Seinfeld: 'Diversity' in Comedy doesn't matter. Gawker calls him Racist

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I knew Chris Rock was secretly a white guy!

But seriously, what a dumbass article.
 
Seems like quite a stretch to imply racism from anything he's quoted as saying in that article. I'm not following their logic at all, and that's not a bad thing.
 
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Ridicurous. Sounds like they have their rines crossed.
 
Seinfeld is right. Seinfeld is not funny, not since his early stand up, but he is right.

Funny is the most important thing to me. I don't care about how you look or your gender or sexuality, funny is funny.

Either you are , or you aren't.

Why did gawker accuse him of that? When did he say only white males were funny? Wow man, I'm surprised by what they said.
 
animlboogy said:
Black comics do more than fine. There is a bit of sandboxing between black and non-black comics but that has more to do with culture than race, and generally involves comedians choosing to go after that audience. Those that don't -- Hannibal Buress, for example -- are numerous, respected, and capable of similar success to their white counterparts. Or on a larger scale, someone like Kevin Hart, who seems to play well to both sides of that fence.

Perhaps there are certain clubs where race is an issue, but comedy as a whole, especially alt comedy, doesn't appear to have overt issues with race.
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I was going to say, it seems like race is well represented if you're talking black and white. I would guess if anything, comedians get the sex question much more often: why the dearth of women in comedy. Which get's the same response... who cares?

I'd love to have heard Patrice O'Neals take on this. :(
 
dapperbandit said:
We are living in an age where the people that go looking for racism are more insufferable than the racists themselves
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I am not so sure about that one.


Anywho, this is Gawker, they are not exactly a site anyone with a brain should be giving hits. They make it clear up front in their site name who this website is for.

Not I.
 
Seinfeld has been on thin ice since he came out caping for Richards after his outburst IMO.

This article was going to happen sooner or later.
 
Here is the basic SJW response to Seinfeld.

"Shut up! This one is so, so important. If you are a person with a lot of privilege (i.e. a white, straight, able-bodied, class-privileged, cisgender male or any combination of two or more of those) and you call yourself being against oppression, then it should be part of your regular routine to sit the hell down and shut the eff up. If you can recognize that part of the reason your opinion, your voice, carries so much weight and importance is because you are a white man (or whatever combination is working for you), then pushing back against your privilege often looks like shutting your face. Now, of course, using your privilege to speak out against oppression is very important. But I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about chiming in, taking up space, adding your two cents, playing devil’s advocate, etc. when 1) no one asked you, 2) the subject matter is outside your realm of experience (why do you even think you get to have an opinion about the lives of black women??), 3) anything you say is just going to cause more harm because your voice, in and of itself, is a reminder that you always get to have a voice and that voice usually drowns out the voices of others."
 
Jerry Seinfeld is an adult. The internet is a child, obsessed with social issues it seems to barely understand. This kind of crappy journalism is no better than an angry Tumblr post or stupid tweet, yet it's becoming really pervasive online.

I really do hope there is a pushback against this sort of thing and that this kind of shrill, faux-outrage and agenda-driven nonsense starts getting drowned out. It does seem like people are starting to get sick of it.
 
JCX said:
Gawker completely missed the mark here. His comments don't imply that at all.

That said, Jerry's; comment is reminiscent of when people say similar things about employment "We just want to hire them best candidates." The problem with this is that it ignores the biases that lead to comedy being mostly white/male.

For example, at most shows/open mics I've performed at, the host wi ll point out that we have a woman/black/gay/etc comic coming up next, which from the outset frames the comedian as a "woman/black/gay" comic rather than simply as a comic.

Also I've heard both comics and comedy fans say things like "that person talks about being a woman/black/gay too much", which is silly because comedians are supposed to talk about their lives.
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This. While Gawker grossly distorts what he said, that doesn't mean there are no issues with it. It's the same old "color blind" fallacy.
 
captainnapalm said:
Jerry Seinfeld is an adult. The internet is a child, obsessed with social issues it seems to barely understand. This kind of crappy journalism is no better than an angry Tumblr post or stupid tweet, yet it's becoming really pervasive online.

I really do hope there is a pushback against this sort of thing and that this kind of shrill, faux-outrage and agenda-driven nonsense starts getting drowned out. It does seem like people are starting to get sick of it.
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I love this post.
 
now Happy Place has picked this up and called Seinfeld a "rich white male" etc.

glad to see how fast the internet and celeb culture is to blame celebs for being racist.
 
Gawker needs to go. It just needs to go away. The idea that someone out there might believe that Seinfeld, a man about as racist as Harriet Tubman, is racist because of this foolish website's articles is incredibly infuriating to me.
 
captainnapalm said:
Jerry Seinfeld is an adult. The internet is a child, obsessed with social issues it seems to barely understand. This kind of crappy journalism is no better than an angry Tumblr post or stupid tweet, yet it's becoming really pervasive online.

I really do hope there is a pushback against this sort of thing and that this kind of shrill, faux-outrage and agenda-driven nonsense starts getting drowned out. It does seem like people are starting to get sick of it.
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Well said. Agree 100%.
 
animlboogy said:
Alt comedy represents women super well, at least going by shows like Put Your Hands Together and most shows I've gone to in LA and Chicago. I start getting disturbed more when I realize how few of those women are capable of getting the hype and success to move up to the next level, though... When was the last time a female comic suddenly blew up fast and early like Aziz Ansari? Maybe the bigger clubs don't book women like the smaller venues do? I don't go to those because I can't afford them, five bucks at UCB is about right for me.
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I typically go to The Stand or Comedy Cellar in NYC. It's definitely far more men than women. But same question, are they funny? And really, at the levels Seinfeld is at it's such a small percentage.

