A larger-than-usual debate has erupted over the latest episode of Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm: “Palestinian Chicken.” Our beloved anti-social, misanthropic, crazed individualist has taken his shtick to the freighted arena of Israel/Palestine relations, and popular culture may never be the same. Many have dismissed the episode as racist, perpetuating stereotypes and dangerously false representations, and they would be right. Others have found great humor and even brilliant social satire in the episode, some of it groundbreaking, and I would also have to agree that they are correct. It has been surprising that many in the longer-than-usual discussion thread (at Eleanor Kilroy's post) dismissed the show as just racist, unfunny and unwatchable, so it seems a closer look at the less-discussed subversive side of this episode is warranted.
First, a disclaimer. Yes, this episode is filled with typically racist, stereotypical, reductive, and problematic representations of Palestinians, and for that I make no excuses or apologies, -- it reflects the impoverished and racist/imperial nature of US popular culture and discourse at this time and place. In this sense, it is much like Bill Maher’s Real Time, Family Guy, most of CNN, and tons of other mainstream shows that betray an air of intelligence or even progressiveness while reproducing colonial and racist assumptions. And of course, different audiences, with different political and cultural orientations will watch this show, like all “texts,” differently. So, there is no single correct reading of this show, just endless debate and discussion, which is itself a reflection of both the quality of the show and the significance of the issues it exploits for comedy. However, whereas Maher’s anti-Arab racism is consistent, he usually paints his Jews, especially when secular and/or Israeli, as saints. Here Larry David is much more balanced, as a consistently scorching critic of US Jewish foibles. For example, “Palestinian Chicken” continues a thread exploring the “pitfalls/consequences of [knee-jerk Jewish] tribalism & exceptionalism,” started in the first episode of the season, “The Divorce,” in which Larry fires a Jewish-acting lawyer named Berg only to get burned in his divorce settlement with the “real” Jewish lawyer he stereotypically thought would be better. [Thanks to Adam Shapiro for making this connection.]
Some discussants worried that Jews watching this episode felt affirmed by it, and that Arabs uniformly hated it as racist, but a review of comments in US and Israeli media suggest this was far from uniform. At Haaretz, Israel’s leading daily, several commented that David was a “self-hater,” with a “stupid message,” that “purposely made Jews look like ‘racists’.” On HBO’s official CYE page, we find: “this episode crossed the line. It was disrespectful, insulting and downright antisemetic. Shame on you, Larry David!!” next to the comment from Faisal S., “I am Jordanian and absolutely loved this episode. I think Larry is brilliant.... i am laughing my a... off!!” And Nathan Burstein at The Jewish Daily Forward concluded his review with: “Some Israel lovers will find 'Palestinian Chicken' distasteful, but it’s a hit among David’s fans.”
My argument is that beyond the serious cultural limitations we sadly have come to expect on US television, there is also something else in this episode, something subversive, which is not common at all, and which casts light on the significant cultural moment we are living through. In this sense, I think too many critical thinkers with good politics have moved too quickly to throw the baby out with the bathwater on this one. Amidst the gross but predictable equalizing of two profoundly asymmetrical “sides” in this very real conflict, David and crew actually showcase Jewish racism in both its extreme and its liberal forms, and this is something truly rare on television. They also give us brief flashes of otherwise censored concepts like “occupation,” “settlements,” or even just the real-life restaurant posters which show an Israeli tank facing down children, or declare: “Right –vs- Might,” and “Visit Palestine” – things we never see on tv.
It can be hard to tell when these aspects of the show are intentionally subversive, and when they are more the unintentional product of David’s ad-lib production style in which his cast reproduces its own cultural assumptions whole cloth, whether or not tongue-in-cheek. Whichever it is, and we may never know for sure, I think the comedic tensions running through the show mirror a broad shift in the zeitgeist of both Jewish and non-Jewish [Western] public opinion about Israel that reflects the growing success of the non-violent Palestinian peace movement centered around Boycott/Divestment/Sanctions [BDS] called for by Palestinian Civic Society. It is not an accident that this show, shot earlier this year, appears at a time when anti-boycott legislation in Israel is being universally decried as undemocratic, even neo-fascist [see Haaretz op-ed]; when Alice Walker and hundreds of activist were sailing toward Gaza with letters, but were thwarted by Israeli frogmen cutting boat propellers in the dark of night; when a rising tide of artists and veterans of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa are vocally joining the new anti-apartheid struggle against Israel, as seen in the recent Feminists of Color Solidarity Statement signed by Angela Davis and others.
It is a commonplace in mainstream US culture since 1967 to collapse Jews and Israelis into a single entity, so that all criticisms of Israel can be falsely reduced to anti-Semitism. So it is not surprising when that happens in this episode in more than 10 places, for example when Larry and Jeff look at the restaurant’s pro-Palestine posters and Jeff says: “Yeah, they do not like the Jews,” instead of “they do not like illegal Israeli occupation.” But this false unity also starts to break down under the weight of the show’s comedic narrative, in the central theme that Larry is more loyal to the hot sex offered by his new Palestinian paramour than to his “own people’s” laughable insistence on separation and isolation. Clearly, Larry feels no obligation to Israel in this episode, and this brilliantly highlights the growing re-separation of Jewish from Israeli identities.
Another clear theme that emerges here is Larry’s willingness to make visible Israel’s arbitrary and violent excesses. Usually in our popular culture, there is a quasi-maniacal Israel-can-do-no-wrong mentality that also requires total erasure of occupation and injustice. But here, Larry references “settlements,” which he says would be “taken down …in the morning” if they’d “send their chicken over to Israel.” In an obvious critical reference to the “Ground-Zero Mosque” flap, the cast also makes light of both Israeli and US spatial intolerance when the Funkhauser says: “How in the world can they dare open up a Palestinian chicken restaurant next to the sacred land of that [Goldblatt’s] deli?” to which Larry responds: “Hey, this is America, they can do whatever they want!” Later, when Funkhauser decides to try the new chicken joint, he says, “Shalom. You know, I thought all last night, if Rabin can break bread with Arafat, I can have chicken at this anti-Semitic shit hole.” Some will correctly see his assumption that because the restaurant is Palestinian it is necessarily anti-Semitic and a shit hole as blatantly racist. However, he is also showcasing everyday Jewish racism and xenophobia in a frank and accurate way, and this is taboo in US culture.
