America’s enthusiasm for Larry David appears to be wearing pretty, pretty thin. The return of his long-running comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm earlier this month met with a mixed reception. Some critics praised the show’s taboo-breaking approach. Others lamented its decline. Writing in the Guardian, Phil Harrison said Curb was beginning to resemble a “fourth-rate Benny Hill”.
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At the heart of the debate is whether a show about the travails of a privileged white man who operates without a filter has lost its appeal in America in 2017, a place where, in the words of New Yorker, “it feels as if all of public life is its own grim kind of cringe comedy”.
David took six years to consider whether to revive Curb, a project that started as an inventive stand-up special for HBO in 1999 and blossomed into a second hit for the man who found success as the co-creator of Seinfeld. It was the controversial ending of that show which gave him pause about reanimating Curb for a ninth season.
“I got so much grief from the Seinfeld finale, which a lot of people intensely disliked, that I no longer feel a need to wrap things up,” he said in a 2014 Grantland interview. “I wouldn’t say I’m mad about it, but it taught me a lesson that if I ever did another show, I wasn’t gonna wrap it up.”
But he did decide to come back, and this season’s story arc – in which David receives a death threat from the ayatollah after writing a musical called Fatwa – has been called a “throwback in a bad way”.
Ratings have been good but not startling. Curb managed 1.54 million viewers in the US on its debut, a dip of around 25% on the season eight finale. That’s quite a way off the mainstream appeal of Modern Family (which pulls in around 7 million viewers) but noticeably better than Emmys favourite Veep (580,000).
It has not all been bad for David. Many have praised his decision to keep the show controversial and to include a diverse cast which does not attempt to talk down to its audience but instead assumes it’s in on the joke.
Kenny Herzog, a TV critic who recaps Curb for New York magazine’s Vulture, said the reception of the ninth season revealed more about the contemporary debate around political correctness than David’s comedy itself.
Good. fuck kikes.
Sure. His agent is basically Weinstein.
"It is inevitable that the return of the show wasn’t going to have the luxury of standing on its legacy and its merits,” he said. “It was going to have to rise to a new standard that a lot of people have about being delicate towards certain subjects and people, even when you’re being funny.
“If you over-think it you’re going to end up making a show that doesn’t resonate with people because it doesn’t have anything to say and it doesn’t have any balls.”
The problem may be what the show is saying. Larry’s relationship with Leon Black – his layabout housemate, played by JB Smoove – has become a focal point for critics. Some say a lazy black character reiterates racist stereotypes. Others say the character is knowingly cartoonish and has endeared David to black America.
There is an argument that it’s not David who has changed, but his audience. In the time Curb has been off screen there has been a change in public opinion about political correctness. Vocal, student-led movements and social groups such as Black Lives Matter now challenge how power works in all parts of American society, including comedy.
David’s long-time collaborator Jerry Seinfeld has been one of the loudest voices shouting down opponents of offensive jokes and comedy.
In 2015, asked by ESPN why some comics no longer perform on university campuses, he said: “They just want to use these words: ‘That’s racist’; ‘That’s sexist’; ‘That’s prejudice’. They don’t even know what the fuck they’re talking about.
“I have no interest in gender or race or anything like that. But everyone else is kind of, with their calculating – is this the exact right mix? I think that to me it’s anti-comedy. It’s more about PC-nonsense.”
Herzog sees that societal shift – on what is deemed funny and what is wantonly offensive – as the core of the debate around Curb’s lost appeal.
“There might be people first coming to the show just based on its reputation having never seen it, and they may be in their 20s or late teens and have come of age in an era of self-conscious political correctness,” he said. “They can be surprised at how confrontational the show is.”
The other major change has come in the White House, where Donald Trump’s presidency has ushered in an era where, as the New Yorker put it: “Unbridled egotism and rampant hairsplitting rule the airwaves; the unrivalled callousness of a rich, old, out-of-touch white guy is a daily fixture.”
That landscape has made the show’s premise harder to swallow for some, but Herzog points out that it is people like Trump that the show is lampooning.
“You’ve got to pick your allies and pick your adversaries and I don’t think Larry David is really on the wrong side,” he said. “They’re on the right side of progressivism and you’ve got to have a sense of humour. If you find any of the new series offensive that means you need to go back and find the entire show offensive.”
