Reflecting on Seinfeld's Legacy and Success

What's the deal with high school girls? I'm not allowed to date them anymore Palestine might not exist to me, and you know what else doesn't The age of Cn. It's your Seinfeld? Yeah. It really, it sounds like a golden girl I've been watching so much Seinfeld over the last week and I feel like because he's not ny A lot of his quote unquote comedy is just like instructing people to laugh based on the pitch of his voice. Exactly. I mean, it's hand holding your way to a laugh. It's kind of like when there are sitcoms that have laugh tracks, for example.th I do love Seinfeld, and I'm sure we'll be talking about this at some point. It is a great show. The man Jerry Seinfeld though, is not so great. Jerry Seinfeld is worth one point one billion dollars He is the richest comedian in the world I'm already annoyed. I'm already annoyed because you know who the richest comedian in the world should be? Meg Stalter Honestly, Jerry Seinfeld is the richest comedian in the world because for ten years of his life three decades ago, he played a semi fictionalized version of himself In the sitcom, Seinfeld which was written by someone funnier than him who also has better politics, but let me not get ahead of myself If you were sentient in America in the nineties, Jerry Seinfeld was basically a pillar of culture. He was a pillar Home life Seinfeld was routinely the most watched show in the United States, and its series finale in nineteen ninety eight drew seventy six. million viewers or quarter of the U.S. population at the time. In that final season of Seinfeld Jerry was making one million dollars per episode, which is two million dollars today, adjusted for inflation. I was born the year Seinfeld ended By the time I could watch TV, we kind of moved on from Seinfeld I mean, a lot of people haven'. I'm sure a lot of people disagree with that, but like in my house, we just we didn't have Sineld playing. I wasn't really a big Sinfeld guy. but nevertheless Jerry has always been a supremely famous person in my head. And I think because of that, I've always assumed that He's been working on a lot of things that I just watch because of like my taste preferences or whatever But he hasn't The most notable thing that Jerry Seinfeld has done since Seinfeld is voice act as Barry in the B movie. which to be clear is notable. There's a lot of things to criticize Jerry Seinfeld for, but for me, B Movie will not be one of them except for its promotional tour. We'll get to that. Nevertheless, the magnitude of Jerry Seinfeld's nineteen nineties celebrity is unfortunately for him No match person that he has become Al has been don't know. Today We're going to look at the evidence and let you decide And to do that, welcome back My dear friend E Vigland. Always great to be with you, Matt Bernstein, my lovely, lovely friend. Emma, this episode is entirely a product of your texting me saying that we should do a Jerry Seinfeld episode. I know that he has been pissing you off lately and The further I dug into the archives, We're in for a ride today. I'm a huge fan of Kirber enthusiasm and Larry Davids, and we will be talking about him as well. But Seinfeld just went viral recently. I'm a huge Nicks fan and he was at the game. And when I think we're about to play this, but he was asked about Palestine and of course, decides to be an absolute genocidal freak asshole. And he has been that way for quite a while. He is a rabid Zionist. And there's also stuff in his past that raise eyebrows that are not just connected to his politics So it's fascinating to look at somebody like this who is such a fixture of so many people's lives, as you say, to see really how rotten that core is and how he is one of the public faces in Hollywood who is dehumanizing Palestinians so regularly. In coordination with the Israeli government.. First things first, as you mentioned, Jerry Seinfeld recently attended one of the NBA finals games at Madison Square Garden and as he was leaving talker, like man on the street sound bite type of guy. I don't know, there's so many of You came't walk through New York City anymore without someone running up to you with a microphone being like, what's your income and what's your rent? But this guy was doing some real journalism and he ran up to Jerry Seinfeld and the following transpired. Oh, Jerry Sein. What Seinfeld What up Can we get a free pasta Can we get a prepost? Come give us little pre proast. It doesn't exist. There you have it. That is the position of pretty much everybody who still calls themselves a Zionist, but the fact that this immensely wealthy man the time to laugh in this guy's face as a genocide is being committed to say that Palestine doesn't exist and explicitly, genocidal statement in and of itself, It's just like, keepep walking, dude, but you can't because you're a fanatic. I've known Jerry Seinfeld is a Zionist. He and his wife, Jessica have been doing Israel advocacy for a long time But even with that in mind, this was Kind of a shock to the system. For me The three words, Palestine doesn't exist. And I think you're right that this is basically the mainstream Zionist belief at this point because movement has become so nakedly far right and genocidal. However, I do think it's worth unpacking for a second here We get about zero minutes into like Seinfeld's life chronology. and I'm like, let's start unpacking. Sorry,' the leftist podcast You know, back in the day when I think liberal Zionism was still considered by many to be a tenable ideology You had kind of like the two state solution people. Think about Kamala's twenty twenty four campaign run and what her party line was at the point, which was like, you know, we want safety and security for Israelis and safety and security for Palestinians. And I think there's a point that Jerry Seinfeld would have you know, said, I mean, he supported Kamala. Yeah. and Joe Biden. and you know, he's he's always kind of been an anti Trump guy. I D don't know if that's still the case. perspective seems to really have collapsed. Right. And I think that anybody who hasn't gotten off the liberal Zionist train at this point right now is complicit in this viewpoint that is based in erasure. And it's also not theoretical erasure. I think you were saying this prior to the genocide, of course, when liberal Zionism was a little bit more digestible for people and was a fairly mainstream opinion, it would be one thing. But for us to be two and a half years into the active genocide of the Palestinian people add to that chorus and to add to the bloodshed by contributing to the perception of erasure and saying that an entire people doesn't exist as they're being exterminated I mean, what else can you call that except to be almost psychopathic? And this is also, I mean, you have a lot of these like liberal Zionist figures in the Democratic Party still being like, I mean, even and love to Bernie Sanders, but he still does this sometimes where he'll be like, o, this is Netanyahu's far right government of Israel and they'll kind of pin these outwardly genocidal ideologies on Netanyahu, on Ben Gavir, on Smorich Here's Jerry Seinfeld saying something as genocidal as Ben Gavir tweets on a random Tuesday. Right. I do not think that we should be catering the Democratic Party to the whims of these individuals. Just go vote for Republicans if this is your pet issue. But the reality is that the party has no future and we don't have the ability to fight fascism if we can't stand up against genocide as Tanahasi Coatates has said so eloquently in that we also the party has become so narrowed given with this is such an aside, I won't get into it, but the active pursuing of affluent suburbanites in the coalition that has been a strategy of the Democrats since twenty sixteen. That's why they're always going after the mythical Republican that's leaving the party for them. They have narrowed the party. a lot of working class voters have left Narrowing it further just to appease wealthy Zionist donors and make sure that guys like Jerry Seinfeld feel like they can still be woke and enjoy Barack Obama's like Netflix series and stuff like that. G me a break. They should not be in the party. They're not welcome here. They are contributing to fascism because they are neutering the only opposition party that is exists in the country right now, whether we like it or not. I also just think a lot of people would hear those words, Palestine doesn't exist. and it's like, whoa. That's really extreme. Like that's very extreme. Like I said, within the discourse in Israel, I don't think it is. I think it's the mainstream But Jerry Seinfeld, what you have to infer from him saying this to some random guy on the street, knowing that he's being recorded is that he's surrounded by this. He is surrounded by this rhetoric all day He has a forty million dollar home in the Hamptons with his wife, Jessica, as well as a home on the uppery side of Manhattan where they are integral in these very High society sort of upper echelon Zionist, specifically Zionists often engage with lots of Zionist activism, communities. But to me, it's so revealing as to how some of these social groups operate. The fact that he's saying that openly means that he has said very similar things, if not worse things many times over in private, that should not be surprising to us. However, I do think that it is worth lingering on this for a second to just think about what it means when you say Palestine doesn't exist right now as you have the Greater Israel project underway in practice, not just the genocide in Gaza, but the constant settler attacks and violence in the West Bank That is actionable erasure as well. He's essentially saying that all of the even land that Palestinians have and have been forced into the smaller and smaller parcels as more is stolen from them, that even that doesn't belong. to them What happens if they choose not to leave the answer is that they die. And the idea that Jerry Seinfeld with all of his wealth and influence and power still finds a way to justify his viewpoint of extermination from a place of victimhood is a level of psychosis that is, I think a combination of wealth, of having so much wealth, which You know, I've said this before, I think on your show. like it doesn't matter if you have to be a sociopath become a billionaire or a billionaire makes you a sociopath, regardless, that amount of wealth removes you from shared humanity So there's that piece of it that informs his rabid Zionism But there's also the kind of cult like devotion to an ethno state is as racist as segregationists were in the South that did not want to mix with black people. It's that ideology right now, but it's one that is kind of like has a national security infrastructure here in the United States, but also groups of very wealthy private donors that help further that project.. Should we talk about how Jerry Seinfeld became Jerry Seinfeld? Let's This isn't going be like a super, super biographical episode about the