And we have to discuss the deeply transgressive sex scene. When Larry is later having “the best sex [he’s] ever had, anywhere,” with Shara from the restaurant, she is screaming ecstatic epithets: “Fuck me, you fucking Jew,” and Larry escalates with: “Filthy Jew, filthy Jew.” Shara replies: “Filthy fucking Jew, you Zionist pig, you occupying fuck; occupy this!” Larry keeps things going with, “I’m an occupier, [yeah] I’m an occupier.” There is much more to this amazing scene, including Shara’s lines: “You want to fuck me? Like Israeli fucked my country? Show me what you got,” and: “Fuck me like Israel fucks my people; show me the Promised Land.” Most commentators have cringed at Shara’s “anti-Semitic” barrage, but most of what she says is accurate, and again crosses a taboo in our culture, which Larry happily admits: “I’m an occupier…” Where else have we ever seen Israel-as-oppressor in our pop culture landscape? This is powerful subversion.
As Larry triumphantly walks downstairs to greet a stunned Funkhauser who has been listening below, he recites the theme verse from the Scarlet Pimpernel, revealing to the audience a high degree of intentionality here and even literary sophistication. As a precursor to the “masked superhero” theme of later comic book culture, Larry as Pimpernel portrays himself as a “social assassin” super-hero who publicly plays a shallow fool, but is secretly a daring double agent. How strictly we are to take David’s literary reference remains up to us: The original play and novel place the Pimpernel’s true sympathies with the Trans-Channel aristocracies of France and Britain during the French Revolution, so this would translate into our times as a covert allegiance with the Trans-Atlantic US/Israeli imperial regimes against the Palestinian resistance. However, David may not have meant it this literally -- many have just used the Pimpernel reference to refer to a generic undercover rebel, as when Nelson Mandela was called the Black Pimpernel before his capture and incarceration. I think David meant to refer to himself as a subversive double agent of some kind, hinting at deeper (social assassin) intentions behind his otherwise egocentric inter-ethnic sexual escapade.
This brings us to the admittedly subjective realm, in which I argue (and I am not alone here) that this show represents Larry David at his best: a comedic genius of historic proportions, cultural and political flaws notwithstanding. In less than 30 minutes, Larry David intricately weaves three-plus plotlines into a seamless whole, while dropping a relentless barrage of one-liners, some of which are destined to immediately enter the lexicon as new catchphrases: “verbal texting,” “social assassin,” “Koufaxing,” “desert referee,” “no matter what,” and at least in my book: “the penis wants to get to its homeland.” In terms of pacing and sheer comedic escalation, the first watching of this episode is an intense ride that rivals any other in the genre, and deserves respect for the high pop culture art that it is. This episode will go down in history as the point at which Larry’s anti-social compunctions were elevated into an artform finally recognized by his friends, who now name and hire him for his skills as a “social assassin,” replete with “hits,” “contracts,” and his halting attempts to retire from the business. We are given the Palestinian restaurant as the ideal place for Jews to cheat, brilliantly mocking the arbitrary and ultimately unsuccessful separation of people based on Middle Eastern geopolitical lines. We see Larry blackmailing the Rabbi into letting Funkhouser play golf on the Sabbath because even she succumbs to the chicken. We get the classic line: “What is this, the raid on Entebbe?” Yes, my review here is subjective, and some who are offended at the outset, or do not “get” Larry David, may not be “in” the episode enough to find it funny, but I think a compelling argument can be made for this episode’s brilliance.
The portrayal of Shara trades in tired Orientalist racial tropes: anti-Jewish, over-sexed, aggressive, militant, dehumanized. But there is also a more nuanced element to this sexual encounter. Some would argue, on some level, that as the object of his desire, Shara is also partially humanized by Larry David, who brazenly transgresses a very stark social division (especially in Israel this year, if you’ve been following the headlines of the new Rabbinic Jim Crow calls) when he chooses her over the demands of his own “tribe.” Some will say this doesn’t matter, because she is still a dehumanized sexual conquest. But again, the political and social context in which this show aired tells us that, if nothing else, there is intentional referencing of current issues and taboos here. Although at the end of the episode we are left to wonder which “side” in the protest Larry will choose, few observers doubt he will join Shara, now offering to add her sister Yasmin into the equation, over his overbearing Zionist friend Susie and the born-again Marty Funkhauser. It is worth noting as one critic did elsewhere, that L.D. was unable to bring himself to have sex with a buxom Republican in a previous episode, because of the portrait of George Bush above her bed. So, what does it say that he has no such compunction about “miscegenating” with a beautiful Palestinian woman who foments against Israel and its occupation during sex? Clearly, the deeply culturally-Jewish Larry David can more easily jettison association with Israel than he can abide by association with a sexy Republican ideologue.
Again, the racism and representational flattening in this episode is indeed objectionable. But, I hope I have made the case that this show is also a rich mine of psycho-sexual-racial intersections and unravelings that deserve closer attention. Consciously or not, it is also an auto-critique of Jewish whiteness, liberal Zionism, religious hypocrisy, and constructions of Jewish manhood and sexuality. There is a growing ambivalence in the once solid assumption that Jewish = Zionist that is both reflected and amplified here, and which our present cultural and political moment is all about. The show is far from an anti-Zionist masterpiece, but in reflecting an occasional fracturing of dominant assumptions once thought taboo to question, it marks the beginning of a shift in Western cultural thinking that we need to continue working towards.
Jesse Benjamin is Associate Professor of Sociology and coordinator of African and African Diaspora Studies at Kennesaw State University.
I think that this is very much on the right track. The Scarlet Pimpernel – who was ‘damned elusive’ and asks of himself ‘is he in heaven, is he in hell?’ – does seem to provide a well-chosen image. And maybe there’s a more discreet allusion to the shocking sexual imagery which Hosea uses to make a theological statement.
“So, there is no single correct reading of this show, just endless debate and discussion, which is itself a reflection of both the quality of the show and the significance of the issues it exploits for comedy.”
Well, I’d rethink my earlier critical attitude, except that maybe it doesn’t matter much. The episode may be more important as an indicator of cracks in the dominant narrative than it is in itself. Which seems to be what you are saying.
Even though this is a TV sitcom, it’s motivated by a dynamic and creative unconscious. It’s not contrived, like most TV shows, and thus David’s popularity beyond appealing to the LCD. The creative unconscious can reveal prejudices and fears, but can also expose those for what they are. It gets all mixed up, especially when the conscious is not censoring for PC (dare I say). Larry being Larry is good for the culture. But politics remains its own problem, and it won’t be addressed on television.
