absorbed with an over-inflated sense of self-worth. This is the stereotypic “man’s man”—he has a trophy wife, mistresses, and a sports car, but he also crushes others to get to the top. Neurotic impotents are men who fear judgment. They are paralyzed by the fear that other men will think less of them, so they don’t take risks, and they don’t assert power and control. Does Curb Your Enthusiasm reinforce the stereotyping of American men as either narcissistic philanderers or neurotic impotents? Or, alternatively, does Curb Your Enthusiasm illuminate the ridiculous nature of these false alternatives by hyperbolizing the cultural extremes?
It may not stand out when we watch the show casually, but Larry and Jeff represent equally unlivable versions of American men. Curb Your Enthusiasm can even be thought of as promoting a measured critique of gender roles, specifically the expectations of masculine gender ideals, that follows much of contemporary feminist philosophy and psychoanalysis. The characters of Larry and Jeff act as cultural reminders that such masculine ideals are ultimately self-destructive for a complex, ethically invested, and independent version of the American man.
BEN: You are such a baby. You’re a grown man-baby!
LARRY: Are you saying I’m a man-child?
—Season Four, “The Blind Date”
As children, we lay the groundwork for our expectations as adults. We learn how to treat others from our families, from our societies, from our cultures, and, very basically, from our first relationship with our parents.
The need for relationships and basic recognition is so fundamental that it may be universal for all sentient creatures. As the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan explains, “it is a necessary condition for the maturation of the gonad of the female pigeon that the pigeon should see another member of its species, regardless of its sex; this condition is so utterly sufficient that the desired effect may be obtained by merely placing the mirror’s reflective field near the individual.”1 So the possibility for development and maturity as fully formed adult creatures—even in the bird world—depends on the potential for connecting and identifying with another. Without seeing someone else to identify with, the pigeon can’t finish developing. For the human psyche, this is also true.
One of the first lessons we learn as infants is a mutual dependency on another human being. We need our mothers to supply milk, and we need our fathers holding us. As we grow older we come to understand that we need others to understand us—our needs, our desires, our wants. And to make sure they understand us, we realize that we have to understand them.
As Jessica Benjamin explains, “very early on we find that recognition between persons—understanding and being understood, being in attunement—is becoming an end itself. Recognition between persons is essentially mutual.”2 Benjamin takes this idea from the nineteenth-century German philosopher Georg Hegel, who explained that the adult subject undergoes a tension between the need for independence (being a complete subject), and the need for recognition (recognizing our dependencies on others). In other words, identifying with others as subjects is not only an ethical decision about how best to treat others, but it is also an important decision for constructing self-identity. Recognition comes to mean the mutual development of self-identity in relation to others.
This means that the abilities we cultivate as children to identify with and recognize others establish our patterns and abilities for our adult relationships. If we never grow out of the awkward stages in development, and never learn to recognize others for who they are, we can never fully realize our own self-potential. This can cause terribly maladjusted adults!
LARRY: [on dating women] This is the thing that I’m the worst at in the world. This and drawing.
—Season Four, “Mel’s Offer”
If it’s so obvious that as children we develop mutual dependencies based on recognition, and as adults we are all dependent on each other, why all the fuss about explaining the theories for recognition? How do we get untenable ideals of masculinity instead? The simple answer is that we’re taught to forget these things. As we grow, develop, and become adults in the contemporary world, we are taught certain ideal ways of being. Oftentimes, these ideals stand in direct contrast to our psychological, emotional, and ethical needs.
Young men are often taught to be independent and strong, with young women being taught to provide care for others, and not necessarily with others. Feminine gendered developmental theory is intimately interconnected. If you think about Susie and Cheryl’s characters, for example, they seem to have developed partially in relation to their husbands. Cheryl is strong and assertive, but not aggressive. She bolsters Larry against his insecurities without adding to them. Susie, on the other hand, is forced to respond to Jeff’s lack of emotional attachment and instability by being aggressive and opinionated, but not emotional. Despite their obvious personality differences, Susie and Cheryl are both conditioned to meet the needs of their husbands to adequately compensate for their limitations.