entirety of Jerry Seinfeld's life and work because he's been around for a while and he's done a lot of things in the public eye and it would be very difficult to cover all of them in the detail that some of you might desire. So I want to focus on a few things thematically throughout the episode to show how I think Jerry Seinfeld has just become so divorced from reality and the human condition to the point where it becomes very hard to stay in the good graces of people no matter how famous or beloved he once was Jerry Seinfeld was born in Brooklyn in nineteen fifty four to a nice Jewish family. His dad was a sign painter who fought in World War two. I think that's quaint. He grew up, however, on Long Island in Massaiqua as a sixteen year old, I don't know if you knew this. Jerry Seinfeld volunteered on a kabots in Israel which is basically like a socialist adjacent organized commune, which in the early days of Israel it was life was sort of centered around these cubot seam. I did not know that. It does not surprise me. I mean, I guess it's better than volunteering to fight in the IDF. Yes I was wondering when I was seeing some of the more extreme pro Israel stuff that Jerry Seinfeld has been saying. I was like, where did this come from That's kind of a dumb question for me to ask because I grew up, you know, in a synagogue with like the maps of Israel on the wall and you label the different parts and you know where Tel Aviv is and you know, they And of course, indoctrinate in Jewish American life for you to feel like Israel is your second home. And I could have only imagined that that was probably like times a thousand in Jerry Seinfeld's house, given that like his dad was a Jew who fought in World War twoo, and they were probably like Jerry, like You're going spend you're a child and you're going to spend a summer in Israel because like you know, you could have died in the Holocaust and this is where you're going to go to like not die in the next Holocaust or something. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I can understand that perspective. You gota wonder what the formative experience was for Jerry though on that on that k puts mayaybe, you know got his first BJ on that trip or something and that's why he's a Zionist to this day. I mean, no one ever knows how these formative memories come to be. Do you know that next time that he would return to Israel? No. Promoting the B movie It was literally Jerry Seinfeld went when he was sixteen, went his whole life without returning to Israel. and then in like two thousand seven, he was promoting the B movie. I was gonna save this till later, but I can't help myself. If you scroll down in the outline and I'm gonna throw this image on the screen, there's images of him doing press for the B movie in Israel You see where the B movie is in Hebrew Oh It's very bizarre. It's very bizarre. Oh my gosh. I mean, as if they couldn't get the picture with B Movie being the title. We've got to make sure this is in Hebrew in Israel It's kind of self explanatory It's very strange. also I was looking into whether or not he went on like a truly like international tour to promote the B movie and he didn't. I think he did like a stop in Australia and a stop in Israel. As one does. Anyway, Jerry goes to college. He goes to a New York state school, he returns back to New York City where he tries his hand at open mic nights. This is in like the latter half of the seventies and then his first kind of breakthrough gig was he was a recurring guest on the Tonight showow with Johnny Carson and also had a recurring guest spot on Letterman. I don't know if you're familiar with any of this. I'm not. I start in the sitcom days. Well, so then comes the sitcom in nineteen eighty eight, Seinfeld and Larry David get together to create the sitcom that wouldome Seinfeld, which stars Jerry Seinfeld as a fictionalized version of himself. alongside his three friends, played by of course, Julia Louis Dreyfus, Jason Alexander, and Michael Richards as they gallivant around New York City. Larry David was the head writer of Seinfeld and the showrunner for the first seven seasons out of the total nine seasons. Notably, Jerry Seinfeld only has writing credits on a total of seventeen out of the one hundred eighty episodes of Seinfeld Just saying. J saying. All right, I'm gonna talk about Seinfeld because you this is way more a part of your life than mine. Yeah, I mean, I love Seinfeld. off course. everyverybody loves Seinfeld. I love Kirbier enthusiasm more. I think that its unscripted nature is more fun and Larry is even more himself. and it's more Larry less pressure for to fit into kind of a sitcom format And frankly, Jerry Seinfeld in Seinfeld is the least interesting part of the show and the least interesting cast member. Julia Louis Dreifus is phenomenal and you know, hot as hell in that show. She's just killing it. She's hilarious. And remains hot by. God. I mean And not only hot Not everyone can say the same. And by the way, Julie Louis Drefus grew up really rich too. so she it's not like Jerry is wealthy now so he doesn't need to work, but she never needed to work. She just did it for the love of the game and that's why we stand her. But Jason Alexander is great as the kind of Larry style character, of course of George and Michael Richards, despite, of course his deep racism.'s you know, Kramer's a really hilarious character. But Jerry is the weakest part of the show. and I think that you can see how it really was Larry's brilliance that carried the show one in just how phenomenal Kb your enthusiasm is and two, how the show had a notable decline after Larry was like, I'm out. And how all of the stuff that Jerry has done since then, Sansby movie Putting respect on its name is not good. Fe free to sound off in the comments if you disagree I was consuming so much Jerry Seinfeld in the last week and a half because I was like, I need a reasonably good handle on this to talk about it on a podcast And I was like, my God, this is like, pulling teeth. You know, he makes a lot of money as a stand upp because he has enormous name recognition. Y. His stand up to me though is the kind of toothless funun house mirror version of what Larry does, which is like it's observational humor, I guess, but there's no teeth to it. I mean, Kurb takes risks. Kurb can be offensive. Kb can touch topics that might piss some people off, but what Jerry's stand upp is about is about appealing to everybody at all times. and I guess good comedy does that to a degree. and I'm not not here to police comedy, right? just because I'm a podcaster even though. I guess that's the Joe Rogan experience model. But like, you know, it's so anadne that I find the stand upp to be kind of boring. And I feel like without the edge that Larry provides, you can kind of see that get exposed. I also think what you just said about Jerry Seinfeld's name recognition in relation to how much money he makes off of Touring is so, so significant because I think in Jerry Seinfeld's mind He is one of the most profitable touring comedians today because he's so funny. But it is because he is a nostalgia act. And what people are coming to see is like effectively like a meet and greet type of thing, spend time in the same room as the guy that you loved in the nineties. I watched a lot of Seinfeld preparing for this. I enjoyed it I enjoyed it. I blocked out all of the stuff I know about Jerry Seinfeld now and I enjoyed it. And then I started watching basically everything he's done since Seinfeld except for Be moovie. And I was like, oh, this sucks. You know that you're listening and watching Seinfeld. so I guess? That enhances the experience a little bit, but not enough to make me laugh. Right. And dude, your last name is literally the title of the sitcom. It doesn't get more name recognition than that. There is one episode of Seinfeld that I found fascinating and kind of instructive. It's called The cigar Store Indian. This is commonly named as like one of the most effic offensive episodes of Seinfeld and it is The plot revolves around Seinfeld trying to woo this young woman who he wants to be his girlfriend, N that young. She's an adult woman. Not always the case. It's a fictionalized version of him. It's not exactly him. you know, the real life guy' going after teens. Yeah, it's fionaled It's fictionalized. He goes for adults in this world. Right, right, She is Native American and she's of Native American heritage, which he does not realize. And he basically shows up with this big wooden offensive statue of a Native American. you know, he does all these like racist anti native things, like he's mocking and of course calling them Indians the whole time and then This sort of episode plays out and he just can't stop saying offensive things towards all groups of people. And it's kind of like people are so sensitive these days. Uuh Yes. And I find it fascinating because that is the position of like everyone' so woke. You can't even say anything anymore is a position that Jerry Seinfeld would take up unironically later in his life. The way that Larry writes, I think both Jerry To less of an extent, definitely George. but Jerry often is that they're the asshole in the situation. It is very interesting that he would unironically be so anti woke later in life, but what is not shocking to me is that Seinfeld, even in the fictionalized version of the show, is insensitive to people who have been colonized The other thing I want to to mention about Seinfeld before we get into the teenage of it all? is just how much goddamn money he continues to make from this show, which by the way, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing that he's making all this money from. but like I think artists today should continue to make royalties in a way that they are often robbed of in the streaming model. But I do think it has changed the way that he engages or disengages with the world around him I mean, he makes so so, so, so, so, so much money and has been so rich for so long. So he was adjusted for inflation making like two million dollars an episode in the final season alone. That's one of the nine seasons. But also I have to fact check this, but I believe he continues to make around one hundred million dollars a year today off of just like residuals from the show. Editing Matt here It's actually reportedly between forty and sixty million dollars a year, depending on what source you look at. Gosh, it's honestly criminal what streaming has done to actors in this country. And look, I know Seinfeld residuals for that kind of show it's going to far exceed anything. but we've really missed the mark on paying these actors that are entertaining us, you know with big tech trying to get around that kind of thing I would like to take a quick break from the show to give a shout out to our friends at NordVPN for sponsoring this episode I recently did something very exciting. I was in a documentary about Elon Musk for the BBC. It is called The Elon Musk Show. I believe the episode that I'm in is called The Next Chapter Now I was very excited to watch this and it did just come out on the BBC. But here's the thing with the BBC You need to be in the UK to watch BBC Player Do you really Not if you have NordVPN NordVPN is this amazing tool with lots of amazing features and one of them, perhaps my favorite, is that you can access the internet as if you were from anywhere. 