As unclean as it makes me feel watching David’s shtick, I am compelled to spend more time viewing old episodes before wading too deeply into this debate. A few points for now:
There is no excuse for David’s racism in this context. Racism is, above all, about power relations, and an analysis of power relations within the characters of a skit will reveal whether the skit is acceptable or not, in my opinion. As I briefly pointed out earlier, the 3 Stooges showing up at a WASP-y dinner party to insult the attendees of the exclusive affair, while literally destroying the household, is funny because they are gate crashers. They wouldn’t have been admitted if they weren’t mistaken for some musical genius or plumbers called in to help save the day. Only in those tightly proscribed circumstances would the Jew, the outsider, be permitted access. This is why David Chapelle’s skits, loaded with stereotypes and racist vulgarity work, and David’s doesn’t. When Chapelle does his brilliant skit on the blind ‘black white supremacist’, the blind black character screaming ‘nigger’ at white youths blasting rap music from their car stereo, for example, he has put a black man in a position he couldn’t otherwise be in, and is thereby subverting racism. Same with his ‘The Niggars’ skit, the story of a white Cleaver-like family whose surname is Niggar. Again he is turning the tables on white racism. David, on the other hand, is reveling in his racism and the power of his privilege. Rather than sneaking into a venue he would otherwise not be given access to, he kicks in the door of the Palestinian restaurant, the other restaurant goers simply being part of the scenary/TV set for his racist antics. He and his loudmouth friend are screaming their insults, and no one, apparently, even dare look at them while they do so. These are not outspoken Jewish characters speaking truth to power, they are now the bullies that were previously the enemy of the underdogs of the world. And what is this misogynistic ‘chicken’ bullsh@t? Here is Larry and his buddy commenting on how great the chicken is while ogling the legs of the Palestinian woman. If Citizen is right, and David is not neurotic, he is at the least playing on a variety of neuroses, the Jewish woman’s fear of lack of interest from Jewish men, the bloodlust of every gentile, any commentary touching upon someone who is Jewish, necessarily also being anti-semitic. And, again, it is one thing to poke fun at something, and another to attempt to subvert that same thing. I don’t get the sense that David is questioning his racism at all. He seems quite comfortable with it, so comfortable and secure in fact that he can put it on public display without any real fear of consequences. That seems to be the message, with David poking you in the chest exclaiming, ‘I can say and do whatever the hell I want, and what are you going to do about it?’
Infinitely more absurd, because it’s real, Israeli GPS systems allow the user to set parameters, ie on one system, WAZE, to avoid PA controlled roads, and on another, Orange, to avoid crossing the green line altogether.
link to 972mag.com
How could LD play with something like that in a show?
I’m very glad to see this analysis. I’m Protestant, like Larry David’s work a lot, didn’t see this show, and didn’t want to believe that (yet another) Jewish figure I respect was warped by having absorbed totally mainstream Israeli values re the Palestinians.
Boycott corporate TV and ALL it’s programming.
Abhorrent weapon of mass-distraction.
Sure you can live without your sitcoms and your soap-operas and your burger-king commercials. It won’t kill ya to spend your evenings reading/researching, or talking to a human being or looking out at some stars if you’re so inclined.
If you’re like me, a story-addict, get netflix where at least you get to CHOOSE your own programming and time of it – and without all that commercial garbage that gets dumped at high volume on TV viewers.
Don’t let corporations infiltrate your hard-earned R&R time. Don’t even let boutique media like mondoweiss direct you towards the TV remote control.
The above article, for example and with all due respect, attempts to put a veneer of acceptability on a hollywood zionist program written and made in arab-phobic hollywood. A genuinely impossible task, as far as I’m concerned. I still maintain that ZERO TOLERANCE should be shown to any act of racism by anyone in any kinda media. Over-intellectualizing the LD show ain’t gonna make it’s zionism go away or it’s racism any more acceptable just because it put up a ‘jewish-taboo’ poster on a background wall.
I’m sorry to say but this theme is an annoying waste of time especially that it was already so hotly debated and thoroughly dissected TWO DAYS AGO.
Could be just me but I kinda think there are more important issues going on TODAY that need our attention than last week’s LD show.
The above article, for example and with all due respect, attempts to put a veneer of acceptability on a hollywood zionist program written and made in arab-phobic hollywood.
The point, and Taxi gets to the point.
Satire is not necessarily pretty. Sarah Silverman told an audience that when she was filling out the form for potential jurors, on the issue of bias, she wrote “I love Chinks.”
not pretty, yes, but ms. silverman isn’t even funny. admittedly if you changed the dynamics of the show, l.david could be humorous. her comment, again, just goes to privilege. she can say ‘i love chinks’ because she is permitted to do so. an arab comic making the statement, ‘i love k*kes’ on his jury form probably would be a bit too ‘edgy’, don’t you think?.
you also have to question the audience for this stuff. apparently l.david’s premiere episode this summer drew a record 1.7 million viewers, up some 50% from his last premiere. in other words, the equivalent of every citizen of the State of Nebraska was watching the show. not too impressive. so who exactly is the target audience? and how would l.david expect his viewers to interpret and be impacted by his comedy? when you look at david’s show with this in mind, it sounds like so much navel gazing. (‘mad men’ is a similar phenomenon with some dimwit in the NYT gushing on about how the ‘whole country’ was glued to that drama, when it gets similarly narrow ratings. What, in that reviewer’s mind, constitutes the ‘whole country’. i assume she meant the couple of million or so affluent followers of ‘mad men’ that can afford to go the same restuarants she dines at.)
Sarah Silverman is vulgar, not funny and David Green would be simply Better, even really good, if he did not so often rely on vulgarity to get his joke or “message” across. It is the lazy comedy writer’s took kit.
It kills a good shtick and he come across as basically misogynistic to his core, which Green is. Watch him long enough and you will see.
The good Professor reads too much into that shtick that does not come from Green himself.
The Curb episode was brilliant. Yes, it mocked Arabs. But that is standard for the mass media. What else is new?
But the episode’s main targets were the racist brouhaha over the “Ground Zero” mosque and mindless rightwing Zionists. David even mocked Orthodox Jews for the sheer fun of it.
If Larry David wasn’t as rich and powerful as he is, the lobby would destroy him for this. Happily, they can’t touch him.
mj, you’re kidding yourself. nobody is untouchable. if l.david was truly undermining the dominant belief system, he would be sh@tcanned.
I think I go along with MJ on the mass media. And also on Larry David.
And there are some people and areas that AIPAC can’t touch.
I have a congressman that has never voted for aid to Israel and in this district he is untouchable by AIPAC pressure or tactics.
Thank you Jesse!
This post makes a lot more sense than the previous Mondo post about this episode of Curb. I’m a huge fan of the show, but I have to rely on DVDs since I don’t have HBO, so I haven’t seen the episode yet. But as anyone who knows the show would tell you, sophisticated and subversive is the name-of-the-game in Curb.
It’s intentional. You have to get-the-joke, though.
BitTorrent FTW
I dunno, I think way too much is being made of David’s suppossed groundbreaking satire of the dominant narratives re the Israel-Palestine conflict. The guy’s a comedian, and that breed is probably even more disreptuable than musicians. Comedians will do anything for a laugh, and having that conversation in that episode, however it was intended, and however it’sbeing interpreted, made a lot of comedic sense. I doubt any more can be made of it beyond it’s essential logic [if there even is such a thing] in terms of comedic value.
