I was gifted one of those daily flip calendars for Christmas last year that revolved entirely around Seinfeld. The majority of the facts are trivial in nature, but one in particular stuck out. It made reference to a rule Larry David made for the show, “No lessons, no learning.” It’s simple enough to understand, yet it flies against everything we know about storytelling. And I can’t help but think that little rule is the lynch-pin for why Seinfeld resonates with so many people.
Most television shows attempt to blend some kind of lesson into each episode, or at least build towards something for the season finale. There is growth in some capacity, somewhere. But in Seinfeld, there is no growth. Each episode brings with it an opportunity to learn something, but nothing ever sticks, and this lack of learning is made abundantly clear in the series finale when they gang is imprisoned for, really, their immaturity. But that’s not why we watch it. At least not on the surface level. No, the masses love Seinfeld because it’s witty and relatable and everything goes back to the way it was at the end of each episode. It’s the siren call of any good sitcom. But when you remove the notion of growth, you really get to the core of modern humans beings. That is, we don’t change.
Theoretically speaking, we want to grow, we want to evolve, and we’re attracted to stories that embody those characteristics. This is why we love movies so much. Every film is one hero’s journey after another, with plenty of lessons for the whole family to take home and talk about at the dinner table. Television operates in the same manner, just with a longer timeline. They throw in cliff hangers and plot twists to keep us entertained, culminating into some kind of personal evolution. And, when done well, it makes for good watching. The only problem is that once the plots have been untwisted, the villains exposed, and the lessons learned, what else is there to do? We simply move on to the next one, and then, once we’ve seen enough, we begin to notice the formula. We predict the twists, the villains, the lessons. Nothing is special anymore. Especially not the lessons. But then again, does the audience care that much about the lesson anyway? If they did, based the amount of tickets super hero movies sell, the world would be full of do-gooders. Of course that’s not the world we live in. We live in a world of stagnation, of the status quo. We don’t want to grow. Well, we like the idea of growth, we just don’t want to have to work hard to get it. Hence why we watch movies; the growth is simulated on the screen and compressed into an hour and a half. A montage may make us feel like we’re improving alongside the protagonist, but all we’re doing is sitting in a chair and stuffing snacks in our face. Perhaps we’ll leave the theatre with knowledge that one can get better, but the idea doesn’t go much further than that. We might even feel bad about ourselves for not focusing on self-improvement. But Seinfeld doesn’t make us feel that way. No, Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer are the same at the end of each day, just like us.
Of course there is more to loving Seinfeld than just lack of growth, egomania plays a huge part of it too. Because we all tend to think of ourselves as better than others, or at the very least, we think we are normal; it is everyone else who is tearing at the fabric of society. Thus we anoint ourselves society’s judge, analyzing the minutiae of life, always thinking the people we encounter are the problem, never us. We are all the same in this. And even if we don’t say it outright, we believe we know what’s best. We don’t need to grow, it’s the others that need growing. The ego tells us things are fine just the way they are, and we believe it. To think otherwise would be to doubt ourselves, to doubt our ego, and that’s the first step to any real growth. And we can’t have that.
Other popular sitcoms are filled with zany adventures and interactions, each with their own little opportunity for growth. This is a passive way of telling the viewer, “Hey, you can learn too, and together we’ll make this a better world if everyone embodies these morals.” This view of life is all good in theory, but only resonates with devout philosophers, zealots, or entrepreneurs. Regular Joes just want to kick back after a long day and chalk up any strangeness to the absurdity of life. “We’re okay,” they think, “we’ve figured it out.” Because, primally, that’s what we’re wired to do, it’s natural, and therefore, easy. To stop and reflect, to question our own behaviour and motives, that takes a lot of work, and it doesn’t leave a lot of time for watching television. Of course the moment we conduct a self-examination, well that’s the first step towards growth. And at some time or another, we all have some kind of realization that might make us change our ways, but how often does it stick?
The treadmill gathering dust, the unread library of self-help books, the money wasted on some program or another. They’re all glimpses of change, flashes of potential, if only we could shake our old ways. Even those in Seinfeld had these visions, Jerry and George both get engaged, Elaine crosses over to bizarro Seinfeld, the characters finally see a better way, but it only ever lasts for a moment. They like things the way they way, just like us. Of course we do. We know what to expect, and it makes us feel good about ourselves. And when we watch a show that represents our lesser, un-evolved selves, we feel even better about ourselves. It makes us feel like what we’re doing is right, because if it’s on TV, it must be right.
scott ironmonger 