Read on Twitter
wait, i'll explain -- there's a kind of humor (often defensively described as "satirical") that hinges on a shared understanding of "appropriate" behavior. a character does or says something that is so "obviously" extreme, the audience just "gets" that it's humor
when done well, there's always a "wink" at the audience that says we know this is a joke. seinfeld's "wink" was built into the framing of the show itself.
(meta-storytelling always features a bit of a "wink," but that's a different story*)
unfortunately, the "wink" in seinfeld isn't ever really...explicit. so for me (notoriously neurodivergent, and heavily reliant on explicit-ness for social understanding) i just did. not. get it.
every time i saw seinfeld as a child, i literally did not understand how it was supposed to be funny. i guess all of the characters simply being terrible to each other is the joke?
(difficult people, incidentally, is a near identical style of humor, just tailored to the mid 2010s, and the "wink" is in the literal title of the show)
as i've gotten older, i've realized that yes, that is, in fact, "the joke." and seinfeld executed this kind of humor VERY effectively! its kind of "smart people" humor, bc it requires its audience to make a collective mental leap (see the "wink") before understanding
and if you don't "get it," then the problem is you, the viewer, not the humor itself. (incidentally, that's most comedy, but that's a whole other ball game**)
this thread is too long
anyway, the main problem with this kind of humor is that if you're outside the general cultural understanding (whether that's bc of economic status, access, ethnic background, neurodivergence, whatever) it just doesn't read as humor.
and in 2020, we've been spending all this time dismantling the very notion of "general cultural understanding," bc we've started to see the ways that contributes to/reinforces the "White Patriarchy"
assuming that your audience just "gets" the wink (sedaris appears to be relying on his brand to inform us that he's joking) is indistinguishable from, at best, just Being an Asshole, and at worst, being straight up racist/sexist/bigoted.
seinfeld/difficult people/sedaris' work is mostly unwatchable/unreadable for me, bc i spend all my time reminding myself that it's a joke, and turns out, that's a really good way to make things not funny. and kind of exhausting.
to be clear, the fact that i, personally, don't get the "wink" is not to say that any of this art is Bad. i'm not insane, seinfeld *obviously* isn't "Bad."
but it does make it so i'm not particularly triggered by sedaris' weirdly disturbing segment this morning. i'm used to watching things i'm theoretically supposed to understand are humor while simultaneously being horrified by what's actually being said.
i'm like "see?! 'satire' isn't just OBVIOUS! it's actually pretty confusing if you don't have context for it!" and also "hahahahaha white gay privilege is out of control" and also "wow where did he go and why is he suddenly back now"
obviously i'm filled to the brim with feelings today. oh yeah and
*thread
**thread
*thread
**thread
probably gonna delete this because who tf needs to read this much on a sunday. anyway STAY QUEER, KIDS
