Offbeat, Idiosyncratic, and Pathos-Free
According to the Free Dictionary, one among several definitions of the word idiosyncrasy is “a physiological or temperamental peculiarity.” In the incomparable World of Seinfeld, idiosyncratic behaviors run amok. Kramer, for one, is an idiosyncratic live wire. George’s idiosyncrasies include taking off his shirt before using the bathroom facilities. So much of the show’s popularity is, in fact, rooted in its characters’ unusual traits, phobias, personality disorders, and bizarre flights of fancy. The World of Seinfeld is at once offbeat and pathos-free.
The writers of Seinfeld masterfully infused the show’s characters with qualities that we can identify in ourselves and in those around us. Naturally, they are embellished in many instances for comedic maximization. But the longer we live, and the more human beings we encounter in the daily grind otherwise known as life, the more we come to appreciate that Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer are a great deal more than celluloid exaggerations of humanity at large. There are married couples who behave like Frank and Estelle Costanza. The smarmy Newman doesn’t only live down the hall from Jerry; he is ubiquitous on every family tree, in every neighborhood, and in every workplace. Since many of the Seinfeld characters and storylines are based on actual people and real events, it stands to reason that the World of Seinfeld, idiosyncrasies and all, is a fascinating place to visit.
This collector’s edition of the epic Parker Brothers game turned the Monopoly board into the Seinfeld universe.
A World of Their Own
For starters, the World of Seinfeld is chock-full of neurotic characters who have rightly been dubbed “narcissists.” Psychiatrists and therapists have penned scholarly articles about them—articles that themselves read like something from a Seinfeld script. Above all else, Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer seek personal gratification and self-preservation, and are not typically concerned about how they achieve these ends. While narcissistic behavior is not in the least bit admirable, it is nonetheless hilarious in the hands of inspired comedy writers like Larry David, Jerry Seinfeld, and company.
In the episode “The Pony Remark,” George exhibits a whiff of narcissism simultaneous with making a keen observation about both the nature of funeral services and human nature. He educates Jerry on why dead people aren’t likely concerned about who turns up at their funeral services. The odds are that they are not scouring the solemn rooms in funeral parlors and taking attendance. When Elaine interjects that maybe, just maybe, they are there in spirit, George sees the absurdity of that notion, too. He points out that if the recently deceased now resided in another dimension—an infinite realm with unlimited possibilities—would their specter loom at a pedestrian wake on this humdrum earthly plane? The answer is no.
When word leaked out that Seinfeld’s ninth season would be its last one, Jerry Seinfeld told Newsweek magazine: “We didn’t change the culture. We just reflected it a little more intimately.” Wacky and unpredictable as it typically is on the surface, the World of Seinfeld is supremely recognizable once its surreal veneer is stripped away. For viewers, it hardly matters that Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer’s world is a world of their own. It is one that so captivates us because it doesn’t quite exist in reality. For instance, the foursome call home sweet home New York City in the 1990s. While this decade coincided with Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s aggressive war on crime—when, in fact, major crime statistics took a nosedive—New Yorkers certainly weren’t leaving their doors unlocked, like Jerry and friends. Considering, too, the extremely high cost of living in the Big Apple in the 1990s—it’s doubly so today—money is never really an overriding issue, even when George finds himself in the unemployment lines, or when the latest Kramer get-rich scheme implodes. It’s implied that any and all money issues will somehow be resolved.
Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer do a lot of hanging around, too. They love nothing more than chewing the fat in Jerry’s apartment, which functions as an all-purpose meeting place. Likewise, the foursome can regularly be found in their preferred eatery—the always bright and cheery-looking Monk’s Café—having breakfast or lunch and shooting the breeze some more. In the fast-paced New York City where they collect their mail, the gang appears to have a surplus of free time on their hands. The icing on the proverbial cake is that they frequently date and regularly have casual sex.
Deliberating in a smoke-filled room, a.k.a. Jerry’s living room.
NBC/Photofest
An awful lot, too, has been written about the Seinfeld characters and their mental health issues. George, for one, is a hypochondriac who, in the episode “The Heart Attack,” fears he is having just that while exhibiting the classic symptoms like shortness of breath and tightness in the chest.
Jerry: I know what this is. You saw that show on PBS last night, Coronary Country. (Jerry turns to Elaine.) I saw it in the TV Guide. I called him and told him to make sure and not watch it.
George: There was nothing else on. Oh, the left arm . . . the left arm.
Jerry: He saw that show on anorexia last year and ate like an animal for two weeks.
George: Why can’t I have a heart attack? I’m allowed.
