Jerry Seinfeld did not hold back in a new interview, in which he shared his thoughts on the current situation of TV comedy and how severely it is affected because of political correctness. Speaking to The New Yorker, Jerry said how ‘P.C. crap’ and the ‘extreme left’ is hurting television comedy like never before. (Also read: Nicole Kidman's daughters Sunday and Faith look gorgeous as they make red carpet debuts. See pics)
What Jerry said
In the interview, Jerry shared his opinions on whether comedy has been affected by the real-world problems of today and said: “Nothing really affects comedy. People always need it. They need it so badly and they don’t get it. 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 P.C. crap, and people worrying so much about offending other people. Now they’re going to see standup comics because we are not policed by anyone. The audience polices us. We know when we’re off track. We know instantly and we adjust to it instantly. But 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.”
On an episode of Seinfeld
He further gave an example of Seinfeld and continued, “We did an episode of the series in the nineties where Kramer decides to start a business of having homeless people pull rickshaws because, as he says, ‘They’re outside anyway.’ Do you think I could get that episode on the air today? Do we take the heat, or just not be funny? And what they’ve decided to be is, Well, we’re not going to do comedies anymore. There were no sitcoms picked up on the fall season of all four networks. Not one. No new sitcoms.”
{{/usCountry}}He further gave an example of Seinfeld and continued, “We did an episode of the series in the nineties where Kramer decides to start a business of having homeless people pull rickshaws because, as he says, ‘They’re outside anyway.’ Do you think I could get that episode on the air today? Do we take the heat, or just not be funny? And what they’ve decided to be is, Well, we’re not going to do comedies anymore. There were no sitcoms picked up on the fall season of all four networks. Not one. No new sitcoms.”
{{/usCountry}}Jerry is all set to make his directorial debut with Unfrosted. Loosely based on the true story of the creation of Pop-Tarts toaster pastries, the film debuts on Netflix on May 3.