Member-only story
Media Consumption
‘Seinfeld’ and a Chocolate Cinnamon Babka
“The kind of pure deliciousness that would spark the convictions of Elaine and Jerry.”
The latest installment in “Media Consumption,” a series of essays and recipes that take culinary inspiration from our favorite movies, TV shows, songs, and books
A show about a group of friends living in New York City? Sounds familiar! A show where the slightest moments of hesitation or inconvenience are zoomed in on and picked at mercilessly for 22 minutes — where the main characters do little other than circle round the petri dish of their own unscrupulousness? Well…I’m not talking about Friends.
I started watching Seinfeld for the very first time this year, which was an interesting experience — mine was a Home Improvement family, then as a late 90s teen I was dutifully drawn to Friends, a show that hands the humour to you on a plate, covered in melted cheese. Now we’re in a hyper post-modern era. Shows that toyed with the medium like the rapid-fire 30 Rock and mockumentary-style Parks and Recreation both debuted over a decade ago; every day there’s a new nostalgia-driven opinion piece, listicle, or podcast; and for many, Netflix bingeing has taken the place of syndication viewing.
Compared to all that has sprang forth since it first aired in 1989, Seinfeld initially felt slow to me, and wilfully obtuse. It’s not so much that it’s “a show about nothing” — it’s more that I was waiting for the humour to appear. All I could see was people cheerfully sniping at each other. But, once I got an ear for its rhythm, Seinfeld suddenly became almost hypnotic: the persistent repeating of dialogue back and forth, Elaine’s incredulous punches, Kramer’s electric-shock physical reactions, Jerry’s billowing denim shirts and George’s scrunch-faced suspicion. I stopped waiting for the obvious resolution or relationship development, and started joyfully anticipating just how convoluted the show’s minuscule plot points would become. It should be something of a miserable experience to watch, with its ethos of “no hugging, no learning,” but there’s something weirdly comforting in knowing that the four main characters are never actually going to achieve anything. The joy is in the details. Thirty years…