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Now let's get back to the episode So I know you've been waiting for it What's the deal with high school girl? Oh, that wasn't good. That wasn't good. that wasn good. What's the deal with high school girls? Maybe that was a little I don't know. That you know, I still think you're going for older Jewish grandma more than you are going for Seinfeld, but I can't date him anymore. I honestly just love that you're attempting it. Someone told me on Instagram that if I do this episode, I have to. It's a requirement. In nineteen ninety three, Jerry Seinfeld was in his fifth season of filming Seinfeld. and he at the time publishes this book called sign language. Do you get it Do you get it? Sign Language. sign language. That's my, Jerry Emma has read excerpts from this book and so graciously clipped one, Emma, do you want to read this excerpt? Sure. We had a viewer that wrote in about this and she, I think found this book at some sort of secondhand store and was getting a real kick out of how awful it was. You can go to page one hundred thirty three if you want to get a b opy of Sign Language yourself. Here we go. My question about women's gymnastics is simple. Are we not supposed to be looking at their little rear ends while they're jumping around all over the place Because I think that's pretty much all I've been doing and I don't know if it's wrong. I mean, if it's wrong, I'll stop But no one's ever said anything about it The annoucer never goes in judging this event, they throw out the high score, the low score and stop staring at their little rear ends They really do have the most unbelievable rear ends in the world, and it's hard not to notice it Whenever they talk about what this girl needs to do to win, I'm thinking, win, win what I think we have a winner right here You know how race car drivers and tennis players get paid to have a company name sewn onto their uniforms? Can you imagine how much money these women gymnasts could make if they sold advertising in the right spot on that little Leotard? All it would have to say is diet slice on one chic and she set for life the greatest ad space ever We guarantee people will see your message. Y product will be a household name in the qualifying around Now he says women there Yeah. But given the history that we're going to get into. age or gymnast typically. Yes Theyir little rear ends. How many times are you gonna to say it, bro? I think he said a little three times in in these three paragraphs couldn't stop staring at their little rear ends. This o. Oh. It's gross. I feel dirty just reading it out loud. That's right. I mean, it really there's no word for it other than pedophilic because we know that I think in gymnastics in Olympic gymnastics, which I am a big fan of personally age to become what is quote unquote a senior gymnast where you're eligible for like senior Olympics, It's either fifteen or sixteen. And that's also, by the way, they bumped up that age. It used to be younger. and we know that historically in the sport of gymnastics, that is around the age that women and girls tend to compete at their highest level, which is why countries Send oftentimes the youngest possible athletes to the Olympics, which actually Simone Biles and TM USA has done a great deal just in the last decade to challenge the notion that they should all be that young. That was not the case in nineteen ninety three when Jerry Seinfeld publishes this book. And so we just have to acknowledge that he is no doubt writing about girls. Yes. And the just sheer number of times that he said the word little, I think should be an indication. What kind of horned dog is thinking about this that aggressively seemingly unable to get off of this. I mean, these honestly, these thoughts that he's writing down are so half baked and creepy. It's just I don't know which to be more offended at which parts to be more offended about, how lazy and stupid the thoughts are or how gross he is. Yeah, and how unfunny it is. Right. It's like there's not even there's not even a moment in there as with so much of his quote unquote comedy and comedic writing There's not even a moment where you're like, oh, I'm laughing. ooh, but I shouldn't be laughing. That's bad.act No, we're not even laughing. What the joke is that brands should advertise on children's butts. That's the joke I don't know, the laughter has, I guess escaped the studio But anyway, the same year that Seinfeld publishes sign language, thirty eight year old Jerry Seinfeld is walking in Central Park in New York City when he eyes a seventeen year old Shoshana Lonstein school student. Now, what are the logistics of this? You know, like what is a nearly forty year old man doing approaching a high school student in a park. Like how does that actually happen In some tellings of this story, Seinfeld noticed Shoshana sitting on a park bench and decided to approach her other sources I've read say that Shoshana rollerbladed past him and he stopped her, which I find to be I don't know, like kind of particularly disturbing just ' I associate rollerblading as such like, you a children's activity. Right, right? In any case, from an excerpt in People magazine march nineteen ninety four, quote, Real life Jerry Seinfeld, comedian, TV star and life observer, which aren't we all? It's like how Riley Gaines is called former swimmer. It's like, yeah, I'm a former swimmer too bitch, anyway U Also human being was strolling through Central Park one day in may nineteen ninety three when he spotted a stranger he now calls the most wonderful girl in the world Seinfeld, then thirty eight sallied over made small talk and went away with the telephone number of Shashaanna Lonstein, then seventeen in a senior at the private Nightendale Biamford schoolchool in Manhattan So she was in high school. Yep. She was applying to college and getting ready for prom And Jerry Seinfeld was in the fifth season of his show, one of the most famous celebrities in America. Exactly. Like just to pause for a second on that. Please. It's already an enormous power imbalance if Jerry was working at the coffee shop next door, given his age and given her age That is why sleeping with minors is wrong because of the power imbalance because these are children with developing brains Now look at the power imbalance of a random high schooler And one of the most famous people in the country right now or then, on the most popular sitcom in the country at the height of its popularity, with his money, with his fame all of that, how coercive and predatory that relationship is when you keep that in mind. Even as you say it, it really strikes me that this isn't a bigger story constantly surrounding Jerry Seinfeld and not relegated to like the corners of Reddit where people are like, Didn't Jerry do something weird? Jerry did. Indeed. Yes. And it's not like he approached her and didn't know, oh gosh, she looked so much older and then found out that she was seventeen and backed off as we're about to learn. That's not what he did. Nope, that's not what happened at all. So she was a senior at Nightingale Bamford schoolchool, which is an all girls K through twelve private school on the upper East side of Manhattan, she was, of course, as high schoolers do living with her parents Now, they begin dating and I hesitate to even call it dating, but you know, walk with me here. They begin dating and the New York Daily News publishes an article titled Highch sweetheart for TV's Jerry Seinfeld, with all due credit to New York Daily News, calling her his high school sweetheart. The whole thing's insane, but that is a clever title. Yes. They wrote Seinfeld whose people wouldn't call us back and Shoshana were spotted together at Tuesday's Nick playoffs game. the constant presence in this episode. He vociferously denied that she was seventeen on the Howard Stern showh, and he was almost right She will be eighteen. tomorrow Oh You know, it's like they've been dating for like three weeks. She's like in high school, she has to go to school the next day and he took her. court side to a Nix game and there's a photo of it. The fact that he would have to drop her off at her parents place. at her parents' place L the fact the idea that you can get past that or that that's something that you're okay with is So mind boggling to me. I mean, he was what? He was twenty one when she was born. He was able to drink Yeah. Also in that People Magazine march nineteen ninety four story, Jerry said, quote, I am not an idiot. Shashana is a person, not an age. She's extremely bright. She's funny, sharp, very alert. We just get along. You can hear the click can apply to anyone, any child. She's very alert. This is the standard for which we talk about the people that we're dating.'s like Also just Sean No, sorry, sorry I interrupted. No, I'm sorry. No. I'm sorry. No. It's like like she's funny, sharp, very alert. That's like what Y rover cat sitter would be saying to you, giving you an update about how your cat is doing while you're away. Yes. That's how he's describing his girlfriend like a pet. Shoshana is a person, not an age, makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Yep. because this is, I mean, this is what every pedophile Yes, could say and oftentimes does say. Are we dehumanizing her by pointing out that she's underage? Is that what you're saying? We're dehumanizing her. We're stripping her of her individuality by pointing out that she's a child that you are taking advantage of. I read every article about this that I could find. Jerry Seinfeld around the time that he started dating Shoshana did an interview with Playboy. and I would like to read an extended portion of that interview because he says some things that I really cannot get past. You know, I think it's easy in the age of the internet which all of this precededed to be like, oh, it was nineteen ninety three. he was forty. He was forty. Anway Do you wantan to be Seinfield or Playboy? I'm gonna to be playboy. Okay, great. Sorry Thankks. I get to be this lovely gem of a human being. Sorry. It's allor right. The tabloids had a field day with one of your recent dates with a seventeen year old. I was in a tabloid rocket to the moon. I'm telling you, that was too fun. That was so much fun. that was just absolutely hilarious to me. Excuse us. We need to get a pan to catch the dripping sarcasm I guess I haven't quite adjusted to celebrity hood because it's so hard for me to believe that anyone gives a damn who the hell I go out with or what I do. So anyway, I met this girl Shashana. She's a very sweet girl and she's very pretty. I didn't know