Comedian Jerry Seinfeld is backtracking his critique of the “extreme Left” that claimed it wrecked comedy in television programming.
While appearing on comedian Tom Papa’s Breaking Bread podcast this week, Seinfeld said that he now regrets his previous comments.
“I said that the ‘extreme Left’ has suppressed the art of comedy. I did say that. That’s not true,” Seinfeld said. “It’s not true. If you’re a champion skier, you can put the gates anywhere you want on the mountain and you’re going to make the gate. That’s comedy.”
The comedian continued, “Whatever the culture is, we make the gate. You don’t make the gate, you’re out of the game. The game is where is the gate and how do I make the gate to get down the hill.”
In April, Seinfeld’s frustration regarding “people worrying so much about offending other people” quickly went viral.
“It used to be that you’d go home at the end of the day, most people would go, ‘Oh, Cheers is on. Oh, M.A.S.H. is on. Oh, [The] Mary Tyler Moore [Show] is on, All in the Family is on.’ You just expected [there would] be some funny stuff we can watch on TV tonight,” Seinfeld had told New Yorker’s Radio Hour while promoting his Netflix movie Unfrosted.
He added, “Well, guess what? Where is it? Where is it? This is the result of the extreme Left and [politically correct] crap and people worrying so much about offending other people.”
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In reflecting this week on his past comments, Seinfeld further defended his new viewpoint, doubling down that the “extreme Left” has not “done anything to inhibit the art of comedy.”
“Does culture change and are there things that I use to say that [I can’t because] people are always moving [the gate]? Yes, but that’s the biggest and easiest target,” Seinfeld said. “You can’t say certain words about groups. So what? The accuracy of your observation has to be 100 times finer than that just to be a comedian. … So I don’t think, as I said, the ‘extreme Left’ has done anything to inhibit the art of comedy.”