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>At the heart of the debate is whether a show about the travails of a privileged white man who operates without a filter has lost its appeal in America in 2017
>Some say a lazy black character reiterates racist stereotypes.
What debate? Who says the character is racist? Usually you'd quote one of those critics. Do journalists not have to cite sources anymore? The only real information this has is that the show's ratings declined, which isn't unusual for many shows.
Look at the picture of the random Vox blogger. He's a fucking Arab, of course he hates Larry David. Larry David is the most jewy jew of all time
I like the show but 9 seasons is enough.
Also fuck the SJW for attacking everything that ruins their echo box.
>American's enthusiasm
>proceeds to talk about critics
The funniest thing is that Larry is a prius driving liberal just like them. I don't understand how people can get so far up their own ass.
lol Episode 4 is about a mass shooting too. Jews can literally make shows that poke fun at mass shootings. Try to imagine this same show, but without the most jewish human alive starring.
>I don't understand how people can get so far up their own ass.
Only a leftist would.
It's not even just stuff that "ruins" their echo box anymore. It's anything that doesn't explicitly mention them, side with them, and parrot exactly the same points they make in their shitty articles with 0 irony or nuance.
I just hope we reach a point, soon, where artists & entertainers remember that they don't actually need to listen to idiots on the Internet. Just ignore this shit. I think we're almost there
am leftist, can confirm we love eating each other alive
>a privileged white man
hmmmmmm
>privileged white man
SJWs shit on everything.
this season has been classic tho
that fucking funeral scene at the end of last week?
also reairing is coming up in 5 minutes on HBO, still not on demand or on HBO GO so set ur dvrs if u missed the intial airing
I had no idea the show came back. But as always The Guardian is wrong and pushing a shitty agenda, anti-PC humor is more en vogue today than ever due to the SJW backlash and free speech debates. Curb is just clearly past it's prime.
>old show gets stale
>are people fed up with larry's white privilege?
no
he switched to the BMW electric car this season, but still you're right
altho i drive a prius and support trump, its mostly for the economics
they also had a telsa appearance in one of the episodes this season too
EXACTLY THIS. It was literally about a mass shooting. Larry fears being killed in a mass shooting. If this show wasn't overtly hyper-jewish, it would be canceled, and on the evening news for how incredibly 'insensitive" and "tone-deaf" it is.
>It's a comfy golf club episode
the best
Most cultural reporting these days is just repeating what some idiot said on twitter
haha in what fucking universe is larry davide white?
>talks about echo box
>is on Sup Forums
YOWZA
the chink baby comment
the mail-lady bit
not thanking the marine for his service until he found out he liked sienfield....
fucking love my weekly hour of liberal tears
>But he did decide to come back, and this season’s story arc – in which David receives a death threat from the ayatollah after writing a musical called Fatwa – has been called a “throwback in a bad way”.
STOP REMEMBERING PAST EVENTS REEEEEEEE
SOON IS SOON
holy shit 10 bucks sais the civil war reenactment will trigger the military guys PTSD lmao
Except Larry is the true form of liberals.
The ones you hate were Bernie or Bust fags. I am proud Hillary voter and I think Larry is fucking hilarious,
Also, Trump in jail tomorrow.
>privileged white man
>Larry David
>white
>Also, Trump in jail tomorrow.
You mean Podesta
> the guardian
>white privelage meme
Directly into the trash
Sure thing, champ.
You may want to get an extra bottle of Southern Comfort tho. Just in case.
t. petite bourgeois trotskyite
Day of the icepick when?
This season is fucking awful.
It's like arrested development season 4.
It's too over the top and too into itself to be funny anymore. The writing is shit; the only reason people laugh is because they're caught up in the culture phenomenon of Curb Your Enthusiasm's 9th season.
I've been rewatching the show continuously for years and this season just is not up to par. It's the weakest season by far.
>Also, Trump in jail tomorrow.
For what?
Seinfelds a big baby. Andy Richter performed at my campus and roasted him. The students that opened for him made fun of SJW shit.
That year everyone on campus was applauding the dean for dropping the mic and walking out on SJW groups when they made retarded demands like asking for the campus to be 20% trans and 50% non white.
we're just getting tired of jews.