how old she was. I knew she wasn't forty. I took her to a basketball game and that was the whole thing Did you meet her in the park like they say? Yeah, but the rest of it is all. Is she eighteen? She's eighteen now You took her to the basketball game and now the tabloids are calling you a crradle snatcher. Cradle snatcher. It was a wonderful article. I couldn't believe how nice they were about it. Nice? Everyone was saying, I don't see anything wrong with it. If they like each other, my manager couldn't believe it. He said I'm bulletproof even in the tabloids. They had every chance to really stick the knife in and they didn't do it They could have said anything. I'm taking advantage of her. She doesn't know what's going on. herer parents are upset. My mother wants to disown me They could have made up anything How did Shoshaana feel about all the attention? Didn't bother her a bit kids today The great thing is you can go out on a date and pick up a little babysitting money on the side. that pays for the pizza. She's a very nice girl. Hold on. Okaykay, okay, can we pause here for a second Be I almost stopped it before. First of all, he lists all of the things what they could have said, which he fundamentally understands are legitimate. He's got to. or maybe he doesn't think there are legitimate critiques. I think they're obviously legitimate. And my favorite is him feeling exonerated by the tabloids. You know, the tabloids that famously love women and girls, The tabloids. You know, remember how kind they were to Brittney Spears and Lindseay Lohan and like any woman that was struggling? And in the nineties, God, they were even more feminist. Is the playboy writer in you picking up on my fucking sarcasm Yes. No, I mean, it's insane. It made me mad. It made me mad. It's insane. He's like all these people around me, they could have said I was taking advantage of her. They could have said she doesn't know what's going on. They could have said herer parents are upset, which reportedly, her parents were very upset And yeah, none of this seems to bother him because People magazine wrote a relatively kind article, which of course they did because, you know, People magazine famously Morally neutral entity When he jokes about the babysitting money thing and the pizza, Yeah, can I just read that again? Can I just read that again The great thing, says Jerry Seinfeld, is you can go out on a date pick up a little babysitting money on the side What he's saying there is that This is his girlfriend and the girlfriend's parents are paying him a babysitting wage to take care of her. Can we all this is why Jerry Seinfeld cannot get me into a legal issue for calling him a pedophile because he's admitting it right here Anyway, let's continue. Playboy says, What have your friends said about this? It's really strange. The reactions ran the absolute gamut from horrified to just busting buttons with pride that they know me. Guys I hadn't heard from in years called to say congratulations, good for you. Women I know wouldn't even call me back My assistant punched me. She saw me and literally punched me. She was so mad It was reviled by women in their thirties and by J. Leno. Leno? Leno was just terrified to him, any potential public relations in Broglio. An appearance of impropriety is the most terrifying thing in the world. He was scared for me just out of concern as a friend. By the way, it makes total sense that Leno and Seinfeld are friends, total hacks. Did he do anything in the monologue? Not never do anything like that. but my mother was thrilled because Shashhana is Jewish and Syrian. My mother Syrian and all my aunts and uncles on the Syrian side, this is what they expect. They figure fifteen, sixteen is the right age for a woman for me. becausecause that's the way they do it in Syria. They're going eighteen She's a little over the hill, but if you like her, my women friends, some of them were really hostile about it. They didn't like it. First of all, they think I look for this. likeike this was an ambition of mine. But the fact is I don't meet that many women I like, period So when I like someone, I don't care about her race, creed or national origin, if I like her, I don't care. I don't discriminate if she's eighteen, if she's intelligent, that's fine. When I like someone I don't care about her race, creed, or national origin, Well those seem like fundamentally different things in a situation of dating than age. His framing of someone who wouldn't date a child as like, oh, well do you also judge your partners based on race Jerry, fuck you. Right, That's an immutable characteristic. Age is quite literally the opposite because you grow up and you grow out of being a child and you grow into being an adult You're always going to have your same race, creed and national origin, you for the most part. Also, did you notice how he decides to be kind of racist towards Syrian people there in that response Of course, and that's a preview for the future. And he feels safe clearly in this playboy environment He knows he can be a little bit of a dog and talk about this relationship in this manner He ends saying there, if she's eighteen, if she's intelligent, that's fine She was not eighteen, so you're lying through your teeth Like like what do these two people even have to talk about She's like studying for finals and he's one of the most famous people in the world. Exactly. Disgusting. They go on to date for four years. Shoshana graduates from high school and she initially goes to George Washington University for a year, which is in Washington DC. but she transferred UCLA to be closer to Jerry Seinfeld The relationship ended in nineteen ninety seven when she was twenty one and he was forty three Partially due to constant press scrutiny, there are videos that tabloids shot of Shoshana like over you, over fences and stuff of her like lounging by a pool in a bikini and talking about her body. Reflecting on the relationship and how their lives quote weren't dovetailing, Jerry said in a nineteen ninety eight interview with Vanity Fair Seinfeld has a general idea, think dolphin, a great body and a nice disposition of what he's looking for in a wife I don't want my wife to work, he insists I've had enough career for both of us. The wife needs to be fun loving. Let's drive cross country Let's go to Corfu. Let's have fun He takes another sip People aren't as fun loving as you think. They have all kinds of other things they have to do Lonstein and Seinfeld no longer speak. She has moved back to New York, where she is often photographed at club or restaurant openings identified as Seinfeld's ex girlfriend Seinfeld, meanwhile, appears to be married to the show. He leaves parties early if he goes at all I mean, you can hear it in there what he's looking for in a wife. First of all, it's very dehumanizing to that's not the part that's in quotes, but the article seems to indicate that he said that he wants his wife to look like a dolphin or be like a dolphin, okay, as an animal And he doesn't want his wife to work because he wants to have kind of control and dominion over her which is much easier to have also when you're dating a child. That's the power dynamic that we're talking about there, where you're able to essentially groom her. The idea that this girl transferred ologes to be closer to him and that this man who was forty at the time allowed for a girl to uproot her life just to be closer to him says everything about his like inability to treat her with humanity. I can't even imagine that must have felt like after they broke up for a girl who probably had this like extremely, you know, traumatizing and also transformational relationship And the power imbalance was that pronounced. And he wants a wife who doesn't work That is what really stood out to me here because if you want to be with a woman who doesn't work, why find a woman at all? Why not find a child who's in school, who can't work? And then oh look The moment she becomes an adult and is like Jerry, I want a career. Well, now our lives aren't dovetailing so well together. It's like, yeah, obviously, because you want a child and I do find it interesting that Who he's married to now, Jessica Seinfeld is, I mean sh We can define work. She's a philanthropist, meaning that they play with money. So throwing galas and booreard seats and Zionism. Yes, whole that is part of her philanthropy. Oh, yes. I mean, how philanthropic is it to support the government that's slaughtering children? Shoshana seems to have been an entrepreneurial young woman. She went on to build her a fashion line called Shaoshana. I don't know if you're familiar with it, but it seems you have done well. Good for her. It's like dresses and swimwear and I don't know, it's sold at places. Matt, we already covered how little I know about fashion or anything like that in the last episode, okay? Not to pick like this like a Saoshana Lonstein episode My heart goes out to her, but she yeah, she goes on to form this brand. She came from a wealthy family in the upper East S side and continues to now have her own wealthy family in the upper East side. She married a different wealthier man When she got older Fascinatingly, you know how this nineteen ninety eight piece says that she stays referred to as Seinfeld's ex girlfriend. Yeah. Shosanna Lonstein, who's now Shoshana Lonstein Gruss, she has a townhouse on the upper East side with her family. Okay, alsoso good for her. Yeah well, I mean Oh no. Oh no, I think I know what's coming. In twenty fifteen twenty years After her relationship with Seinfeld ends, one million dollars of jewelry is robbed from her home in New York City. Can you read what the New York Post headline about it said? Thieves steal one million dollars in jewels from Jerry Seinfeld's ex girlfriend. This is a woman who is now forty years old. I know. And I'm aware that even on this podcast, she is reduced to Jerry Seinfeld's ex girlfriend. And I just want to take a beat on that It's the thing that most people in the world who are aware of her will ever know her for And in all of these stories, it's just so u Rattling me when people are sort of reduced to a footnote in a much more famous person's story, especially as a child. especially as the victim. I don't purport to know how she feels about that relationship at this point in her life, but That must be immensely difficult in any way, any way you slice it. Yeah And just to bring it full circle within the context of the a bit fruity cinematic universe Like I said, Shoshana herself is now of Manhattan High society and specifically, she herself is very involved with the New York pro Israel activism community, I went on her Instagram, which is mostly to promote her fashion line, but I was like flicking through some of her different content and she posted a photo of a lamp post with a sticker on it that says Zionism is the radical idea. Jews are people. T Well, and who is she friends with? Who do you think she's friends with? I know you have the outline open. No, I'm not