Film theory satire

After I started watching a lot of classic films and art films, I went looking for an online forum where I could discuss them with people. I found one, at theauteurs.com. Initially I thought it was great, but it turned out to be a bastion of elitism and self-validation. After being flamed for liking Star Wars more than L'avventura one too may times, I quit the forum, and this was my goodbye message. I guess it was kind of trollish, but I do think they deserved it. I enjoyed writing it enough that I thought I might as well post it here:


Few times does episodic television manage to meet or exceed the thematic brilliance of cinema. But I've been watching a show that manages to brilliantly and depressingly highlight the emotionally detached, narcissistic nature of modern culture. The characters reflect our own darkest tendencies: Our selfishness, our insecurity. The suppression of our collective ids by the demands of civility, and the ultimate shallowness and destructiveness of that civility.

I speak of course, of Seinfeld. Through nine seasons, the main characters wade through failed relationship after failed relationships. The driving force of the show seems to be the latent homosexual tension between the two main characters, Jerry Seinfeld and George Costanza. Jerry, a standup comedian who makes a living by dissecting the faults of others, tries to date women because society demands he live out the suburban fantasy: Wife, kids, true emotional bonding. Through the use of conversational debate tactics, he picks apart the nuances of whatever social situation is in, thereby trivializing it and relieving himself of the pressure to emotionally reciprocate. A subtle tactic designed to prevent those demands from taking him away from George. Through the nine seasons the show ran, Jerry often tries to do good deeds, but like Charles Kane, those good deeds are really designed to make people like him. He doesn't care about doing good; he cares about the credit. Society isn't fooled. Through his musguided attempts to gentrify himself, he ends up destroying all who cross his path: A Pakistani immigrant trying to start his own business loses his restaurant and gets deported, a boy with an immune system deficiency almost dies, his father gets impeached as the president of his retirement community, and all his friends end up in jail. Jerry is unaffected: He blames circumstance and moves on.

George finds other ways to distance himself from other human beings who aren't Jerry. He takes the Charlie Chaplin paradigm of a poor little wretch who lucks into wealth and turns it into the ultimate parasite: Constantly on the prowl for angles he can exploit to live the high life without having to put in any effort. He pretends to be handicapped to get sympathy, he pretends to be a marine biologist to impress women. He constantly builds up these houses of cards that allow him to reap short term benefits with no long term prospects, because he's worried if he actually did succeed it would take him away from Jerry. At one point he caves in to the pressures of civility and proposes to a woman he doesn't really care about. He thinks, finally I'll please them! Finally I'll be acceptable! Within one day of his proposal, he feels stifled and miserable. After weeks of trying to weasel his way out of the engagement without admitting any failure of his own, he lucks out: Susan poisons herself licking wedding envelopes. The wedding envelopes being the instrument of her demise symbolizes the ultimate inevitable failure of society to civilize the suppressed id.

The only female character in the cast, Elaine, is the only one who understands the futility of getting in between Jerry and George. She tried dating Jerry and it didn't work out, so instead of hating him like all the other women Jerry failed to connect with, she accepted him for who he was and became his friend. Elaine symbolizes the self-destructiveness of our collective expectation of perfection. She tries to emotionally connect with men, but she won't accept anything short of perfection. She dumps them because they smoke, because they're against abortion, because they're too religious, or in general because they aren't an exact match for the male archetype she's been told by society she's supposed to want and believes herself entitled to. She justifies this by indulging in Jerry's emotionally detached conversation oriented world.

Then there's Kramer and Newman, who are clearly the collective hallucinations of the other three. Kramer represents Jerry's longing to be uninhibited and uncivilized, just acting on his every impulse and whim with no regard to societal judgment. If Jerry was more like Kramer, he could be with George. Newman on the other hand represents Jerry's id: The all-consuming sociopath seeking to possess everything he comes across. Newman is portrayed as Jerry's arch enemy, symbolizing his unwillingness to embrace his true desires and anger that he can never truly be what society wants.

Then in the final episode of the series, we see Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer put on trial for all of the horrible things they did to others throughout the series. As the old characters come back to vent their anger, we see the great hand of modern culture beating down and ultimately rejecting their flimsy pretenses of civility. Newman is not on trial with them, but watching from the audience, cheering, laughing. (Because society harbors far less ire for those outsiders who make no attempt at all to blend in). When the four are convicted, Newman is happy at first, because the pretenses have been destroyed, but then has a heart attack. The id can not exist without the superego.

I'm surprised such a dark, depressing show was allowed to stay on the air for nine years, and on a major network no less. When I talked to others about Seinfeld, they referred to it like it was a comedy. Can you believe that? They just don't get it! They don't appreciate film the way we do. Next I'm going to watch the show Friends which aired over a similar time period. I don't know much about it, but on first glance it seems like a modern day La Dolce Vita.

(Do you think doing that was a little immature?)