I won’t say David’s been cribbing from me, but for years I’ve told friends, half in jest and half-seriously, that i would never sleep with the Israeli beauty Bar-Rafeli because of my Pally sympathies and my desire to disengage the US from any and all aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Besides, she’s been busy with Leonardo da Caprio.
Tell me, which do you think will have more cultural/political traction – Larry David’s schtichk [spelling?] or David Mamet’s converion to Israel First Likudism? [Perhaps we should more correctly describe it as David Mamet's belated admission of Israel First Likudism. But I quibble].
Btw, have you noticed the steep decline in the quality of David Mamet’s creative work that has accompanied the increasing expression of his pro-Likud militancy? A sad case indeed. The horror is that militant ethnic nationalists all sound exactly like — they are all cookie-cutter clones of one another. Militant ethnocentrism tends to stifle and kill the creative mind.
mamet is a one trick pony. sometimes he performs the trick well, and other times he’s as entertaining as the rent-a-clown tying balloon animals at a four-year-old’s birthday party.
Yer right. It’s an aesthetic choice of course, but apart from “House of Games, ” “Glengary Glen Ross,” and “American Buffalo” the guy has shown himself to be a tendentious blowhard repeating a bunch of tired themes and tropes and memes which even he has probably gotten totally disgusted with.
“Spanish Prisoner”? “The Winslow Boy”? C’mon, purely vehicles for his then spouse Rebecca Pigeon.
“Spartan” ? Cryptic would have told the tale better. One had to be a true spartan indeed to sit through the damn thing to completion.
“Race”? don’t make me vomit.
Now he’s just a ridiculous charactericature of the Angry White Man, spouting inanities at the drop of a hat and for no reason whatsoever except perhaps to hear himself bray. I’d like to drop him in the middle of Watts or Compton at 6PM, without money, a cell phone, credit cards, or access to an auto but with a street map of greater LA, a few bottles of water and a couple of protein bars, and let the would-be tough guy hoof it back on foot to Hollywood or Bel-Air or Westwood or wherever the creature calls home. Now, that’s going to be an interesting play.
for years I’ve told friends, half in jest and half-seriously, that i would never sleep with the Israeli beauty Bar-Rafeli because of my Pally sympathies
i have made that same pledge, although when bar has had a few mojitos she can really turn on the charm. stay strong, brother, stay strong.
Great essay by Jesse Benjamin here, full of complex insights into a complex Curb Your Enthusiasm episode. Larry David has a much more interesting mind than run-of-the-mill political ideologues of any stripe, few of whom will ever get his work. They can’t get off their little hobbyhorses.
(And, yes, for lord’s sake, I strongly oppose all forms of racism.)
i appreciate this post jesse, thanks
Larry David is exposing the secrets Jews have been accused for centuries of harboring. Phil also does it in his own way. Every group, but especially oppressed minorities, hide many of their thoughts from the dominant culture. It’s a matter of survival. But the Jews as a whole can no longer be considered oppressed, creating a tension between those who want to maintain the illusion of oppression in order to increase their power and those who find such views to be archaic and dangerous to society in general and the individuals of that group.
Change ain’t easy. It’s not just Larry David who is challenging the taboos of his culture but artists from every ethnicity and culture. First the walls created by the dominant culture were attacked and now the walls created as a protective barrier by the minority are being torn down from the inside. Tearing down these ramparts is a necessary step for changing from a world held back by ethnic conflict to a more humane, universal strategy, which hopefully doesn’t come too late to save us from our current destructive course.
Hopefully, Shara will be a running character on the show this season. Also, I hope LD is following this conversation in some way, shape or form.
I hoped for that too Oscar, but yesterday’s episode was pretty flat and routine, without any reference to Palestinian Chicken. Larry’s on to disrespecting new women… Shara as a regular character would have been something, but seems WAY beyond what David is capable of… I hear the Armenian actress who played Shara, who is from Montreal, also played the ultra Orthodox Jewish woman stuck on the ski lift with Larry and forced to jump and break her leg to get away from him in a previous season. She was also another woman at some point as well, for what its worth. Other than actually having Palestinians in his show, albeit stuck within racist stereotypes, I think Larry cannot be counted on to show us real Arabs, as much as occasional glimpses of real [racist] Jews… in the wasteland of US pop culture, I’ll take what I can get…
The part of that episode that struck me as odd (but in a way making sense), was that at the very end Larry would even have to think about the choice between the sexy 3-some with the Palestinian/Arabic woman and her sister or to go over to the side with the shrill & obnoxious character Susie (Essman) “Greene” and the rest (Susie hates his guts and treats him like crap but thinks he *must* show solidarity with the tribe).
I think Larry (the character) knows that the Jewish deli is *not* “sacred ground” and that having a business enterprise named for and owned by Palestinians open across the street is not an issue to get worked up over, and yet Larry (the character) knows that even he must tread carefully around cultural peculiarities of his “people” lest he be forever ostracized amongst them.
I would contrast that with a scene I saw in some documentary about “ongoing” anti-Semitism where the director/producer was trying to get support/comments from various Jewish notables and it showed the filmmaker talking to Larry David on the phone as he was flabbergasted to hear that Larry David did not wish to be involved and that he made it a point not to participate in programs such as that.
I was pleasantly surprised to know that Mr. David went against the grain in that regard. Anyone remember the name of the doc? I couldn’t find it on IMDB.
@Lance: I believe the film is called “Defamation” if it’s the one with N. Finkelstein and Uri Avnery… link to sprword.com
RE: “Clearly, Larry feels no obligation to Israel in this episode, and this brilliantly highlights the growing re-separation of Jewish from Israeli identities.” ~ Benjamin
MY COMMENT: I doubt that any of us truly comprehend the nuanced complexity of Larry David’s brilliant humor.
FROM WIKIPEDIA:
SOURCE – link to en.wikipedia.org
P.S. PUTTING IT ANOTHER WAY: To some degree, Larry David the comedian is also Larry David the Freudian therapist!
The Sheep Scene – Everything you’ve always wanted to know… (VIDEO, 02:18) – link to youtube.com
d3870, i don’t doubt that david hasn’t bothered to analyze his *ahem* ‘brilliant humor’. i imagine that any such analysis would crimp his artistic spontaneity. looking at his peculiar genius from the outside, however, it doesn’t seem all that complicated. playing lawyer, or psycho-analyst, i can come up with multiple interpretations of the script, but when you consider the skit and his likely audience, i don’t get the sense that there is much introspection going on. and, as someone else here said, the intended message is only as effective as the mix of the artist’s skill and viewers’ intellectual curiousity permits. in the case of a viewer who supports the bombing and dismemberment of palestinian children as a ‘necessary evil’ (given that arabs place so little value on human life in the first instance) i can’t see how such a mindset wouldn’t simply, superficially revel in the humiliation of it all.