I'm a page behind because I like or I don't like to be spoiled. I want to guess some of this stuff. I don't remember this girl's name. the blue eyed crazy bitch. Shoshanna Lonstein is now friends with Lizzie Svetsky. Oh, right, Lizzie Savetsky, R, right So that's unfortunate. It's unfortunate and people contain multitudes and I don't want to do a perfect victim fallacy where I'm like, well, you screw her because her politics suck now. It's just, you know, people contain multitudes. Exactly right. This all leads me to my next portion of the episode What's the deal with me too? You too? No M too In twenty eighteen, Jerry Seinfeld had this to say when interviewed about the burgeoning M too movement. Let's talk about serious things then, The M two campaign. Yes What's wrong with the industry? I mean, are you asking yourself how how come all the It's not the industry, honey. It's the whole gender It's men and women. This is about men and women. You just call me honey. Yeah Because you got to get with this. It's not Sh business. This is global. Did you see any of it? Because everyone's saying it was all around and everyone knew about it. But then which who were we talking about? Just things that were going on around in studios No. I honestly, I've never seen And u during the years when I worked on my show and even in the nightclubs, I mean a lot of the comedians There was a lot of activity Let's call it frivolity comedians and waitresses and Everybody. I mean, men and women You know, chase after each other, right Right? Yes. Yes, they do. Now, I've never seen it done in a way that was that I thought that's not right. So're what that guy' doing. So you're surprised with all this M too campaign and things that are coming out now? No, I'm not surprised, but you asked me if I hadd seen it.. So I haven't. One of them is also actually your friend or someone you worked with, Louis C K That' be terrible I mean These behaviors themselves don't even make sense Sexually It's like I don't even understand why they would do that. And is it something that would cause you not to listen to him anymore, not to be I mean, not to listen to his material, think it's right that they took him. Well he stopped. He stopped working. The problem for him will be no one will ever, ever look at him without thinking about that. And he knows that. I don't understand the U the syndrome Harvey, the showering, what fun is it to shower for somebody? I don't even understand it. Who wants to watch anybody shower? Where's the excitement of that? I' if's. It's a whole world of sexuality that's kind of caught people by surprise. It's like, you're doing what? This is a horrible story. It's not even a good story. So him calling her honey there at the beginning as a way to diminish her is notable because he felt immediately uncomfortable whenach he's approached with the idea that men have been predatory in Hollywood. I wonder why that might hit close to home for him But when he says men and women chase after each other, what is he referring to in particular? Because what we're talking about in these instances A no like men chasing after women, men sexually harassing women, men using their power to coerce women into sexual acts that they did not consent to. That's what we're talking about, not a mutual chasing redation He's so uncomfortable when being forced to sit with that. and how did you also notice how he immediately empathizes with Louis and is talking about how he can't tour anymore. He's not working anymore. Like he doesn't even it doesn't even register to him that he should have considered the victims in this situation His mindset immediately goes to Louis. You could splice like every fifteen seconds of that and I would have such a crazy diatribe First of all, when he's like, men and women chase after each other, right Right. She leans in and it's so Menacing And I just feel like in that two seconds, you see how he thinks about women. Yes. Right? Woman? Validate me, Validate me, right? I'm in control of this conversation. am I not? And what he keeps going back to in various very mealy mouthed ways is like, well, it's not Hollywood and it's, you know Everyone's just discovering that people are sexual. And that's what he's saying. Men and women chase after each other. Well, first of all In your case, men chase after girls So let's be very specific about that, Jerry. But also then, you know, when Louis C K is brought up in Harvey Weinstein and some of the allegations, I mean, Louis C. K alleged by many women is that he would masturbate in front of them Harvey Weinstein, he invokes and showers. I think he's saying like that they would either shower in front of them, masturbate in the shower in front of them, force them to shower in front of them And what do you see what he says? there the kind of sleight of hand where he goes, I don't even get it. sexually. That doesn't even make sense. And what he's saying is in coded language, those allegations aren't true. becausecause they don't make sense to me. They don't turn me on. A, that's interesting. Or did you get something else from it? I saw it a little bit differently. I saw him trying to move away from the uncomfortability of the lack of consent part into his trademark observational light style. That's why he's trying to control the conversation. He's steering it away just focus on the specific oddities of the way that These men chose to sexually assault slash harass women. I mean, he's literally doing a like, what's the deal with these crazy allegations? Right. He's literally doing a like, what's the deal with forcing women to watch you masturbate? What's the deal with that? It's the same stick. It's as you say, it is the same stick and it's him feeling like he seems in that clip, you can see how he's such a control freak. like he really wants to make sure that This conversation is within the contours of where he feels comfortable operating. And that's why in my view, towards the end of the clip That's what he's trying to do. So with this in mind Much of the last decade or so for Jerry Seinfeld has been marked by his fraught relationship with the changing world around him. You saw that very clearly in that clip, and also by his fraught relationship with his own ability to be funny. To begin tackling that, I think it's time for The gay French King interlude. Oh, his favorite bit On june ninth twenty fifteen Th weeks, by the way, before gay marriage became the law of the land, Seinfeld did an interview with Seth Myers, where He complained That you can't even make gay jokes anymore Here's the clip. I know people are fucinking hating my Seinfeld impressions. Sorry, it's not stopping. Comedy, it's interesting. Comedy is, I do think, is the you know supposed to push the line, push towards lines, the medium. There are more people now Who will let you know if they think you went over the line than ever before. Dont I know. I mean you have to feel the same way about comedy. Yeah, but they keep moving the lines in for no reason. Right I do this joke about the way people need to justify their cell phone. I need to have it with me because people are so important You know, I said, Well, they don't seem very important the way you scroll through them like a gay French king, you know it. Well That's very offensive to the gay French king. Yeah. I did this line recently in front of an audience. and comanies where you can kind of feel like an opinion And they thought Yeah what do you mean? gay? What are you talking about gay What are he saying gay? What what are you doing? What What do you mean? you know And I thought, A you kidding me? I mean, we can't even I could imagine a time and this is a serious thing, I can imagine a time where people say, Well, that's offensive to suggest that a gay person moves their hands in a flourishing motion and you now need to apologize. I mean There's a creepy pieC thing out there that really bothers me. Creepy is an interesting word Indeed it is So he's saying that he made a joke compparing the way Pople Scroll on their smartphones. to the body language of gay French kings You know, those people that like we're always talking about. Homosexual French kings. Why not pick gay or French? Why gay French? It's redundant. He's basically saying the crowd went silent And from that I inferred that they were so offended that my joke is poking fun at gay people that everyone's just gone too woke now. Whereas I think that the joke makes no fucking sense doesn't make sense. alsoso, no one' scrolling like this it is not good observationally in terms of even the motion that he's saying would indicate the gay French king part. He's in such a prison of his own ego and like money that he can't conceive of the fact that his joke bomb It must be wokeness. Everybody's just too sensitive these days. My joke is funny and that is like a nonstarter. We're not we're not moving past that initial premise, okay? So if people don't react the way that I want them to react then it must be because the problem isn't me, it's everybody else. And notice again his fixation with controlling the room, with controlling the conversation being the guy that's in power on stage in a relationship with a with a girl or what have you? like he can't even handle. He's so fragile can't even handle his joke bombing without making it a screed on society. I'm still sitting here processing what the crux of the joke is. Right. And I've been thinking about it for three days. He's used to going into rooms and like you say with the standup. big, you know, I don't know stadium arenas, whatever, I don't know where he tours, but like everyone is there laughing together based on mostly the rhythm of his voice. Yeah. And I guess he was in a room where That wasn't the case one hundred percent of the time and his joke bombed. and he can emotionally handle it. poor Jerry. Which brings us to What's the deal with political correctness? Sorry, it is getting a little gramma. It is getting a little gramma. I like it. Jerry has spoken many times at this point about his views on political correctness in ways that have positioned him interestingly as a right wing culture war podcast darling, for example Dave Rubin shaare the video, crowd roars at Jerry Seinfeld's message for woke students. Dave is like, please call me a gay French king. Call it to call me a gay French king to my face. I will not be offended. You could throw a slur in there too. Please sir. You know what's funny about that? Dave Rubin posted that video two years ago And then he reposted the exact same video with the same commentary and the same thumbnail and the same title three weeks ago, just because it's like graduation season again. And I think he Dave Rubin, you know, listen, content creation' a grind. And I think he was like, well, it's commencement season again, so I'm just going to throw out the same triggered woke students thing as two years ago, but the speech is two years old Yeah, kindind of lazy, lazy job, Dave. Oh, Dave is infamously like a really, really lazy guy. Even when