Aside from the fact that he wasn’t having a heart attack, there is one fundamental thing that George got wrong here. He posed the question, “Why can’t I have a heart attack?” and answered it with: “I’m allowed.” But, no, not in the World of Seinfeld are you allowed to have a heart attack. Others may have heart attacks and die in their world, but not Jerry, George, Elaine, or Kramer. Their health and wellness, at least physically, is assured.
Really, the World of Seinfeld is a community all its own. Residents within this world enjoy lifestyles that are uniquely theirs, but snippets of all they do are mirror images of what the human species is capable of when unleashed. That is, with a surfeit of leisure time, no all-consuming financial worries, and an assembly line of romantic partners there for the picking. And, of course, no longstanding health issues. George, after all, completely recovers from the debilitating effects of “The Summer of George,” where doctors weren’t certain he’d ever walk again.
Pathos-Free Zone
As Seinfeld took flight, it became apparent that the show’s complete and utter lack of pathos had widespread and untapped appeal. And this was hardly how sitcoms through the years worked the crowd. The connection between the viewing audiences and Lucy Ricardo, Mary Richards, Fred Sanford, “Hot Lips” Houlihan, and Alex P. Keaton involved more than just laughs. We cared about these characters and rooted for them. We wanted Ralph Kramden to achieve success as the “Chef of the Future” and for that suitcase full of money to really be his. There was no such dynamic at work on Seinfeld. It somehow just wasn’t necessary. We could appreciate the Seinfeld characters as one-of-a-kind oddballs while not ever feeling sorry for them when they screwed up, or screwed up the lives of others, which they did as a matter of course. We could observe their small-mindedness and moral failings with a certain detachment, and not bat an eye that they weren’t becoming better human beings, absorbing invaluable life lessons, and accruing wisdom with the passage of time.
The Best Medicine
It has been said that “laughter is the best medicine.” Who, really, could argue with that sentiment? And Seinfeld makes us laugh—period. It makes us laugh at things that—on paper and in reality—are not necessarily funny and sometimes even the antithesis of funny. Seinfeld put virtually every aspect of life in play for a joke and an amusing storyline, including physical and mental illness, chemical addiction, murder and suicide, disability, and the great equalizer—death itself. We get an interesting sample of Seinfeld coming at us from all angles without, of course, employing pathos, or even good taste, in the episode “The Butter Shave.” Here George excitedly tells Jerry about his new job and how his employer—because he’s using a cane in the wake of “The Summer of George”—believes he is handicapped.
George: Jerry, let’s face it. I’ve always been handicapped. I’m just now getting the recognition for it. Name one thing I have that puts me in a position of advantage. Huh? There was a guy that worked at the Yankees—no arms! He got more work done than I did. Made more money. Had a wife, a family. Drove a better car than I did.
Jerry: He drove a car with no arms?
George: All right. I made up the part about the car, but the rest is true. And he hated me anyway!
Jerry: Do you know how hard it’s getting just to tell people I know you?
George is perfectly willing to masquerade as a handicapped person to secure a job and more perks at the office. But we don’t hold him accountable for his total lack of principles and questionable moral underpinning, nor do we root for him to lose his job and get what he deserves, even though we suspect that this will be the eventual outcome. It’s the Pathos-Free Zone that we are in.
In this same episode, we encounter Kramer shaving his face with butter and then fully bathing in its yellow velvetiness. His butter bath has Newman fantasizing about cannibalism. That is, eating the heavily buttered, juice-laden Kramer, seasoned with oregano and Parmesan cheese.
In the episode “The Voice,” we witness what we knew was on the horizon: George’s handicap ruse blowing up in his face when it is discovered that he is, in fact, able-bodied. However, we relish watching him connive ways to stick around on the job—he had signed a yearlong contract—even though he has been asked to leave in no uncertain terms. “Siege mentality, Jerry,” George says. “They really want me out of there. They’ve downgraded me to some sort of bunker. I’m like Hitler’s last days here.” We don’t feel bad that George is in such a predicament, nor do we feel bad that Play Now, his employer, is really putting the screws on him. And we don’t feel bad that, sooner or later, he will be in the unemployment lines again.
In this same episode, we see Kramerica, Kramer’s business—the oil tank bladder system—go kaput after an unsuccessful trial run involving the dropping of a big ball of oil out a window. We hear police sirens en route to the scene, perhaps to arrest Kramer, which we are not all that worried about. In the final scene, however, we discover that Kramer came away unscathed. Jerry, though, inquires about Darren, Kramer’s intern assistant from NYU, who believed in Kramerica’s mission and helped him conduct the experiment. “Darren is going away for a long, long time,” Kramer says sans any concern or pangs of conscience. Kramer, it seems, is perfectly willing to permit a college kid to take the rap for him. Now that’s not very nice, but we don’t sympathize with Darren either in the Pathos-Free Zone that is Seinfeld.