Because the idealizations of masculinity are ultimately self-destructive and actually unachievable, they manifest as psychological problems for the men on the show. Larry’s character on Curb presents one type of this terribly maladjusted adult. He never seems to be able to identify fully with other characters on the show, and he never seems to be able to fully realize his own potential. He’s a neurotic personality who feels extreme helplessness, or impotence. His best friend Jeff Greene represents the other type of poorly adjusted male adult. He also has difficulty recognizing others for who they are. He embodies a narcissistic personality, and just uses people for his own interests.
Larry: I don’t tell my wife anything. I don’t confide in her. I don’t trust anybody.
—Season Two, “Thor”
Early in the very first season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry establishes himself firmly as a neurotic personality. In “Porno Gil,” for example, Jeff must undergo heart surgery, but before he does he asks Larry to hide his porn from Susie. In this episode Larry perfectly represents the generalized fear and anxiety that psychoanalysts refer to as “neurotic anxiety.” He doesn’t want to help Jeff hide his porn, not because he is morally opposed to the pornography—although he does say that he doesn’t care for it—but because he’s afraid of being caught, afraid of forgetting Jeff’s alarm code, afraid of being unable to find Jeff’s stash. He’s practically overcome by his fears. Since Freud, neurotic anxiety has been characterized by the generalization of fear and anxiety. It’s not fear of a particular thing (that would be phobia), nor is it the specific fear of the father (that would be castration anxiety). Instead, neurotic anxiety afflicts adults who are psychologically handicapped by the fear of libidinal impulses, the drives that make up Freud’s concept of the Id (for example, desires for sex).
So what does this mean? First, castration anxiety and the Oedipal complex are interconnected: Freud explained that all little boys must go through a specific stage of development, when they fall in love with their mothers, and come to see their fathers as threatening competitors. Since the mother does not have a penis, the boy who begins to fear his father will fear that perhaps the father cut off his mother’s penis, and could do the very same to him—this is castration anxiety. The process of seeing the mother as an object of affection, fearing the father (and wanting to beat him) as a sexual competitor, and eventually resolving this conflict through identification with the masculinity of the father is known all together as the Oedipal complex.
The self-control and identification processes that must be completed to resolve this stage of development demonstrate the relationship of the Id, Ego, and Superego. The Id is like the impulse center of your personality—your sex-drive especially—and must be controlled. The Superego is the part of your mind that’s ideal. It aims for absolute perfections, while the Ego functions to realistically balance your desires and expectations within the limits of lived experience.
As it plays out, neurotic anxiety is a generalized fear that your Id will emerge and you will act inappropriately according to some unchecked drive. In order to compensate for this feeling of powerless self-control, anxiety emerges. According to some contemporary theories of masculinity, this neurosis can be caused by the very expectations placed on idealizations of men and masculine control and power.
As Michael S. Kimmel explains, men as a group are expected to have power and control. However, individual men often have to defer to their bosses, their families, and their more powerful friends. This disconnect between the expectation of power and control, and the feeling of a loss of control and power causes fear and anxiety. Frustration with powerlessness manifests itself as a competition among men for perceptions of power and self-control. Because men secretly feel powerless, but want to appear powerful to other men, a fear of the perceptions of other men takes hold. As Kimmel explains, “This, then, is the great secret of manhood: We are afraid of other men.”3
Larry is definitely afraid of other men, of women, of pretty much the whole world around him. In “Thor” (Season Two), Larry is even afraid of the power of children! Granted, his fear is that a professional wrestler’s children will nark on him to their father, but even so . . .
This episode also demonstrates how debilitating neurotic anxiety can be for sexuality. In this episode, Jeff and Susie temporarily separate. Jeff is again worried about his porn stash. This time, Jeff’s worried that his wife Susie will find out about his fetishes, and will use them against him if they get a divorce. Larry confides in Jeff that he has no fetishes or unusual interests, and purposefully tries to be as “vanilla” as possible so that Cheryl won’t think he has any weird sexual proclivities. But after he hails his jogging neighbor Wanda by yelling, “I’d recognize that tush anywhere,” Cheryl thinks he has a butt fetish. This mortifies Larry, who has always been afraid of others’ judgments.