he was at TYT, he didn't want to work hard. So this is something that everybody knows about him. You're right on the money. Ben Shapiro posted, Jerry Seinfeld gets emotional while discussing his trip to Israel We'll get back to that. But speaking of that Jerry Seinfeld Duke commencement speech from twenty twenty four, His message to students was clear privilege is not a bad thing We are embarrassed of things we should be proud of and proud of things we should be embarrassed about. Privilege is a word that has taken quite a beating lately Privilege today seems to be the worst thing you can have I would like to take a moment to defend it Again, a lot of you are thinking, I can't believe they invited this guy T toooo late. I say Use your privilege. I grew up a Jewish boy from New York. That is a privilege if you want to be a comedian. Thanks You went to Duke, That is an unbelievable privilege. I now have an honorary doctorate a Humane letters degree from Duke University. And if I can figure out a way to use that, I will I haven't figured anything out yet. I think it's pretty much as useful in real life as this outfit I'm wearing But so what? I'll take it My point is we're embarrassed about things we should be proud of and proud of things we should be embarrassed about. When I was writing my TV series, Okay. writing, writing. We know who is doing the writing. You know, this isn't like the craziest thing he's ever said, but I was watching this full Duke speech. and it's really interesting because you could start to interpret what he's saying good way which is like, it's not a bad thing to have privilege. usese it. Right. But that's not what he's saying. No. What he's saying to these graduate students at Duke is like, don't be ashamed Exact you're graduating from Duke. I meet all these people who go to Harvard and they are so bashful being from Harvard, don't be ashamed, own it. And it's like Okay, first of all, in real life, no one's ashamed of coming from Duke. No one's ashamed of having gone to Duke. That's not a real thing. No. And Jerry Seinfeld, I think is very clearly airing some personal grievances here about how he feels like, oh, you can't just be like a rich straight white guy insideide anymore without having to acknowledge that you started on third base kind of thing. And it reminded me a lot of how very recently Erica Kirk, who is doing a lot. Yeah told a group of young white college students, quote, donon't let anyone disenfranchise you just because you're a young white male. Yes, also, disenfranchise is a real actual thing and that has never happened in the history of this country except, you know, before it was changed for just white men to be able to vote, It was only land owning white men. soes. But that's an as side This is a hallmark of conservative media. You'll see this a lot Don't let any doubt creep in any empathy creep in. You see this on Fox News all the time because they'll disparage their opponents or say how you know weak they are and ineffectual they are for having empathy for others. They will emphasize this a lot becausecause of course, inevitably, conservatives are going to maybe run into like, hm Is it cool that we're like warehousing immigrants like this and that we're abusing?'t No, no, no, this is for the greater good. Don't let any doubt creep in and your, you nonbinary granddaughter is the one who's completely insane. That's a very conservative construction of like how you view the world. And it's also not shocking, I think, as we're going to get to his Zionism that he believes that there are hierarchies in this way and that he is a supremacist about his place in life in addition to, of course, a religious and ethnic supremacist. Absolutely The most famous example before we get to the Zionism, of his sort of really flailing amidst the winds of change culturally is when he went in twenty twenty four on the New Yorker Radio Hour podcast and said this, Nothing really affects comedy People always need it. They need it so badly and they don't get it It U used to be you would go home at the end of the day. mostost people would go, Oh cheheers is on. Oh Mash is on. Oh Mary Tyla Moore is on. All the family' 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, hereere's our thought about this joke. Well, that's the end of your comedy. They move the gates like in the skeme. Culture, the gates are moving. Your job is to be agile and clever enough that wherever they put the gates I'm going to make the gate Not sure if you saw the pop tart movie that came out? No, don't spoil it. Oh that's coming up. 'use I's coming. But I think this was on the press tour for that. It was You know how edgy the pop tart movie was? All right, fine. Well, if we're here Yes, that was that was one of my one of my many dazzling reveals for the listener. Thank you for breaking it. It was a good breaking. I'm sorry. I' No, no, no, no. I'm saying genuinely, that was that was good. This complaint about how comedy can't be edgy anymore was part of the press tour for one of his the only things that he has made in the thirty years since Seinfeld aired which was a movie called Unfrosted It was a direct to Netflix comomedy starring obviously himself and Amy Schumer And Meliss MCarthy but we're toave her out of this We have to about the creation of pop tarts which was called by the Chicago Sun Times quote One of the decadees's worst movies. Yeah. it's like I get annoyed with the like Lokeness skilled comedy critique even from like, you know, people who do actually make like edgy comedies, but also like I want to know in Jerry Seinfeld's mind What comedy he was making that you couldn't make anymore. Observational airplane humor is just you can't do it anymore. I'm not sure if you're aware of this Matt Bernstein, but it's just way too offensive to talk about how the seats are so small. Yeah, its I mean, it is so offensive because it isn't fucking funny. I'm glad we can't do it any. Yeah. I mean There are so many like great comedies out right now on streaming, but also even movies. I think about one of the maybe the funniest movie of the past five years was Bottoms. And like that had edge to it, but it also was like inclusive and LGBTQ friendly. And he's just lazy. And it's just like that you're an old man ranting about cheers and Marary Tyler Moore. Wow, things were better back when you were a kid. What a revolutionary thought that no one has ever had. No one's ever experienced nostalgia. but he's decided to make it like a whole political ideology because he probably is not hitting at a hundred percent rate with some of his comedy and it is like driving him up a wall. I came across this clip that I think really well represents Comedy that probably wouldn't make it anymore that Jerry Seinfeld seems to think is missing from the comedic ecosystem. And it comes from B's Talking Funny with Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Ricky Gervise And of course, Jerry Seinfeld's close personal friend, Louis CK I laugh at the dumbest things. I laugh at the years and years ago, I saw a comic in some horrible club bombing with a guitar And he's saying sit on a cock because I'm gay.' still Yeah Well, I'm in the shower sitting and I just laughing ironically. Funniest thing I ever laughing ironically for that No. What he's saying is because he's gay, he has to sit on some cock. S it happens to fit beautifully over the template. Well it's like d by the bing Otis Redding thought he was setting up. Yeah exactly saying No he was I'm gonna help some guy the lame gay joe' Yeah by riding this su. Erners and Cooper is gonna beat our ass. Is he sitting on the cock? Is he just sort of sitting on the cock? Wh gay? O Is he sitting on the ball? He's sitting on the balls but the cock is up right up. But if you s sitting on some balls because the cock attached to them is inside of me becausecause I'm gay. Do does not Otis writing den not. I justt to be laughing and they can't make it scan. They haven't got it. They just walk away and they go, I've got it Otis. sitting on a cock because I'm gay. And he stops This't need the rest way go. There's no place to go. He's there. I love bits. Does he do the whistle? I love the No one thinks about gay male sex more than straight men. L I'm a gay guy. I think about having sex with men. I think like a healthy amount. M. That's good. But no one thinks about gay sex more than straight men. in any case. likeike why did they elaborate? I mean, they could have just let Louis say two minutes. Like okay, Louis was saying this made me laugh because it was dumb And then but they can't help but continue to talk about it. it's just like God. There is no feminine energy in that room and it's not for me, not for me. And I'm not offended. to be clear, I'm not offended. I am happy to laugh at a joke where gay men are at the butt of it. I'm happy to A the butt of it. Hey. Hey. Hey, you just stumbled into that one. But make it funny. I know Sorry. I'm like I'm like screaming. I just like, but But it all comes back for me to like this is the comedy that Jerry Seinfeld is so pissed. You can't even say it anymore. You can't even riff For minutes on end about a gay man having sex anymore. But what but also this is the Joe Rogan experience. What are we talking about? This is what they do all the time at the mothership on podcasts. There's these stupid awful comics that came up through Rogan who were getting these huge specials and deals to say the dumbest shit ever. It's less funny than that that Louis's delivery makes it better. They're saying things they're worse Yeah I just think, you know, and Bill Mar would be lumped into this critique for me, but it's like these moderately funny white men, they just want to return to an era where the bar for comedy was so low, but the Hollywood gatekeeping was so high that they were uniquely poised to become successful And that era is gone, kind of, kind of. We still have Matt Rife. Julia Louis Dreifist responded to this clip of Seinfeld complaining about wokeness. In an interview with the New York Times, she said, quote, I think to have an antenna about sensitivities is not a bad thing. It doesn't mean that all comedy goes out the window as a result. 