Seinfeld co-creator Larry David, who insisted from the get-go that the show be pathos-free.
RoidRanger/Shutterstock.com
In the episode “The Visa,” Seinfeld takes its Pathos-Free Zone abroad to Pakistan, where Babu Bhatt gets deported due to a series of blunders and some indifference on the part of Jerry, George, and Elaine. While away on business, Jerry recruited Elaine to pick up his mail for him. Apparently, he didn’t think his neighbor Kramer up to the task. When he returned home, Elaine took her sweet time in bringing the mail over to him. And, lo and behold, in Jerry’s pile of mail was Babu’s visa renewal application. Babu, whom Jerry had helped secure an apartment in the building, had an adjoining mailbox, and the mailman had mistakenly placed Babu’s very important piece of mail in Jerry’s. This series of unfortunate events—with Babu not renewing his visa on time—set the wheels in motion for his deportation back to Pakistan.
After his deportation, Babu is back in his native land, where he doesn’t want to be, seething with resentment and rage. The mere thought of Jerry, whom he once held in high esteem for helping him out, makes him spitting mad. “I’m going to save up every rupee,” Babu says. “Someday, I will get back to America, and when I do, I will exact vengeance on this man. I cannot forget him. He haunts me. He is a very bad man. He is a very, very bad man.”
Without question, “The Invitations” is the episode that took Seinfeld’s pathos-free mantra to new heights. Here we find George getting the word from a doctor that his fiancée, Susan Ross, has just died, seemingly as a direct result of his astonishing miserliness. When the doctor breaks the news of Susan’s untimely passing, he asks George if Susan had been in contact with a cheap glue product recently, one typically found in inexpensive envelope sealants. George mentions the wedding invitations as a possibility and how they were “expecting about two hundred people.”
In the World of Seinfeld with its Pathos-Free Zone, life goes on, come what may—death included. George fancies a cup of joe and a swift return to business as usual. He’ll even try to hook up with actress Marisa Tomei, who previously jettisoned him when she learned that he was engaged, on the day after the funeral for his fiancée. Why not? His weekend’s free. Meanwhile, Jerry’s chief concern is that he got engaged in something of a pact with George, and now feels trapped. Poor Susan Ross is dead. George doesn’t even bother to call her parents and break the bad news.
Seinfeld is not a documentary, not real life, but a TV sitcom like no other. We can tune in next time and not hate Jerry—like Babu does—for what he did or didn’t do. And Babu doesn’t elicit any sympathy from us for the straits he’s in, courtesy of Jerry and company, either. He’ll get his chance at exacting revenge, like so many others, in “The Finale.”
Laugh and the World Laughs with You
Seinfeld’s lack of pathos and moral compass is what has riled its many critics—both when the show was on in primetime and now in reruns. Certain disapproving voices feel that what can be presented as funny should be confined within certain boundaries of good taste and inoffensive political correctness. Even though Seinfeld is not depicted as reality, these critics believe with all their hearts that what Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer do on a sitcom matters in the bigger picture, beyond all the laughs. Even if they are not representative of the average Dick and Jane, they believe that these characters’ words and actions have the capacity to make meaner the hearts of Americans. But the Seinfeld characters are, in the end, amusing caricatures with individual personalities that embody all that we are and so much of what we are not. Laughing at their antics and unscrupulousness doesn’t make us on par with Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer. So what if their pettiness often borders on the pathological? That is the joke. So what if they say and do mean things to one another all the time? That is the joke.
If extraterrestrials invaded Mother Earth and examined what makes humankind tick by watching Seinfeld, perhaps there would be cause for concern if they viewed the show’s cast as representative of humanity. It would be something akin to the dignitaries from the Soviet Union who called on Gomez, Morticia, Uncle Fester, and Lurch in the Addams Family episode “The Addams Family Meet the VIPs.” The Russians had selected one family that was supposed to personify the typical American household and, what do you know, came up with the Addams family. Of course, after spending some time with the Addamses and observing Gomez relaxing on a bed of nails, a disembodied hand named “Thing” go about its business, and Uncle Fester generating electricity via his mouth, the Russians decide that it’s best to maintain good relations with America and its advanced breed of people.
But in the meantime, we can look upon Seinfeld as representative only of groundbreaking comedy written by talented writers who were willing to push the envelope more than most, and get laughs from terrain that has become heavily guarded by politically correct folly.