Imitating Art/Peeing On Art

In a recent Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry gets in trouble for taking too many napkins with takeout food. They give you two napkins and that's enough.

There's a chicken place up the street. I used to take napkins--beyond what they gave me--because I believed I needed them. Once the cashier commented on it and I stopped going there.

(Larry steals the napkins and the cops go after him. But I can believe at least the original problem is based on his real life.)

Meanwhile, the latest episode of CYE has caused a ruckus. The plot has Larry taking a new drug that improves his urine flow so much that it splashes all over. He pees in someone's bathroom and leaves a drop of urine on a nearby Jesus painting, making people believe a miracle has occurred.

The Anchoress feels this is insulting, and asks if Larry David would ever do the same thing to Obama. This sounds like an autopilot complaint, since, if she'd ever watched the show (she admits she hasn't) she'd know that much of humor of Curb Your Enthusiasm is about Larry David crossing the line and ignoring social norms. Furthermore, it's generally Larry who's the butt of the joke. He's embarrassed by the whole incident and at the end of this episode is found out.

David is certainly a liberal, and he has no trouble mocking conservatives, but what he's mostly interested in is getting laughs. For example, when he refuses to sleep with a beautiful woman because she likes George Bush, the joke is more about him than her.

Being on HBO, David is allowed to be as outrageous as he wants, and religion has been a target (more often Judaism than Christianity--he's also had some bits about Muslims) along with many other things. Earlier this season, he told a gay couple that one of them was clearly gay while he wouldn't have guessed the other was. He saw an Asian baby and asked the parents if they thought she'd take to chopsticks faster than a Western kid would. He dated a woman in a wheelchair because it allowed him to park anywhere he wanted. It's hard to claim he's going out of his way to attack religion, or Christians.

PS Here's a comment The Anchoress received:

I had a priest once explain in a sermon that while Senfeld was “funny” it was at the expense of the characters and audience and therefore, it humor was cruel and actually unfunny if thought about on it’s own (i.e. the Soup Nazi is funny but it funny at the expense of those who must deal with this person). The Senfeld characters were vapid and thoughtless even with each other.

On the other hand, the priest pointed out, Home Improvement (which was showing during the same time Senfeld was) was humor which although self deprecating, was encouraging, en aging moments in a family as the grew closer to each other and people they met. He said he stopped watching Senfeld and started watching Home Improvement.

A lot of people jumped on this "Seinfeld is vapid" bandwagon. I thought it was not only undeserved, but irrelevant. The show combined minute observations on real life with fairly absurd plots. It also avoided the cheap sentiment and easy lessons of other sitcoms, which alone made it a refreshing change, but above all was funny. To start watching something you find less entertaining because you approve of the message seems bizarre to me.