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. Get them again for me. A, Qeen. Shall we move on? Oh, o right, because we already did the pop darks thing. Yeah, we did the pop darks thing What's the deal with genocide I support it! You can't support it anymore! Because of wokeness. So like I said, Jerry Seinfeld, he went to Israel as a child to like work on a kibots, AKA like foment a physical and emotional relationship to the land that he does not live on does not belong to him. Hey, he may have an apartment in Tel Aviv. He may have an apartment in Tel Aviv, okay? He may have a second home. Oh well, at this point, I wouldn't be shocked. He probably bought one of the fucking Gwyneth Paltrro apartments already. He probably put down his down payment But you know, he returned to Israel to promote the B movie. He went a couple times over the twenty ten s to perform his quote unquote comedy. And then in December of twenty twenty three twowo and a half months after october seventh and into the ensuing genocide. And at which point might I add, Israel had already murdered over twenty thousand Palestinians Jerry and his wife, Jessica, take a trip to Israel. his wife Jessica, who, by the way, there's just not enough time today Jerry met Jessica The week that she returned home from her honeymoon with the man that she had just married Mm, messy. Messica, Messica. It's really a whole other thing and actually on principle, I don't talk about like the morality of peopleople cheating because I don't it's not my business and I don't. It's just let's keep it to the politics. I hear you. I'm in agreement. But in any case, Jerry and his wife, Jessica, take a trip to Israel in december twenty twenty three He visits the site of the october seventh attacks. He does a number of photo ops with IDF soldiers. Have you seen these? I'm going to throw them on the screen. Really the happiest he's looked since he was I guess, at the height of his career. Now it's he gets to experience new heights to travel with a bunch of guys and pose with a bunch of guys that they're gonna to kill children He really does, like he comes across a sort of perpetually miserable in most of his interviews these days. Yes. And it is jarring how happy he looks to be standing with these soldiers. Could you speak to that though? Be I do think there is, it's all part of the psychology of what Israel wants from Zionists, which is this like fervent nationalism. It's very Nazi like to me Well, yeah, and fervvent nationalism can become a drug in and of itself. I mean, we see parts of it in the Trump movement. although I don't think it's you fully accurate to describe it just as a nationalist movement. Obviously, Zionism is explicitly so, But like You know, the fact that he didn't really go to Israel that much and went after october seventh just to kind of experience the high of the nationalism says how cult like it is in its construction. It's about experiencing something that is shared amongst you and your community, and that is what can be so tantalizing and addictive about Zionism because it's a shared p But once it becomes abundantly clear what that purpose is, anybody who has a conscience turns away from that kind of ideology But Jerry ran right to it And I think that that says everything about his morals. I also think often about the double standard course that exists in American media with relation to supporting Israel versus Palestine Yeah Because to give people like a really honest comparison here Jerry Seinfeld doing these like fists up photo shoots with IDF soldiers It is the equivalent of like if Hassan Piker went and did a photo shoot with Hamas fighters. I mean, I mean, the difference would be that Hamas is not as immoral and dangerous as the state of Israel, in my humble opinion. But But yeah, no, of course not, of course. it's completely hypocrite But and Hassan wouldn't I mean, he wouldn't be able to leave his house. Of course. I'm just using Hassan as an example because he's very famous and like, you know, the media loves to fixate on him But if he were to do equivalent photos with like Hamas fighters. It would never it would be the defining event of his career for the media. They would bring it up anytime he ever appeared next to a politician. I don't think politicians, even ones who supported his mission would be able to appear next to him becausecause this is the only thing that they would run, not just on Fox News, on CNN. compomaratively Most people don't know these photos of Jerry Seinfeld exist And there's a lot of celebrities who have done this. Deborah Messing, Deborah Messing mentioned Ay. Welcome to the Bit Freity podcast She did a very similar trip and has similar photos of her wearing an IDF uniform like as a costume, whichich is hilarious. I mean, there was also a guy, I think it was repepresentative Brian Mas Republican who wore an IDF uniform the on the floor of Congress. Can you imagine doing so for like, you know the Chinese government wearing their military uniform or say, the Iranian military fatigues Like if Hasssan did a photosoot with Hamas, they would find a way to bring charges against him and say like, oh, you gave this guy a bag of chips. That's material support for terrorism. Obviously, we have this double standard where of course I don't hold Hamas to the standards that I would hold Israel to because it's a nationalist movement that is born out of desperation and the circumstances that are created by the apartheid and genocide of of Israel, Hamas wouldn't exist without Israel. So that's just the even my point is like it's even worse in my field. Yeah Right, yeah. Nonetheless, Jerry has since become one of the most visible vocal, shameless and unflinching Zionists in Hollywood In May of twenty twenty four, Seinfeld reflected on his trip to Israel with a one Berry wise on her free press honestly podcast which is very bad No shade. L I have a whole episode about Barry Weiss on Patreon. I'm very bad at promoting the Patreon. Go subscribe to the Patreon if you like this show, but she's not a good interviewer. You can throw shade on her. She can She has all of that blood money that she can wipe her tears with. In this interview, which is happening amidst the campus protests for Gaza around country Berry casually describes student protesters for Palestine as quote, Ivy League jihadis marching on campuses which like we don't even have time to get into every little thing, but I do wan to play you the clip of when Barry asks Jerry about the trip to Israel he took a few months prior. You were in Israel Yeah Since the war started. How was that trip uh the most, uh, powerful experience of my life Really? I'm sure. Yeah Why Um You know, you just Are you thinking of someone in particular Sorry. This is the only example I could find of him crying in public in his five decades of fame. I mean, he's kind of infamously aloof and a bit of a snide dick. Yeah. And yet this is what got him. the experience of going to Israel and the collective experience of being in a state that was murdering innocent people just miles away. I think, you know, you kind of see how weak minded he is there. His inability to have any doubt or challenging thought creep into his mind That's the through line with his relationship with women and with with his fixation on girls who are powerless in conversations with him and in relationship with him, never having any doubt creep in and him being able to have a controlled environment for his feelings. He probably had such an emotional reaction to Israel because the nationalism was probably so empowering for him because you don't have to think about Palestinians. No doubt has to creep into your mind. Nothing has to challenge you. The girl doesn't challenge you Y relationship with your Jewish identity doesn't need to be challenged, you can could just get high off the drug of nationalism while you're there. And I also like, I would imagine that when he goes there Be Jerry Seinfeld being the richest comedian on the planet, that he's treated like royalty. And yet he's so moved by that as if he doesn't understand the propaganda value that he's providing. It's amazing. I guess when you're that rich and that famous for that long, you kind of are an emotional child to a degree And he has actually spoken about that calling back to the B movie press tour strings of words that I just never thought There was one good thing that came out of that B Mvie press tour and that he is in a great episode of thirirty Rock called Seinfeld Vision, which was a part of that promotion. And I gott to say he can perform okay when other people who are funny are writing for him. Yeah, yeah yeah yeah But he did say in one interview that he had like not really thought that much about like what he means to the Jewish people, for example. until He went to Israel after Seinfeld had concluded to promote The Be moovie, at which point he was extremely famous And he's like, I saw the way that they looked at me and the way that they treated me and I realized that like I meant something to these people. There we go. We solved it. This is the smallest man on the planet who is addicted to validation that like if it doesn't come in every format, he breaks down. And so like when you have nationalism and Zionism, which basically also reinforces your supremacist belief in yourself. U and that you're basically a Godd and that this is some sort of holy war. Yeah. Yeah For somebody like that who's, you know, fame has passed him by at this point. He's just sitting on a pile of money Of course that's gonna make that guy cry. I thought this clip of him crying was was so interesting because like you said, he's famously, he's loooof, he's a dick. he's like increasingly, I think, taken on this really like tough guy, like not afraid to call balls and strikes kind of thing. In this very interview with Barry Weiss he like calls for a return to like sort of strongman masculinity And yet this makes him cry And this made me think of a concept that Amy Sadaro coined called prosthetic trauma that Naomi Klein has written about in the context of Israel and how in the wake of october seventh, while Israel continues to genocide Palestinians Now South Lebanon that they've made these like art installations and like interactive immersive exhibitions around like the Nova Music Festival and all of these things where you can go And it's like combination, like memorial, like summer camp sing along, like mega church vibes where they just wrap you up in emotion and the grief of october seventh that like Jerry Seinfeld didn't experience But they make sure that he feels like he experienced it and therefore never has to doubt whatever Israel does to anybody else because that level of pain and trauma that Jerry Seinfeld thinks that he's expericed is enough to make him never doubt it and to throw, I cannot even imagine the amount of money that he and his wife have thrown at this cause. Oh, o, absolutely. make sense. to the way I explain it makes sense. It completely makes sense. With those tours of like the Nova Festival, if you're able to kind of experience that trauma or a a display of it then that's a way to kind of indoctrinate you into the cult like mindset of Zionism as well. It's a shared trauma. It's a shared experience. and is a myth that Zionists can tell themselves that is a moral underpinning for their thought negating belief system that pushes aside all empathy and all hum humanization for Palestinians. So it can act as a method of indoctrination and Jerry was more than happy to be indoctrin And I think this idea of prosthetic trauma is so good. I want to unpack it further in future episodes, I hope. mayaybe even with Naomi Klein, she ever comes back to talk to me. No, she did message me and she was like, you did such a great job with our episode. I was like, Oh. God, what an amazing human being. There's