Jerry Seinfeld has backtracked on comments he made earlier this year blaming the “extreme left and PC crap” for negatively affecting comedy, saying he now believes “it is not true”.
The 70-year-old comedian told the New Yorker in April that he believed television comedy was suffering because “people [are] worrying so much about offending other people”.
“Nothing really affects comedy. People always need it. They need it so badly and they don’t get it,” he said. “It used to be, you would go home at the end of the day, most people would go, ‘Oh, Cheers is on. Oh, M*A*S*H is on. Oh, Mary Tyler Moore is on. All in the Family is on.’ You just expected, ‘There’ll be some funny stuff we can watch on TV tonight.’ Well, guess what – where is it?
“This is the result of the extreme left and PC crap, and people worrying so much about offending other people … When you write a script, and it goes into four or five different hands, committees, groups – ‘Here’s our thought about this joke’ – well, that’s the end of your comedy.”
Seinfeld’s remarks provoked a storm of discussion among comedians, with even his former co-star Julia Louis-Dreyfus pushing back, saying: “When I hear people starting to complain about political correctness – and I understand why people might push back on it – but to me that’s a red flag, because it sometimes means something else. I believe being aware of certain sensitivities is not a bad thing. I don’t know how else to say it.”
On Wednesday, while appearing on comedian Tom Papa’s Breaking Bread podcast, Seinfeld said his comments were “wrong” and that he “regretted” saying it.
“I said that the ‘extreme left’ has suppressed the art of comedy. I did say that. That’s not true,” he 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. 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, how do I make the gate and get down the hill the way I want to?’”
“Does culture change? And are there things that I used to say that I can’t say because people are always moving [the gate]? Yes, but that’s the biggest, easiest target,” he added. “You can’t say certain words, whatever they are, about groups. So what? The accuracy of your observation has to be 100 times finer than that, to just be a comedian … so I don’t think, as I said, the ‘extreme left’ has done anything to inhibit the art of comedy. I’m taking that back now, officially. They have not.”
“It is not my business to like or not like where the culture is at,” he added. “It is my business to make the gate, to stay with my skiing analogy.”
Seinfeld also denied ever suggesting that he wouldn’t perform at colleges because young people were too politically correct, telling Papa: “I play colleges all the time. I have no problem with kids, performing for them … I do colleges all the time.”
In a 2015 interview on ESPN show the Herd, Seinfeld said: “I don’t play colleges, but I hear a lot of people tell me, ‘Don’t go near colleges. They’re so PC.’ I’ll give you an example: My daughter’s 14. My wife says to her, ‘Well, you know, in the next couple years, I think maybe you’re going to want to be hanging around the city more on the weekends, so you can see boys.’ You know what my daughter says? She says, ‘That’s sexist.’ They just want to use these words: ‘That’s racist’; ‘That’s sexist’; ‘That’s prejudice.’ They don’t even know what they’re talking about.”
Asked then if he believed such attitudes hurt comedy, he replied: “Yes it does.”