Amazing. How can people ignore the fact that in this episode the filth he pours over the arabs there … turns out to be justified. Shara *does* hate jews, as well, just coincidentally, as an unprincipled slut via sleeping with David. (*Precisely* echoing the calls of female settlers even in places like Hebron when they routinely go assaulting arab women in the streets or even their houses, calling them sluts and whores while they and their children either try to walk on or cower with fear in their homes.)
And yet whats the absolute *worse* thing David might be saying about jews? Oh ho ho ho, maybe … just maybe … they are too quick to perceive anti-semitism.
Gee, how … even-handed, Larry.
Laugh laugh laugh. Except, as Phil notes in another thread, that charge today is hardly a laughing matter. Go ask Phil Sanchez or Helen Thomas.
And even then, once again, what evidence is there *really* that David meant to rib jews about over-sensitivity? Once again, his screed against arabs turned out to be *true* with Shara, didn’t it?
Now try going and deconstructing that … “Professor … and coordinator of African and African Diaspora Studies at Kennesaw State University.” I wait with bated breath for the day when you’ll defend a skit, say, where some white person walks into a black establishment, says the most vile, racist stereotyped thing about them all, and then concludes by showing one of those black individuals precisely fitting that stereotype.
Like someone once said, there’s some things so obvious it’s only “professional intellectuals” that could fail to grasp same.
Sin….well said. You captured it and much of what makes me a little sick about Green.
Making light of cultural “Jewish hysterical over sensitivities” is another way of minimizing what really is not a laughing matter.
Anti-intellectualism is such a cheap, popular ploy these days, especially on the left. I think we need to demand more revolutionary consciousness among our professoriate, not abandon the space to the neo-cons…
As to the matter at hand here: in racism as in many conflicts, there are two hardened sides: the anti-racists and the racists, and their identifiability and clarity are helpful in a way [and btw, the former rarely see th elight of day in our culture and its corporate media]. The interesting area is the shifting of the middle group that does not want to openly avow its xenophobia and hate, but still perpetuates it while benefitting sheepishly from its privileges. If this were the 1950s or 60s, I think analyzing the shifting and opening of white views in literature and film would make perfect sense, and reveal the shift then taking place in the racial consensus because of the Civil Rights and anti-colonial struggles globally [great example: Fanon's rip on Sartre]. This still makes sense now, 50 years later, and is one of the benefits of the Tea Party: making public what was subterranean…
That racism is still seen in dominant culture is not acceptable, or being defended, — but remember, its DOMINANT culture. It is not yet rational to expect it not to appear all the time in vile ways in all of pop culture. That is why we work for change. I already know who my anti-racist colleagues are, and I also know we are in the minority, especially here. I watch dominant culture to see what effects our social movements are having on them, and to better pick the moments when I choose to enter the fray…
I agree that we need real Palestinians represented in Television and media at all levels. We need complexity and truth as well. And we have NONE of that at this time in history. Edward Said spent much of his last 10 years talking about this problem. It still needs tons of work. Its shifting slowly, but way too slowly. I don’t look to Larry to lead the charge, I think he reflects the slow and late shift of the middle-of-the-road American mentality that is so snowed under by Zionist propaganda. Was the episode racist and sexist, hell yeah… Was that all it was? There we disagree…
Hey, maybe LD is like a Mel Brooks who came prematurely considering the current state of our culture? I think that perspective applies especially to the episode under discussion here. The escalating conflicting dialogue resulting on this web site is precisely because of this prematurity.
Again, I want to say LD is on public record as saying, more or less, he just goes with his gut envisioning an episode–and he’s known for spending most of the time directing and editing his original gut vision. The other players, such as the one who played his wife, and the one who plays the grossly opinionated, crass tribalist wife of his fat friend
, are both on record saying they didn’t even think about their parts and just blindly followed Larry’s directions and mouthed his lines.
P.P.S. Unfortunately, the only extended clip available has been dubbed in Japanese. Gene Wilder is hilarious in the original.
Woody Allen/Everything You always wanted to know about Sex but were afraid to ask (VIDEO, 07:56) – link to youtube.com
Deconstructing humor is serious business but I laughed at the line, “F#ck me like Israel f#cked my country!”
This isnt presented as something righteous or true, it’s presented as a delusional anti semitic sex crazy Arab slut. This is disgusting!!! And the accent is so stereotypical and disgusting. The actress is an Armenian woman! This is like hollywood with black face and coon shows. this is acceptable against Palestinians in 2011, that’s the sad part…
Imagine Larry David as a cynical and horny German officer in the early 1930s at a cosmopolitan & Jewish-run Berlin restaurant and the Armenian actress playing a Jewish restaurant employee who lusts after him, and while doing the deed, hotly yelps, “F#ck me like your’re f#cking my people!”
Or, consider the same angles with a Southern gentleman, also a horny & cynical dude, and the decadent restaurant waitress is black; she lusts after that gentleman…
Right, either such show getting aired is utterly impossible, although methinks some folks would find both shows hilarious.
Personally, I love Curb because nothing else on TV even touches this part of Establishment territory. Gotta take what you can get, as somebody upthread here said.
Oh man, I really have to watch this whole season.
But, having only watched the clip shown in the previous MW post about the episode, I will say that Larry and Jeff (the characters) are not exactly “perfect gentlemen” or always right about everything. So if they’re making ignorant comments about Palestinians, we’re not necessarily intended to take those at face value, and I don’t think most viewers of the show would. Rather, the satire is more likely aimed at the characters themselves and the mentality they represent.
Humor flourishes best in filth, and satire is essentially desecration. That being said…the satirical perspective on Jews and Jewish identity in the Coen bros. film “A Serious Man” went much deeper than Larry David ever has in “Curb…”. Whereas David sees Jewish neurosis as one big laugh – the Coens take the view that it’s tragic, a self-abnegating, life-denying horror.
“What about the goy?”
“Who cares about the goy?”
You mean like a bunch of old yiddisha folk slurping soup?
I honestly do not know how anyone can not consider this episode utterly racist against Palestinians and Arabs in general. The ethnic stereotypes…The only good thing about Palestinians is their women and their food and they are anti semites. We want to fuck Palestinian women and eat their food, and then call them anti semites. It reminds me so much of the same racist tendencies in the movie “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan”. This shows how well Zionism has worked, you have some middle aged privelaged Jews in Hollywood who think their right to exist is being endangered…He says, “I know we have problems with these people…” These people? This is disgusting. Watching this episode honestly made me want to cry, it’s so hurtful to watch. It feels so dehumanizing. Shame on anyone who defends this humiliation as “comedy” which challenges the norms of discourse. That is truly delusional
Well, you’re right about Zohan being rascist; it was also extremely not funny to me. The thin veneer of clownish naivety was steeped in anti-goyism, eastern euopean flavor.