a lot of parallels that we can draw between october seventh and nine eleven. And nine hundred eleven similarly was this moment that was exploited by bad faith nationalist actors to put this nationalist and oftentimes racist fervor into the American population and why ever since nine eleven, especially around the each year memorial of nine hundred eleven, you have a lot of people, especially Muslim and Arab Americans talking about like Hey, yes, let's like talk about this awful thing that happened in New York City, but also let's not use this to further our own Racism, the prosthetic trauma is what like a George Bush wanted every especially white American feel in the wake of nine eleven, It's like You know, you may not have actually experienced this, but actually, yes, you did. and let's do, you know, all of the museums and let's do all of the documentaries and let's and I'm not saying in and of itself, museums and documentaries about a tragedy is a bad thing, but if they are exploiting people's pain to further more pain for other people and violence and destruction and genocide, then it is a bad thing and we have to recalibrate how we're thinking about these things and that's what Israel has done on October seventh Absolutely. and people should look up Netanyahu's quotes about in his immediate reaction to nine eleven. If you want to know how Israel felt about nine eleven, they were quite excited that the United States would get even more involved in the Middle East and Netanyahu had to walk back some of his excitement about that kind of thing. But it is a way to, if you're constantly only reinforcing the humanity of the victims of a terror attack like that, which is definitionally blowback for foreign policy in the Middle East, both on october seventh and what happened on nine hundred and eleven. If you remove that context and you only humanize one side when you're trying to garner public support for a war, say in Iraq that had nothing to do with nine hundred eleven That is a very powerful way to get people to have some sort of collective trauma and only empathize with one side without analyzing systemically why this may have happened. You know, they hate us for our freedom. It serves the same role a Zionist basically saying that you know, Hamas is the equivalent of Hitler and that they're going by Mein Komf. And while Jerry Seinfeld is really biting into that emotional propaganda and literally crying with Barry Weiss. College students, like I said across the U S are peacefully camping out on their university's lawns for days and weeks at a time in protest of their tuition money being invested in companies that enable the IDF genocide on Gaza. As people may recall, this severely angered Zionists across the country to such Zionists Jerry and Jessica Seinfeld Jessica Seinfeld was so angry about these protests. So Jessica posts on her Instagram story. It's a screenshot of a go fund me. that just says UCLA rally H And she writes on top of it. I just gave to this goo fund me to support more rallies like yesterday's at UCLA. More cays are being planned. So please give what you can, donations are anonymous. We will continue to share our light and love as proud American Jews. Now this G fund mee, which was literally just called UCLA rally seems incredibly vague and why did it need to raise eighty thousand dollars? O has to wonder And I've been to many a protest and I justt I don't know where this money is going But in any case, Jessica Seinfeld, as publicly available information on GoFund Me shows, donated five thousand dollars to UCLA Rally Now, what did UCLA rally end up being? Well in response to a peaceful encampment at UCLA, formed by pro Palestine student protesters, this was for a Zionist counter protest which turned out to be a violent Mob. I remember this. This was one of the worst instances of attacks on students and it was jarring in particular to see how much older the Zionist protesters slash mob was than than the students. And they were going after young women who were college age with violence. Yep, they were beating the pro Palestine students with rods They were launching literal fireworks encampment fromrom like like like tens of yards away. This is the worst violence of any of the ongoing college protests. UCLA where counter protess used sticks and boards against a pro Palestine encampment. It was more than hours of unrestrained violence the night of april thirtieth to injuries and bloody scenes campus security and law enforcement allowed it to continue. Do you know how bad it has to be, how poorly Zionists have to behave for CNN to do reasonable reporting on them? Exactly. They did a whole investigation where a month later, they were like, yeep, these were basically all middle aged men. None of them were students at UCLA. They came to cause violence. They were yelling at young female students Hamas was going to rape them. Horrifying. and you know, Jessica Seinfeld She was like, I'm horrified and you know, this isn't what I donated to and But you know, it is. It is, it is. You also advertised it. And you knew what was going on there. You knew that they were going to disrupt it. And it is, as you say, interesting, how so much of what Zionists have to say is projection, like the paid protters think, oh, that these yes, these students are being funded by Hamas. The big claim at the time was like, who's funding all of their tents? That's like, I knowly I forgot that tents range between like two hundred and three hundred K or something like that. It's a valid question. Yes, Hamas is sending money for their tents, but nevertheless Every accusation is a confession and this is yet another example of that because Jessica Seinfeld donated thousands of dollars to a mob of middle aged men. who went and yelled at at girls on campus. There you have it. And without listing the many other examples of Jerry Seinfeld cruelly responding to anti genocide hecklers at his shows or returning to Duke in twenty twenty five to give a talk about how pro Palestine protesters are, quote, the modern KKK Hry, can I get a selfie? Sure. Rebalest time I don't care about B was play ide That brings us to the present where just two weeks ago, Jerry Seinfeld uttered the three words that a lot of people will likely remember him most for C isb. It doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. That's what I hope his legacy is. Or I could also settle for second fiddle to the much more talented Larry David. How do we round this out? Watch Kerb your enthusiasm. Like if you guys like Seinfeld, watch Kerb your enthusiasm. It is a superior show. It actually is riskier than Seinfeld in some of the things that it touches. Like if you like Seinfeld per your enthusiasm, I think. shows who the real creative genius behind all of this is and that must eat at Jerry. I think that must eat at him And that's why he has to create this delicate little palace for himself in his mind where there is nothing that creeps in that would cause him to feel insecure or unsafe So as he lectures, the rest of the world on wokeness and safe spaces and cancel culture and political correctness, what have you The snowflake that we're talking about here. is the rich guy, Jerry Seinfeld I found a way to end on a high note. whichich that was a pretty high note. That was really good. That was really good. Sap. Thanks Thank, thanks. Thank you. Thank you. I was reading a Reddit thread about Seinfeld Someone wrote the following Seinfeld iss an example of someone who is bland and unlikeable in every way. But blind ambition and self belief paid off not particularly talented. His writers and coworkers were much more capable and talented. Good looking. No no altruistic or noble qualities to speak of whatsoever. Pality personality like Velcro or Plywood but he's made a ton of money It's inexplicable. This reads as someone who's just like in utter disbelief, but like not even not even disappointed, but just like seeing things for what they are. It's the most clear throated analysis ofeffrey of Jerry Sinfeld At very time fill I scen, I always said Jeffrey Star, my brain's broken She goes on, He's one of those people who actually reinforces my belief in the law of attraction because there's no other reasonable explanation for his success. This soda cracker of a human just expects the best, so he gets that I think this is the energy we should all carry into twenty twenty six. I really love that person and they are completely flummocked. it's amazing. And the person who wrote that has deleted their account. so if there Any chance you might be listening to this today, please find me somehow and let me give you credit. But I think we should all move in our lives with the delusional optimism of an untalented, uncharismatic Jerry Seinfeld, like, I'm not I'm not usually a person who's like thinkink and grow rich It is proof though that there's no God, that he's this rich. I'm sorry. Like I at the very you know, I'm keeping a running list about whether there is or is not a God in the kind of evidence that we can collect on either side. But, you know, this this is weighting heavily on the no God side. There's no There's no justice in this world. unless it's Old Testament God Maybe because we're all being punished. That is for sure. Emma Viggalland. I love you so much. Thank you for suggesting this episode and sort of forcing me down this rabbit hole because I had fun, I had fun. I'm glad you did. I'm glad you did. and I love you, buddy. So good to always connect. And you know, as we've discussed, now podcasting is hanging out in our world. So it's good to hang out with you And it's a socialist summer in New York City. I hope that we came to you with full energy today Because we were I was out last night at some DSA events celebrating the election results a little got a little fruity. Nor fruity A bit fruity on stream. I mean, not In like a, you know, campy manner, I just I had some drinks and what are you gonna do? It was a great night. You were acting like a gay French king Srolling I was drunk posting unfortunately. Can't do that, can't do that. But you know, we've we've been electing some great leftft wing anti genocide pro worker candidates here in New York City. And let's replicate this elsewhere in the country. I know we can do it. So many people are saying that, you know, o, New York City is just being woke, New York City. First of all, New York City has plenty of very unwoke representatives and also I know that what we are feeling in New York with regards to the genocide, with regards to taxing the rich These are feelings that are being held throughout the country. So if that is something that resonates with you, join the DSA, but also look into candidates running in your district. Support the ones who are. I know we have some great candidates popping up all over the place that I'm very excited about. And I don't know, just leaving this on a high note. Absolutely. Chang is coming, changes in the air. Oh yeah Thanks so much, manat. I love you so much and until next time day.