I don’t know whether Larry really is an “ass-man,” but neither does Larry. Larry’s generalized fear of others has made him impotent even as far as understanding his own sexual desires. His fear of acting inappropriately is so strong that he has cut off his own libidinal urges from himself. This frustrated sexuality and fear of women comes back to haunt Larry all through Season Six, when he’s separated from Cheryl and has difficulty with dating other women.
In “The TiVo Guy” (Season Six), Larry self-sabotages a chance with Lucy Lawless. He injures his testicles by wearing the wrong kind of underwear, and then ruins his chances with Xena the Warrior Princess by being overly forthcoming about his current testicular predicament. He doesn’t know how to talk about sex or sexuality partly due to his fear of being judged sexually inadequate, and partially due to a fear of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time!
This fear of being judged contributes to Larry’s tendency to judge other men as well. In “The Thong” (Season Two), Larry decides to cut off a relationship with his otherwise effective therapist after seeing the therapist in a thong swimsuit at the beach. Larry is so uncomfortable with this nontraditional display of the male body that he judges his therapist unworthy of a further therapeutic relationship. His beliefs about appropriate male behavior and dress are so carefully protected that he can’t even run the risk of associating with a less-than-manly man. It’s as if he’s afraid of associating with the atypical man for fear of being judged-by-association. This seems to fit Larry’s other neurotic tendencies, and to fit Michael S. Kimmel’s evaluation that our unrealistic expectations for masculinity cause men to fear and judge other men. For Larry, then, his neurotic anxiety not only hinders his own personality and sexuality, but it also causes him to unfairly judge others. This combination of neuroses and being judgmental makes having a relationship difficult for Larry—whether it be with his wife, his therapist, or a potential lover. If we’re all happiest and healthiest when we relate to and appreciate mutual dependencies, then the type of isolation Larry feels from his fear, anxiety, and judgment is definitely undesirable!
JEFF: Who stops a whack-job?!
—Season Two, “The Massage”
Neurotic impotence obviously seems undesirable. Who wants to be immobilized by fear and made to feel sexually inadequate? But who wouldn’t want to be a sexually promiscuous, womanizing man without fear or anxiety for the perceptions and judgments of others? Who wouldn’t want to be like Jeff?
Reflecting back on the “Porno Gil” episode, it’s easy to see how Jeff’s unique pathology stands in direct contrast to Larry’s neuroses. Jeff doesn’t want to be caught with porn if he dies, but not because of any shame of his Id, or generalized fear. He’s worried about preserving his reputation among his friends and colleagues. And because of his high self-regard, Jeff has no qualms asking Larry to find and hide his porn stash. It’s obvious in this short exchange that he’s more concerned with his own potential discomfort than with Larry’s actual discomfort about taking the task.
In other episodes, Jeff is successful at engaging in multiple extramarital affairs, and is seldom caught. When he is caught, he seems to be forgiven quickly. This narcissism may appear ideal in the successful womanizing philanderer, but it also has its corollary in psychoanalytic diagnosis and contemporary critiques of masculinity.
Neurotic anxiety was caused by the internalization of fears thought to originate in the Oedipal complex, but Freudian descriptions of narcissistic development focus on the relationship of mother-infant relations. All infants have what Freud characterized as primary narcissistic tendencies—babies are unable to differentiate the world from themselves. They see their desires for food, relief from bodily functions, and affection as being the purpose of the world. They have not yet experienced the separation of the self from the world. However, as babies develop, Freudians maintain that the relationship between mother and child should encourage the separation of the baby as a subject from the objects of the world. Babies must learn that there is a wider world outside the nursery, and that this world is much more than a place for fulfilling individual desires and needs. The child must also learn to see the mother as another independent subject, in order to balance an appreciation of the connection of the self to the world and to other subjects.