For my part I can’t see how the idea that ‘we only want their women and their food and then we call them racists’ is complimentary to ‘us’. The expedition in America to a restaurant seeking food and women, despising the people encountered on the way, is such a fitting allegory of the armed expedition to the ME that it’s bound to make some people think.
“For my part I can’t see how the idea that ‘we only want their women and their food and then we call them racists’ is complimentary to ‘us’.”
Because everyone knows what the character of Larry is, so that part is discounted, if not ignored. The anti-Arab racism is taken as true and promoted.
If Larry’s intention was to break cultural taboos and criticise Jewish/Israeli enthnocentric ideologies and policies he could’ve accomplished this in a more clear and obvious manner.
The average person watching this episode who isn’t deeply informed about the conflict will undoubtedly consume it at face value and will be unable to decipher all these “subversions” u claim exists. Essentially, this episode will serve to further reinforce harmful stereotypes about Palestinians and garner even greater support for the racist apartheid policies of Israel.
Yes, art can only conform to the lowest denominator.
The more I read some of the comments here, I’m glad I don’t come from a rules heavy tradition. Overthrowing one set of restrictive rules with a new set of restrictive rules is the strategy of the discontented Pere Ubus.
I wouldn’t call Larry David “art”.
You can define terms anyway you want, but even Shakespeare wrote for the “groundlings.” I’m not saying Larry David is a neo-Shakespeare, but who is–he was the “champ.”
I’ve seen some very ugly fights at dinner parties over the definition of ‘art’ and especially over the definitions of ‘poetry’ and ‘literature’. It can get as polemic and vicious as the I/P believe me. But I can assure you optimax that amongst the literati, Larry David would be considered the antithesis of Shakespeare. Larry David may be considered ‘popular culture’, but most certainly he ain’t literature.
True art liberates and inspires. It is a highly specialized cocktail of skill and insight.
I grant the difference between high and low art is real though subjective. The literati of Shakespeare’s time considered him at times low and admonished him for knowing “little Latin and less Greek.” Comedy is most often low and more concerned with entertainment than aesthetics but Larry David’s (I haven’t watched him in a while. I hate commercials.) show is more plot and character driven than spectacle, putting him, in Aristotle’s Poetica, on a higher plane of theatre than most television shows or movies, which have devolved into homogenous plotlines and special effects paydays geared to the mindless.
Art, if not always beautiful, should make you think. Larry David has succeeded in that respect. I consider thinking an aesthetic value.
All Larry David does is write about himself: an obnoxious little man who is punishing everyone cuz he’s so goddam short and ugly and he knows it.
I personally have little interest in the hyper-indulgent ‘ugly-me-me-me’ brand of humor (Woody Allen is another one), and I’m also totally against ‘humiliation-humor’, something that Larry David has made a fortune from practicing. These are but the cheap tricks of a comedian – yes there’s a ‘place’ for that kinda neurotic horse-manuring but PULEEEEZ let’s not mention Larry David in the same breath as Aristotle here. Way off.
From Wiki:
Aristotle’s Poetics (Greek: Περὶ ποιητικῆς, c. 335 BCE[1]) is the earliest-surviving work of dramatic theory and the first extant philosophical treatise to focus on literary theory.[2] In it, Aristotle offers an account of what he calls “poetry” (a term which in Greek literally means “making” and in this context includes drama—comedy, tragedy, and the satyr play—as well as lyric poetry, epic poetry, and the dithyramb). He examines its “first principles” and identifies its genres and basic elements. His analysis of tragedy constitutes the core of the discussion.[3] “Although Aristotle’s Poetics is universally acknowledged in the Western critical tradition,” Marvin Carlson explains, “almost every detail about his seminal work has aroused divergent opinions.”[4]
The work was lost to the Western world and often misrepresented for a long time. It was available through the Middle Ages and early Renaissance only through a Latin translation of an Arabic version written by Averroes.[5]
I know about Aristotle’s Poetica from reading it, not wiki, and I think his idea that plot and character driven drama is superior to the cheap thrills of spectacle is still relevant today. I also like Robert Frost’s idea that poetry, I include art, is an expression of one’s beliefs. I can’t tell what Larry David’s beliefs are beyond his characterization of a man with an uncensored mouth offending everyone he comes in contact with. As a situational comedy it works at times for some people and not at all for others. But I will say it makes people, you included , Taxi, think about their own beliefs.
I did stop watching Woody Allen movies because I tired of what you mentioned. I did see his latest, Midnight in Paris, and loved it and think he has outgrown his neurosis.
I attached a wiki expedient quote for the benefit of others actually.
And LOL I’m sorry mate but Larry David DOES NOT inspire me to think about my beliefs anymore than the man I buy my tomatoes from would.
Well, Curb is nothing if not a show dripping with irony of every short, high and low; the chief character himself consistently exhibits this in by far the most ways, while interactive players and actual background references in any serial episode bring this out either intentionally or unintentionally.
The chief character is consistently both insenitive and ignorant, and sensitive and aware; often in quick succession and in reverse order, and at times virtually spontaneously.
In this sense the chief character alternates between the socratic roles, and sometimes in the same scenes within any episode.
As we all know at core Socrates did not have final answer(s); and Curb doesn’t either–because its creator does not have it/them & in this sense Curb is negative comedy–it relies on how much the viewer brings to his/or seat, what knowledge, experience, education, wisdom, as well as the degree of absence of such attributes the viewer brings to his/her seat.
In this sense Curb seems at least sometimes straining shakespearean, comparing it with other sitcoms available; we all know there was always an area at the theatre for the rabble to enjoy Shakespeare in his day too. Everybody can’t afford HBO; but now reruns are alive on standard network channels too.
See link to en.wikipedia.org
“DOES NOT inspire me to think about my beliefs anymore than the man I buy my tomatoes from would.”
You sound like a snob.
>> You sound like a snob.
That’s an odd comment, coming from someone who said “Art, if not always beautiful, should make you think.” ;-)
I’m not trying to flame you, but art is highly subjective and can be very emotional and it most definitely does not have to “make you think”, either to like it or to dislike it, to praise it or to pan it.
Here’s a good example. :-)
Or are you suggesting that:
- Art is not art unless it makes you think?
and / or
- People who view art and are not “made to think” have no right to comment on it?
Again, please don’t take this as a flame. It’s intended only as a bit of light-hearted discourse. :-)
“You sound like a snob.”
LOL just because I don’t enjoy lowly racist humor?