The only women who really broke out that I can recall are people like Sarah Silverman or Ellen DeGenerous. Others come to mind but I cant remember names.
 
Gawker is kinda gross.


captainnapalm said:
Jerry Seinfeld is an adult. The internet is a child, obsessed with social issues it seems to barely understand. This kind of crappy journalism is no better than an angry Tumblr post or stupid tweet, yet it's becoming really pervasive online.

I really do hope there is a pushback against this sort of thing and that this kind of shrill, faux-outrage and agenda-driven nonsense starts getting drowned out. It does seem like people are starting to get sick of it.
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I have never seen someone posit this so perfectly til now. This is the internet of today, and it's really getting annoying.
 
Which is too bad, because Seinfeld is downplaying the work of everyone from Richard Pryor and Bill Cosby to Aziz Ansari, Mindy Kaling, and Eddie Huang, who are all in various stages of their own sitcoms that just might turn out to be the next Seinfeld.
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Lol, I don't think so buddy.
 
Maninthemirror said:
What do you guys think. Is Seinfeld right in saying that as long as you are a good comedian, diversity does not matter or is Gawker right in saying that Seinfeld's comment has racial overtones
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Seinfeld is saying that he doesn't look at skin color to determine who a good comedian is, he looks at their comedy. The Gawker article is completely wrong and seems to suggest that the person who wrote it does not have basic English comprehension skills. When someone says that they "...have no interest in gender or race..." and the author then says that the person is racist, I truly have to question their intelligence.
 
Gawker is always looking to stretch to be offended. Seems like there is a segment of the population that needs something to be offended by at all times.

I don't think most people will take what Seinfeld says as racist but if he was a Republican they probably would.
 
JCX said:
Gawker completely missed the mark here. His comments don't imply that at all.

That said, Jerry's; comment is reminiscent of when people say similar things about employment "We just want to hire them best candidates." The problem with this is that it ignores the biases that lead to comedy being mostly white/male.

For example, at most shows/open mics I've performed at, the host wi ll point out that we have a woman/black/gay/etc comic coming up next, which from the outset frames the comedian as a "woman/black/gay" comic rather than simply as a comic.

Also I've heard both comics and comedy fans say things like "that person talks about being a woman/black/gay too much", which is silly because comedians are supposed to talk about their lives.
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The open show's say that precisely because of articles like this Gawker piece. Pressure to have equality of outcome, not of opportunity. Mathematical adherence to who is under/over represented. Except in sports that dont rhyme with Pockey, or NFL quarterbacks.

If anything that suggests they actively look for women/black/gay comedians

In fact your comment about ignoring "the biases that lead to comedy being mostly white/male", feeds into it as well.
 
Reading that quote I thought I had skipped something. How do they come to the conclusion that he's racist because of what he said is beyond me. He pretty much said race, gender and whatever have nothing to do with anything, you're either funny or you're not. That's how I understood his words.
 
Even without researching he took way too many liberties with that quote. He essentially said funny is colorless and the idiot writer went in the completely opposite direction and interpreted sienfeld as saying it was white.
 
Really quite suprised by this sophomoric analysis displayed by Gawker here. They missed the mark, imo. Usually Gawker provides trenchant remarks and in depth analysis about topical industry news so this article represents a significant downgrade for me. Let's hope this isn't a harbinger of things to come.
 
zazrx said:
Reading that quote I thought I had skipped something. How do they come to the conclusion that he's racist because of what he said is beyond me. He pretty much said race, gender and whatever have nothing to do with anything, you're either funny or you're not. That's how I understood his words.
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But you can follow this through, logically. Let's say, as a separate example, that I own a 3D modeling studio and claim that I hire only the best 3D modelers -- I do not care what race or gender they are. Then when you look at my staff, I have 100 employees, 91 of whom are black women.

Now, maybe it just so happens that 91% of the best 3D modelers available are black women, but you can certainly see why an outsider might doubt my claim that I'm being perfectly unbiased and objective.

That is what the Gawker writer is doing to Seinfeld, except he's doing it very poorly. The sample size for Seinfeld is smaller; there is already a more diverse cast than I used in my example above; and the specific examples the writer does use (Cosby, Pryor) are explicitly touted as some of Seinfeld's favorite comedians of all time. So I don't agree with the writer, but conceptually you can put the pieces together.
 
captainnapalm said:
Jerry Seinfeld is an adult. The internet is a child, obsessed with social issues it seems to barely understand. This kind of crappy journalism is no better than an angry Tumblr post or stupid tweet, yet it's becoming really pervasive online.

I really do hope there is a pushback against this sort of thing and that this kind of shrill, faux-outrage and agenda-driven nonsense starts getting drowned out. It does seem like people are starting to get sick of it.
Click to expand...

I wish more people like you posted. The faux outrage, over sensitivity, and agenda driven bullshit is really getting old.
 
That Gawker article is terrible - Seinfeld's statement is basically the opposite of racism. He essentially said, if you're funny, it's all good. Some "journalists" today are just pure rubbish.
 
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