Critics are slamming the popular sitcom Seinfeld as offensive, calling many of its jokes tone-deaf and distasteful.
However, several show fans are hitting right back, arguing that today’s culture is overly politically correct and times have changed since the show aired from 1989 to 1998.
Some points of controversy include using offensive slurs like Nazi and Indian Giver or racist jokes against people who can’t speak English and poking fun at homosexuals.
The controversy follows attacks on other long-running shows like Friends and All In The Family.
Seinfeld, which ran from 1989 to 1998, is facing backlash for its jokes that millennials are calling offensive
One joke from a 1995 calls a chef a ‘Soup Nazi’ (above), which is considered offensive for using the term that refers to WWII and the suppression of Jews
In one episode Jerry Seinfeld buys Elaine a Native American statue and calls a Native American girl an ‘Indian Giver’, which is an offensive phrase
One joke from a 1995 episode called The Soup Nazi is considered offensive for using the term that refers to WWII and the suppression of Jews.
In the episode, the chef at a soup restaurant is nicknamed ‘The Soup Nazi’ for his strict and rigid attitude towards customers, denying them food if they complain.
Today the joke would be even more prickly with the rise of Neo-Nazi organizations.
A second controversial episode cracks several jokes at Native American culture and calls a woman jokingly an Indian Giver – a very offensive stereotype that would certainly send shock waves on TV today.
A third episode displays Cosmo Kramer accidentally setting the Puerto Rican flag on fire then furiously stomping on it to snuff out the flames.
Another episode pokes fun at Japanese culture and has a Japanese businessman visiting Kramer sleep in the drawer of his dresser when there isn’t any other space for him to crash.
In yet another episode Jerry says he ‘loves Chinese women’. When Elaine asks him ‘isn’t that a little racist’, Jerry replies ‘If I like their race, how can that be racist?’
In another episode Cosmo Kramer accidentally setting the Puerto Rican flag on fire then furiously stomping on it to snuff out the flames
In another Seinfield episode a George Costanza gawks at a teenager’s chest
In Season 4 of the show protagonists Jerry Seinfeld and George Constanza make fun of same sex relationships after a journalist mistakes them for being a couple.
Critics also complained about the duo Cedric and Bob who appear in three Seinfeld episodes and portray overly stereotypical gay and Latin personalities from Puerto Rico and are not given more complex characters.
The show also males fun of a mentally ill patient dubbing him the ‘pig man’ because he suffers a mental illness and is overweight.
Seinfeld also said what critics claim to be testy statements about women.
In one episode a George gawks at a teenager’s chest without shame and in another episode Kramer tells a woman she has a big nose, which they dub a ‘shnoze’, leading her to get a nose job in response.
‘Hopefully most people can agree that comedy, even “edgy” comedy, doesn’t need to alienate marginalized groups in order to make people laugh, though,’ a writer from Bustle said on the show’s crude jokes.
Comedian and author Tim Young slammed critique of the show calling it a ‘ridiculous attack’, according to Fox.
He says that people are desperate to be offended and taking the sitcom’s humor too far.
He added that while some argue that the Puerto Rican gay couple Cedric and Bob were slighted on the show, at the time they aired on TV they were revolutionary.
‘[Seinfeld] won a GLAAD award for its positive outlook on gay and lesbian relationships in the media as the script and interactions of the cast never mocked being gay,’ Young said.
‘Rather, they took extra precaution in creating the line “not that there’s anything wrong with that” to show that it’s ok and normal to have a same-sex relationship, just that “it wasn’t them,”‘ he added.
It turns out Jerry Seinfeld has receive plenty of flack for not being ‘politically correct’ enough in his comedy career.
In an interview on The Herd with Colin Cowherd in 2015, Jerry Seinfeld said he avoided performing comedy acts on college campuses because the audience is too politically correct.
‘I hear that all the time. I don’t play colleges, but I hear a lot of people tell me, “Don’t go near colleges. They’re so PC,”‘ he said.
‘They just want to use these words: “That’s racist;” “That’s sexist;” “That’s prejudice.” They don’t know what the hell they’re talking about,’ he added.