Now optimax to call YOU a snob would be quite a wrong description of you, but to call you an inverted snob would be technically and infinitely more accurate I reckon.
You really do make an ass of yourself pairing up Larry David with Shakespeare or Aristotle. I know literati and academics who would eat you for breakfast in a second for such idiotic blasphemies.
eljay
You’re comment makes me think. :?). And I must admit you are right. Listening to music is one of my greatest pleasures. Sometimes I think, sometimes I think not, I think, sometimes I groove to the beat, feel the heat, move my feet, sometimes see the band or go to movieland or get lost. What’s also great is walking in the woods, no art is better than nature’s,
with my dog and, as that slave-holder (we’erconstantly reminded) Thomas Jefferson suggests, with an empty mind.
Maybe the highest art makes us not think. I’ll have to not think about that for a while.
>> Maybe the highest art makes us not think.
I am humbled. ;-)
eljay
I forgot to comment on your “odd comment” comment. What I like about Larry David’s character is he talks to everybody he meets, completely democratic. I think it’s snobbish to disregard a person because they are holding a couple of tomatoes and go so far as to say the tomato can tell you much if you listen.
taxi
I know a tomato that could eat you alive.
optimax,
Just for the record, a tomato is by far more interesting and useful than your literary analysis.
Go love on that racist Larry wotshisface till kindgom come. LOL timewaster!
I think some of the emotional hostility towards Larry David is motivated by Judeophobia (a term I prefer to “anti-Semitism”). Just my gut instinct. He’s not Shakespeare, but who is? I can’t off the top of my head think of any comedy series in the history of American television (from the fifties to the present) with this kind of complexity and nuance. Do I take it that you are seriously charging him with racism?
YES I AM “SERIOUSLY CHARGING HIM WITH RACISM”!!
WTF seanmcbride did you actually READ AND UNDERSTAND ANY OF COMMENTS ABOVE?!
Obviously NOT!!
GETOUTAHERE – BUZZ OFF with “Judeophobia”!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Whoops — I think I hit the bull’s-eye on the Judeophobia suspicion — 25 exclamation marks, no less. Lots of caps. No substantive discussion of the key points I raised. Got it.
sean, a lot of people had a negative reaction to that episode. not everyone noticed all the nuance described in this article by jesse benjamin. i had a very negative response to it, very uncomfortable to the point i couldn’t even finish watching the sex scene although reading the script was easier. i can see how it could be appreciated on ‘another level’ but it takes a certain amount of (possibly) familiarity and understanding w/david and possibly deeper appreciation for his style of humor (this is putting it gently) to overlook just the unadulterated degradation of women to begin with not to mention (an expected) cultural differences wrt how the sex segment might be perceived.
also, the reaction of the capitals and caps might very well be that you requested taxi repeat herself. obviously she thought it was racist so why make her say it again? plus i think it is pushing the envelope “pairing up Larry David with Shakespeare or Aristotle”. this is becoming absurd. it doesn’t take an anti semite to be offended by this episode. why can’t we just accept that different people are going to respond to it differently?
do we have to ‘win’ these arguments by accusing eachother of ‘judeophobia’? seriously, it doesn’t take a judeophobic to be offended by this material.
annie,
I had the same uncomfortable and negative responses to that episode that you did — ask my wife: for a day or two after viewing it, I was quite vocal in voicing my disgust. But after thinking about it a bit, especially in the context of all of Larry David’s work (I’ve seen every CYE episode over the years, and most of Seinfeld), I got it. It was obvious what he was up to.
Anyone who has read the Jesse Benjamin essay should by now be aware that there is much more going on in that episode than simpleminded anti-Arab racism.
If Taxi wants to repeatedly smear Larry David as a racist, that’s fine. Others using that style of “argument” may come to the conclusion that Taxi might be a Judeophobe or anti-Semite. The anti-Semitism smear is often abused by apologists for the Israeli government and the Israel lobby, but it is also true that some hardcore anti-Semites have attached themselves to the principled critique of Israel and Zionism. Often it’s easy to spot the emotional anti-Jewish animosity lurking just beneath the high-falutin’ moralizing on Israel’s behavior. We all know that’s out there, right? I saw it all the time when I was following comments on Glenn Greenwald’s Salon.com articles.
Strident Likud-style Jewish ethnic nationalism gets boring fast; so too does anti-Semitism (and Islamophobia). If Larry David were on the same neoconservative page as David Mamet, I am pretty sure I would have detected it by now.
“I think I hit the bull’s-eye on the Judeophobia suspicion”
LOL. No. You just proved that someone who refused to understand two days of posting and other people’s opinions, and who pushes what can only reasonably described as a slander, to the effect that those who see racism is David’s work are, themselves, antisemites, can get under Taxi’s skin. Your opinions are still bullshit, regardless of how many caps and exclamation points are used.
i was impressed by jesse’s essay and i hear your point. what i would like you to consider is how natural it might be for an arab to be revolted by this, not because larry david is a jew, but because an arab woman and arab culture are being defaced for the purpose of making his point or at least it could be perceived like this. taxi could be an arab woman, it’s just something to consider. maybe she’s protecting herself or part of her culture. maybe that is behind her strong feelings and not ‘judeophobia’. recall haytham’s response too. same thing.
one more thing, without reviewing this thread and comments can i guess lots of people who responded on the first thread might have not come back for a second round? i know i hardly commented before this, if at all, can’t recall. maybe david’s humor requires a depth of comprehension some people are not willing to go or excuse for their own cultural sensitivities (not david’s), that’s all.
“Anyone who has read the Jesse Benjamin essay should by now be aware that there is much more going on in that episode than simpleminded anti-Arab racism.”
Of, more likely, in my opinion, that Benjamin is willing to write at length, in quasi-academic style, to justify the unjustifiable, in the grand tradition of pretending that something that is base actually is exalted for no other reason than the writes wishes not to associate with the base.
annie,
Ok, I didn’t know that Taxi was an Arab woman, and I can certainly appreciate why Arab women might be greatly offended by this episode. They have every good reason to voice their outrage and pain (and with as many exclamation points that are required to do the job).
But also keep in mind that over several years of episodes Larry David has been much tougher on Jews (and on himself) than he has been on Arabs, Muslims, Christians or African-Americans, which should be an important cue to where he’s coming from. I think David is entranced and mesmerized by the absurdity of much human behavior, and especially by human behavior organized around stereotypes of all kinds. I share his fascination with these issues, and that is why I have come to his defense. Plus I owe him for all the laughs.
I apologize to Taxi for going down the low road rhetorically to make a point.
“Judeophobia” That is the proper word to describe just that — phobias fears (and all the irrationality related to it) of the other. I shall adopt it over the race-based misnomer, “Antisemitism.” Thanks.
