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THEME: SEINFELD During the 1990s Jewish characters populated network television series, especially comedies, in unprecedented numbers. These series not only situated Jewish characters prominently in the American cultural mainstream, they also served a host of Jewish performers, writers, directors, and producers as vehicles for self-exploration. Frequently, this took the form of communal satire, which positioned Jews — especially young male Manhattanites — as archetypes for a national audience. |
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The pinnacle of this phenomenon was the tremendously popular series Seinfeld (NBC, 1990-98), which provoked more public conversation than any television comedy had in years. Discussions went well beyond analyzing Seinfeld's provocative disquisitions on everyday life to address the show's uncompromisingly sharp humor, its tweaking of television comedy's conventions, and its convoluted self-reflexivity. Complicating this discourse was Seinfeld's paradoxical claim that, unlike explicitly issue-oriented situation comedies, it was "about nothing." One of the many issues that Seinfeld did (or did not) engage was the Jewish sensibility epitomized by the series' title character, who was (and was not) the same as stand-up comedian Jerry Seinfeld. |
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As with every other aspect of the series, Seinfeld's presentation of Jewishness was never straightforward — beginning with the identities of its protagonists. Although of the four main characters only Jerry Seinfeld was identified as a Jew, all the characters have been understood — at least by many Jewish viewers — as crypto-Jews deliberately, playfully, and transparently disguised. |
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Copyright © 2003 The Jewish Museum