After Freud, most of the more recent philosophers and psychoanalysts have focused on how the absolute nurturing role of the mother and the apparent absence of the mother’s own individual identity have forced boys to separate absolutely from the mother. They’re discouraged from identifying with this selfless nurturing goal, and become independent as a result. On the other hand, girls are encouraged to over-identify with the mother’s nurturing, and are psychologically constrained because they are never able to fully identify as separate individuals. However, new theories of masculine development have tried to stress how this nurturing practice also has an impact on the development of boys, and can negatively encourage boys to develop secondary narcissism.
Secondary narcissism is the pathological narcissism that would contribute to the philandering masculine ideal. Narcissists of this order re-establish themselves as the center of the world, in response to the perception of the inadequacy of the mother and father as people to model themselves after, and in response to a heightened sense of expectations about their own abilities.
If little boys are supposed to identify with their fathers, they must be given strong role models in their fathers, and their mothers must encourage appropriate separation. When this does not happen, when the separation is too extreme, and when the father is not enough of an ideal model, the secondary narcissist lacks the tools for developing relationships with other subjects, and independence from objects. The boy creates new expectations for himself and the world, attempting to make himself into the role model he misses in his father. One way to think of this is having an overactive Superego: your ideal expectations are so high, and so valuable, that when they’re not met, you retreat into yourself. You don’t care what others think, because they seem to be even less powerful and interesting than you are, so you assert yourself as the untouchable center of the new world.
Explaining the role of detaching from mothers, Isaac D. Balbus writes: “If mothers suppress the separation and over-reward the merger of their little boys and girls, then they will grow up to be men and women who privilege connection over separation. If mothers suppress the merger and over-reward the separation of their little girls and boys, then they will grow up to become women and men who privilege separation over connection.”4
It’s the forced attempt to polarize the development of boys and girls that contributes to the development of secondary narcissism in boys. If little boys are exclusively taught that they should not be nurturing at all, then they will never learn that other individuals share and depend on the same world. This secondary narcissism is then reinforced and maintained by social masculine ideals of power, independence, and sexual prowess—the same ideals that reinforced the tension at the heart of neurotic anxiety. The philandering narcissist is already predisposed to self-centered lack of care for others; when society also says that the “cool guys” are those who “bag chicks” or who “have the most toys,” then this personality type is not only reinforced, but actively promoted.
In “The Massage” (Season Two), Jeff tries to set Larry up with a “Happy Ending” massage. At first Larry doesn’t realize what’s going on. And by the time he does, he has already had “twelve pumps.” He immediately feels guilty and stops the massage, but is too afraid to tell Cheryl what has happened and why. Instead, Cheryl’s psychic tells her to beware of Larry cheating with a redheaded woman with tattoos—exactly what the masseuse looks like. Cheryl later sees the masseuse and, at the close of the episode, confronts Larry.
Throughout the episode the implication is that if Larry had only told Cheryl what had happened, he would not have been “caught.” But I suggest that we go even further: if Jeff had only told Larry that the masseuse was a sexual masseuse, or had considered Larry’s potential difficulties with the masseuse, the situation may not have occurred in the first place. Jeff seems to have a complete lack of awareness that his best friend Larry is pretty neurotic and might feel uncomfortable with the unexpected hand-job! Even the fact that Jeff suggests this masseuse to Larry is based on Jeff’s frequent personal use of her services—further characterizing Jeff as a narcissistic philanderer.
The most extreme example of Jeff’s pathological narcissism comes in “Funkhouser’s Crazy Sister” (Season Seven). In this episode, Jeff sleeps with Funkhouser’s sister. However, Jeff goes beyond his usual womanizing ways and the twist is that Funkhouser’s sister Bam-Bam has just been released from a mental institution. Funkhouser trusts Larry and Jeff to watch Bam-Bam one afternoon. But rather than taking this task seriously, Jeff gets bored and decides to entertain himself by seducing the woman he’s supposed to be babysitting.
After the fact, Jeff denies having slept with Bam-Bam, and when she tries to tell others about the experience, he uses her diagnosis to say that she is making it all up. She’s just crazy! Jeff’s narcissism reaches a new high in this episode. He is not only insensitive to his marriage commitments, and lies to his friends and family, but he manipulates a woman’s disability to sleep with her and then deny it. He also pulls Larry into the deception, again asking Larry to help cover his butt. He does not seem to be wracked by guilt at the experience. The only reason he wants to disguise what he has done is to avoid punishment.