He specifically fears a mass shooting by muslims. The kind of hateful paranoia that got Trump elected
The humor on the show isn't primarily driven by racial humor. The formula is
>Larry offended by person being rude or gross
>Larry alienates everyone around him by trying to get the person to realize they are rude or gross
Sometimes this intersects with race or sexual orientation because Larry doesn't give one single fuck about a person's identity, just that they didn't wash their hands after peeing.
The Trump/Bannon joke felt really crowbarred-in, that's the problem. You come to expect better from Larry.
Hillary and the DNC paid to create the fake Trump dossier. Now Trump is going to jail because Hillary's campaign manager was in some sort of relationship with Manafort
lol
I rather watch Curb repeat the cringe humour of a self loathing Jew than shit like Big Bang or R&M that try to pass as intellectual comedies.
>muh jooz!
wtf I love political correctness now!
>(((white)))
If you don't understand The Big Bang Theory or Rick and Morty then just ask us and we'll explain the jokes, no need for this sort of teenage angst.
How many seasons can you tolerate an insufferable whiner?
once an episode goes by where larry doesnt point something out that i myself notice and have a comment about
We got 4 years of one in the white house, heyoo!
I fucking love how one man with the entire world against him is able to cause so much buttpain.
Is that what they call "weasel words" or claims?
Why?
What college do you go to? What might fly on your campus isn't going to go over in someplace like Berkeley. In any case, I find seinfeld's position understandable since he likely had to take his fair share of abuse from audiences when he was coming up, and now that he's one of the biggest names in the business probably just can't be bothered to deal with hecklers and other bullshit.
This is still fucking hilarious, and has always had the same approach on taboos, fuck this cuck magazine
also fuck this report, i just checked
tvseriesfinale.com
and the ratings are on par with seasons 7 and 8 which are the only 2 on the wikipedia with stats
plus all the digital online numbers and DVR which wasnt as popular back in 2011, especially HBO GO
That's weak trolling even for Sup Forums.
...
S9 Curb is almost as disappointing as S2 True Detective. Iirc it had poop jokes in the first episode.
Ratings are bad because the first five episodes got leaked in the HBO hack. Tonight was the first time I actually watched an episode because I had seen them all up to tonight from the torrent.
The season itself is incredibly solid and has been continuously hilarious throughout.
I went to Binghamton University and I've heard similar stories at Itacha and Cornell. I refuse to believe things are as bad as Sup Forums makes it seem. These people can't be the intellectual majority on college campuses.
I have a friend in grad school and Binghamton and from her stories they definitely make up a loud and sizable minority. Despite calling herself a marxist and pursuing a PhD in a humanities field, she's complained about the insanity of PC bullshit for years, so maybe it's just finally at the point where anyone with half a brain realizes appeasement doesn't work with rabid ideologues.
Seems like Always Sunny, South Park and Family Guy could get away with it
>he paid money to see Andy Richter live
Maybe it's because I don't look at garbage twitter posts or op eds except on here, but how does It's Always Sunny get away with jew jokes, blackface, and all other kinds of shit? Yeah, the characters aren't "likable" and they're ignorant, but they're still kind of relatable for a lot of people and they never apologize for or examine their prejudices...
>the entire world against him
just the worlds political and ruling elite. peasants the world over are rooting for Trump
>The Trump/Bannon joke felt really crowbarred-in, that's the problem
Oh, but the anti-semitism themed sex talk wasn't?
The curb formula has gotten so stale theyre literally repurposing old seinfeld gags.
Every conservative used to be a liberal. Eventually something happens and they reevaluate themselves.
It's what happened with me.
>and they never apologize for or examine their prejudices.
That's how they get away with it. If you apologise you are saying you might be in the wrong and you appear weak, opening yourself up to more criticism.
No, it's because in Sunny the characters are terrible people, we know they're awful, and their actions are never portrayed to be good. If anything, everybody but the gang thinks they're terrible people and want nothing to do with them.
Larry's case is the opposite, as his character tends to think he does nothing wrong because social faux pas are bullshit and then tries to defend himself, making him look even more of a jerk.
>i'm gonna twerk on live tv
>i'm gonna say edgy in my stand up
>i'm gonna ironically talk how great gay sex is
All comedy is now just a game of who can be more of a rebel and go against the grain. You can't make a career out of "breaking down barriers" when someone has already done that for you.