Tis true annie that I lived in Beirut in the 70′s, but that don’t necessarily mean I’m Arab.
The terms “Judeophobic” and “anti-Jewish” also spare one from getting bogged down in distracting and hairsplitting arguments about the meaning and scope of “Semite.”
Woody,
You didn’t address any of the specific points in Jesse Benjamin’s essay. So far your comments have been completely emotional.
“You didn’t address any of the specific points in Jesse Benjamin’s essay.”
Actually, I addressed the key points in the essay by noting that they are excused dressed up in academic dress. I didn’t take them seriously however because they didn’t deserve it.
“So far your comments have been completely emotional.”
Not really. I feel no emotion about the fact that Benjamin’s essay is flawed in the manner it is; I feel neither hurt nor joy. It just is what it is.
seanmcbride,
That was nice of you to apologize to Taxi.
Yes thank you seanmcbride. And let me assure you that, with all due respect to all religious people out there, I really don’t care about religion and I am not in the slightest bit religious: I was reared on art, secularism and mint bonbons.
Let me also share with you that it was my jewish anti-zionist English friends who taught me about the grotesque and finer details of the evils of zionism.
I’m not shy to say that I am not a fan of the Apartheid state of israel and indeed I feel a clear and concentrated contempt towards it’s supporters and enablers. My reason for this is very simple: I hate racism. I also hate land-thieves, and I hate armies who abuse, imprison and murder civilians.
It’s the vileness of the crime and not the faith of the criminal that informs me.
Look: Larry David enjoys playing with, examining, dissecting and deconstructing stereotypes of all kinds, including racial and ethnic stereotypes. He is not promoting or endorsing these stereotypes — he is analyzing and defanging them through brilliant and fine-edged comedy. Who doesn’t get this?
“Who doesn’t get this?”
Everyone gets that this is your opinion. Many people have a different opinion, both as to whether David is promoting or endorsing them (he appears to be) and whether his work is “brilliant and fine-edged.” (It’s not. In fact, the discussion of CYE as being “brilliant and fine-edged” is only slightly less annoying than similar discussion back in the 90′s about Seinfeld, another David creation and perhaps the single most overrated fictional work in the history of human society.)
What is it about THAT that you don’t understand?
Woody,
Name your five favorite comedians, and perhaps I will better understand where you are coming from.
Woody,
I think “Curb Your Enthusiasm” has more edge and substance than “Seinfeld.” But both series have derived their strength from a core principle which has empowered much memorable art: observe closely the small details of daily life. Which comedy TV series have most impressed you?
“Name your five favorite comedians, and perhaps I will better understand where you are coming from.”
LOL. What is this, Junior High?? Do you want my favorite color next?
I have two favorite comedian. Dara O’Briain and Patton Oswalt.
“Which comedy TV series have most impressed you?”
I don’t know if I have ever been “impressed” by any comedy television series. Compared to art they’re all time wasters on the idiot box.
Woody, well, let’s take LD’s incursions in Seinfeld to male circumcision. You can’t come away without the impression that maybe he thinks it’s a barbaric triable rite, yet also that that he thinks it’s the aesthetic option. That is a summary of what he puts in the mouths of his actors. His shows dealing with the subject do not but in context that the USA is the only Western nation that even puts up with such literal male baby cuts, and does so based on American popular sexual appeal. His shows on the subject display nothing at all about the objective criticism of male circumsion, and its ridiculous history, although theoretically LD is always looking for jokes.
This pattern on this subject alone suggests that LD is a cherry picker of the higher sort, and that he does indeed, have his own scared cows. His shown vision on this subject alone is that circumcision is a barbaric rite, but the America girls like the result. Hey, maybe the African guys like vaginal circumcision too, so what can LD say?
I don’t care if taxi is a Hobbit, I don’t like people putting words in my mouth. I did not pair Shakespeare and Aristotle with Larry David. I even said, “I’m not saying Larry David is a neo-Shakespeare, but who is–he was the “champ.”” Aristotle’s analysis, especially his recognition of plot/character driven narrative vs. spectacle, is still relevant to understanding contemporary drama/ comedy.
I agree with seanmcbride’s take on Larry David. I enjoy reasoned, even heated discussion, but taxi’s arguements are over the line and too one-demensional to be of interest (moral outrage many times is cheap and easy), and I will avoid reading them in the future.
optimax,
You’ve been worshiping at Larry David’s feet like he’s your personal golden calf. Any average reader would discern this from your above posts.
And don’t be an intellectual coward and blame me for your bruised ego dude. Of your own volition you went into an area which you know much about (TV) and mixed it up a little with something you clearly know very little about (art). Not my fault that you’re confusing tvland for art and suffering the awkward consequence of this confusion.
You can call me a “snob” and a “hobbit” (with a capital H, mind you) – LOL you can complain and whine how my argument is ‘uninteresting’ all you like. It don’t bother me one bit. I ain’t gonna argue with a confused man who says things like: “taxi’s arguements are over the line and too one-demensional”. So like optimax, explain to me, how can I be simultaneously both “over the line” AND “too one-dimensional”? They’re reading like a contradiction to me.
See how confused and out of sorts you got yourself? And yeah, I agree – it’s best you “avoid reading” my posts in the future.
LOL! Your life will definitely become so much more exciting for it, right?
I think the main article under discussion here is pretty astute, but it could have gone farther, just as the show itself could have gone farther to show through humor a less limited LD incident in conveying non-PC larger truths through humor, e.g., “Larry references “settlements,” which he says would be “taken down …in the morning” if they’d “send their chicken over to Israel.” In an obvious critical reference to the “Ground-Zero Mosque” flap…”
First of all the joke macro horse in the episode is the menu: tasty chicken, including the sexy Palestinian with lust in her eyes & anti-Israeli opppression in her heart, within which the LD character finds his true home.
Secondly, script for the LD character in this episode could have been funnier and convey more real life: “taken down …in the morning” if they’d “send their chicken over to Israel” and add “but, wait, the IDF shoots tons of native chickens.”
citizen, not to beat the provervial dead horse, but the only way i could find this type of sketch effective, if the true intent was to subvert perceived jewish prejudices and privilege, would be to turn the tables on the prejudiced and privileged. l.david just cannot bring himself to do that. he is, as are most ‘artists’ with a cock in the fight, incapable of relinquishing control. i won’t attempt to rewrite the script, but if he gave an ‘arab’ character real authority (i find the fact that this actress is armenian interesting. couldn’t he get a ‘real’ palestinian actress to play the part? and, yes, i know this is acting, but under the circumstances the identity of the actress is significant. are any of the ‘jewish’ characters in positions of authority on CYE played by gentiles, or more specifically, muslims?), the ability to subvert the authority or identity of a jewish character, that would flip my opinion of the piece. he can’t or he won’t.