The pathology of narcissism may look less self-destructive than neuroses. But we really do live in a world where we’re mutually dependent on others. If we alienate and manipulate those others, we isolate ourselves, which inhibits our own growth as human beings.
JEFF: You never congratulated me on my new car.
LARRY: What, are you kidding?
JEFF: No, I’m not kidding. I was pretty hurt by it.
LARRY: I never congratulated your new car?
JEFF: I was hurt by it.
—“AAMCO,” Season One
If Larry’s neurosis was caused by failing to meet the social pressures on men to be the most successful, the strongest, and the most sexually adept and experienced, then Jeff’s narcissism was also caused by the illusion of being these things.
It doesn’t matter that Larry is in fact a successful writer, has been married to a beautiful woman, and owns nice houses. In his mind, it is never enough to meet expectations, so he focuses instead on his rejected sitcom proposals, his awkwardness in first dates, and his unhappiness with power lines on his property. Similarly, despite the fact that Jeff technically works for Larry, that his wife frequently kicks him out of the house, and that he actually relies on Larry to get him out of binds, Jeff’s absolute self-confidence reigns supreme. So Jeff becomes the guy who sleeps around, who always gets let back in to his house, and who supplies Larry with Lakers tickets.
In both cases, at their most pathological, Larry and Jeff become cautionary figures. They demonstrate what happens to men when boys are raised to be competitive, self-interested, and isolated. They show us what happens when men are encouraged, even as adults, to be better than other men, to make more money, to have more beautiful women, to be independent of others. For the most part, most men are neither Larry nor Jeff. Most do not end up being completely incapacitated by social fear, nor do most throw out all inhibitions in favor of being a manipulative womanizer. These are the extremes. But if these are the pressures of society, how do men possibly become otherwise?
Jeff and Larry may themselves hint at the possibility of being something else, of being men and still being connected to the world and to others, and of developing a strong sense of self in relation to that world. When push comes to shove, Larry and Jeff depend on each other. Their flawed but deeply felt friendship demonstrates a mutual dependence on each other. Despite their differences, who other than Larry would Jeff ask to hide his porn? And to whom other than Jeff would Larry tell his fears of being labeled a sexual deviant? They seem to have a love and a need for each other. And this love and need seems to be mutually beneficial—a true relationship between subjects. Larry is not afraid of Jeff’s judgment as he is afraid of the rest of the world. He can tell Jeff his secrets. And Jeff values Larry’s friendship, despite sometimes abusing it. He often asks for Larry’s help, admitting weakness.
As friendships go, this isn’t all bad. Kelly Oliver argues for love and relationships with others founded in a psychology of critical self-reflection. She thinks that a sort of self-reflecting loving eye is made possible through a re-negotiation of identity.5 Men and women are not stuck in a pre-determined identity based in masculine ideals, or fully constructed by our relationships to our parents. Instead, identity is fluid—we are constantly creating who we are through our actions and interactions with the world. Oliver emphasizes that we depend on others for our identities, but that both our identities and our relationships change and evolve to make us better:
The other’s potential to make me better than I am is the power of love. In this case, I fall in love with love, with the precarious process of subjectivity that connects the tissues of my sensations, affects, thoughts, and words—the tissues of my being—to the tissues of others . . . And being together is the chaotic adventure of subjectivity. (p. 224)
Larry’s dependence on Jeff, and Jeff’s reliance on Larry may be their saving grace. The chaos of Curb Your Enthusiasm ultimately works, and only becomes watchable, because of these relationships.
When Larry steals flowers from Funkhouser’s mother’s memorial, we laugh nervously, uncomfortably. We don’t want to emulate this behavior. We want to stop it! On the other hand, by breaking these extreme behaviors with moments of tenderness between Larry and Jeff, in the moments where you can see that they really are friends, Curb Your Enthusiasm makes us care for these characters. We want them to make better choices. We want them to be people we would want to model ourselves after. So Larry and Jeff might illuminate the pitfalls of our expectations for American masculinity, but they also give us glimpses into a way out. They show us, however briefly, that by cultivating real friendships and relationships we can work towards becoming better people together.
