Why isn't Seinfeld funny any more?

It isn't you, it's him.

I never thought I’d be writing about Jerry Seinfeld, but here we are. Jerry’s latest completes his arc from well liked comedian who managed to be funny while talking about nothing to washed-up guy who will now spend as much time as possible talking about how he’s canceled – on a range of TV shows and podcasts. His most recent comments show exactly where he is, and where he’s headed. On the podcast of conservative darling and pho-journalist Bari Weiss Seinfeld made some comments about men these days, essentially calling for the return of old-school patriarchy. Jerry eloquently said, “Yeah, I get the toxic thing. Thank you, thank you. But still, I like a real man." He also explained that he misses the unspoken hierarchy in society from back in the good old days.

Seinfeld has long argued that ‘culture these days’ is stifling humor by making certain topics off-limit. He’s been going down the route we’ve seen so many male comedians, particularly those whose best days are behind them, go down. There is a raft of these men complaining about political correctness, wokeness, and so on and so forth, instead of adapting to the times. It’s funny that Seinfeld, meaning Jerry’s famous show in this case, has in fact stood up to the test of time in many ways. Some moments have not, but the show remains popular largely because it talks about nothing, the mundane, the everyday. Off-color jokes were sprinkled in, but the core jokes were often about muffins, small talk, taxis and the like. That comedy doesn’t age, and if Jerry was willing to stick to it and be creative he’d be just fine.

But he’s not. There are (at least) two reasons why he’s clamoring about being canceled despite being a millionaire who could live on residuals and sell out Upper West Side shows and enjoy life. The first is something that appears to afflict many men who see their success in the rearview – they yearn for those days, and many start conflating their own trajectory with society’s. Namely, they start saying that society’s heyday lies in the past, somehow intermingled with their own. And looking at the past with these particular rose-colored glasses, combined with their personal anger at the public for removing them from their pedestal, either by giving them less adulation or by growing tired of their politics, leads one celebrity man after another into reactionary and even fascistic politics. It doesn’t hurt that there is, ironically but unsurprisingly at this point, plenty of money to be made and recognition to be gotten from conservative audiences in getting “canceled,” aka in becoming a more openly right-wing celebrity.

For Jerry, there’s also another element to this moment. It’s not just that he hasn’t done much of note in 25 years and longs for the glory days, it’s that his embrace of Zionism, up and through Israel’s latest atrocities, has drawn the ire of a whole lot of people. Not only has Jerry taken trips to Israel, as recently as December, but he’s also posed with IDF soldiers. In Seinfeld’s recent interview, where he made his sexist and regressive comments, he also chose to double down on his support for the country. And, responding to criticism for his Zionism and unwavering support for Israel as the nation commits genocide, he said that he finds the criticism "so dumb" and "comical."

Photo by Michel Grolet on Unsplash

I didn’t expect Jerry Seinfeld to teach us so much all at once. But the confluence of Zionism, sexism, and conservative politics all together is remarkably illuminating. A man, once famous and liked across the country, stagnates for years. It’s hard to top the popularity of a show like Seinfeld, so Jerry makes one decent movie and does a few stand-up specials and collects checks but appears vaguely unhappy. As time passes he grows bitter and begins saying nonsensical things about how comedy isn’t allowed to be funny anymore because of “that PC crap.” Never mind his personal struggles to be funny or change with the times. Then a man who, like me and most Jews in this country, was likely taught a generic and rather inaccurate Zionism from a young age witnesses both October 7th and the subsequent reaction. But instead of focusing on Israel’s reaction and the genocide unleashed in Gaza, he focuses on the reaction of protesters and “the left.” Most especially he focused on their reaction to him. Protesters have insulted him, and Duke students walked out when he was their commencement speaker.

The Duke graduation situation is a perfect example of how people like Jerry respond to these situations. While Seinfeld has scoffed at and talked down to people criticizing him, he ignores their motives. Duke students were protesting his Zionist stance, but more specifically they were enraged that his wife had just contributed $5,000 to a Zionist mob which attacked a student encampment at UCLA, hurting multiple students. Jessica Seinfeld joined billionaire Bill Ackman and others in giving real, material support to this violent and dangerous mob. While Jerry focuses on a vague sense that society was once a better place (for men like him) those who currently denounce him have tangible grievances, like he and his wife supporting genocide.

And that is so much of the fascist story. People with privilege are willing to translate their general dissatisfaction into actual oppression, while mistaking the criticism they face for them being oppressed. Jerry Seinfeld is the poster boy for that phenomenon at this second, but people from Elon Musk to Samuel Alito to many others who embody it as well. It’s not just men, of course, other people can and are being recruited into fascism. But men are particularly susceptible. After centuries of domination, some men are liable to take women demanding equal footing as oppression, or to deliberately mistake it for that as an excuse to build power using grievance politics. Combine that with the desire to defend a colonial project, an apartheid state committing genocide, and you have a recipe for fast-tracking someone into the right wing.

Zionism is a far-right project and ideology, and those who continue to defend it despite witnessing a genocide increasingly have no choice but to explicitly join the right. Patriarchy likewise is an inherently regressive ideology, at risk of stating the obvious. Those who want to be free, and those who want others to be free, need to recognize these truths. This moment is demanding that we see how our liberation is all tied up together. Solidarity means knowing that an injury to one is an injury to all. And it means taking action in accordance with that knowledge. We see how conservatives want a world where the opposite is true. They want a world where fewer people are free, where the oppression of the past returns, and where masses of people allow that vision to come to fruition by failing to raise our voices and take action when others are under attack. In this moment of truth, don’t be Jerry Seinfeld, rooting for old systems of domination to take hold once again. Be the person who refuses to pull the ladder up behind you, and instead reaches your hand to help the person behind you on their way up. That is the only way to get to a better world.

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