Jerry Seinfeld: Political Correctness Ruining Comedy

Comedian Jerry Seinfeld apparently wasn’t joking when he expressed concerns this week about rampant political correctness particularly on America’s college campuses.

Much has been written about the politically correct climate and victim culture at many universities which prevent a free exchange of ideas outside of a narrow leftist ideological spectrum.

The subject of political correctness came up yesterday when ESPN host Colin Cowherd interviewed the Seinfeld TV show co-creator on The Herd with Colin Cowherd.

During the discussion, Cowherd mentioned that he is aware that some prominent comedians these days steer clear of performing on college campuses.

Seinfeld agreed that political correctness “hurts comedy” and responded with a personal anecdote.

“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.’ I’ll give you an example. My daughter’s 14. My wife says to her, ‘Well, you know, in the next couple of years, I think maybe you’re going to want to hang around the city more on the weekends, so you can see boys.’ You know what my daughter says, ‘That’s sexist.’ They just want to use these words. ‘That’s racist. That’s sexist. That’s prejudice.’ They don’t even know what they’re talking about.”

Jerry and producing partner (and Bernie Sanders soundalike) Larry David have made millions from the Seinfeld sitcom, which ran for nine seasons on NBC and has gone into perpetual syndication, which will soon extend to Hulu.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwxHkHiTj20

Jerry Seinfeld is seldom known for dipping into politics, concentrating his comedy more on day-to-day foibles, but the Cowherd appearance was not the first time he insisted that there was something wrong with that — that being political correctness. Specifically, in a February 2014 Buzzfeed interview, Seinfeld bristled to some degree when questioned about diversity in comedy, a premise that he rejected.

“People think it’s the census or something, it’s gotta represent the actual pie chart of America. Who cares? Funny is the world that I live in. You’re funny, I’m interested. You’re not funny, I’m not interested. I have no interest in gender or race or anything like that, but everyone else is, kind of with their little calculating, is this the exact right mix. To me, it’s anti-comedy, it’s more about PC nonsense than ‘are you making us laugh or not.'”

Jerry’s latest installment of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee features his Seinfeld co-star Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

[Photo by Anna Webber/Getty Images Entertainment]