For the most part, these glimpses are fleeting. We see Larry try very hard to be a good friend when he buys Jeff his favorite discontinued sponge cake in “The Nanny From Hell” (Season Three). Similarly, Jeff attempts to be a good friend when he gives Larry his courtside basketball tickets in “Shaq” (Season Two). In both instances, Larry and Jeff display selflessness and true friendship, overcoming their pathological limitations. But only for a short while!
The male character who arguably comes closest to living an alternative masculinity that is complex, ethically invested, and independent is Leon. Some may argue that Ted Danson also represents an ethically invested male character. However, I think Larry summed it up best when he said of Ted, “That’s fake philanthropy and faux anonymity!” Frequently, Ted’s values seem to be posturing, which may be just another form of narcissistic personality disorder.
Leon Black is by no means perfect—he has a tendency to be a bit of a Lothario himself, and is a little quick to offer physical threats—but he demonstrates a real investment in interpersonal and mutually beneficial relationships. He doesn’t seem to be hung up on neurotic anxieties, and he recognizes his own limitations without being overwhelmed by them. In Seasons Six and Seven Leon didn’t merely bring some of the most hilarious one-liners to Curb. He also brought a new model of friendship to Larry.
In one of his first scenes on the show, Leon is accused of leaving a stain on the bedspread in his room. But, Leon replies, it couldn’t have been him because he “brings the ruckus to the ladies!” At first, then, it appears that Leon will just be another narcissistic philanderer. However, later in the same episode, “The Anonymous Donor” (Season Six), Leon goes out of his way to retrieve Larry’s missing Joe Pepitone jersey. It ends up being a mistake, and Leon ends up threatening an innocent man out of his own jersey. But Leon’s heart was in the right place. There was no self-interest involved, and Leon wasn’t self-conscious about putting himself out there. He was simply trying to do a good deed for Larry.
On other occasions, Leon is a good friend to Larry by telling him truths he needs to hear, even when he might not want to. Think of the scene in “The N Word” (Season Six) when Leon is willing to confront Larry on Auntie Rae’s behalf. He cares about Larry, but in a way that challenges Larry to be a better man. He can’t accept Larry’s accidental erections or apparent use of the “N word.” But rather than simply judging Larry, writing him off, or too quickly forgiving his mistakes, Leon challenges Larry to do better.
In addition to his ability to cultivate friendships that promote growth and mutual recognition, Leon is also unafraid of asking for help when he needs it. Unlike Larry and Jeff, who are both afraid of being judged unmanly when in a position of need, Leon sees that everyone can use a little help sometimes. He offers his own help, and he expects his friends to do the same for him. A good example of this occurs in “The Rat Dog” (Season Six), when Leon goes to Larry to ask for interview advice.
So, in the end, does Curb Your Enthusiasm reinforce the stereotypes of men as either patriarchal and narcissistic philanderers or neurotic impotents? Or does Curb Your Enthusiasm illuminate the ridiculous nature of these false alternatives by hyperbolizing the cultural extremes? Maybe this is a false dichotomy. Maybe we should think that, in showing the discomfort of these extreme states of being, Curb does not glorify or encourage such behavior, but instead demonstrates how unproductive such behaviors really are. And by giving us glimpses into the possibility of true friendship between Larry and Jeff, and a potentially even better model through Leon, Curb also lets us see the possibilities for ethical, healthy, and independent American men.
1 Jacques Lacan, Écrits: A Selection (Norton, 2004), p. 5.
2 Jessica Benjamin, Like Subjects, Love Objects (Yale, 1998), p. 33.
3 Michael S. Kimmel, “Masculinity as Homophobia,” in Sex, Gender, and Sexuality (Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 65.
4 Isaac D. Balbus, “Masculinity and the (M)Other,” in Masculinity Studies and Feminist Theory (Columbia University Press, 2002), p. 212.
5 Kelly Oliver, Witnessing: Beyond Recognition (University of Minnesota Press, 2001), p. 219.