# Is Seinfeld less offensive than Friends seen with today's eyes? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** tv-shows-scripted\ **Created:** [April 28, 2022, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-seinfeld-less-offensive-than-friends-seen-with-todays-eyes/963626 "2022-04-28T22:04:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2022, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-seinfeld-less-offensive-than-friends-seen-with-todays-eyes/963626/141 "2022-05-20T16:35:03Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > You’fe twisting my words, and then calling me dizshonest. Also > Not gonna chase your goallosts all over rbe field. Go home, lissener’s keyboard, you’re drunk. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2022, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-seinfeld-less-offensive-than-friends-seen-with-todays-eyes/963626/142 "2022-05-20T18:54:13Z")
Feeding people something they would otherwise not eat,without their consent, is a crime. it’s an act of violence against their body. f your motivation in doing so is because of their religion or race, it is a violent act of bigotry. Call it what you will. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2022, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-seinfeld-less-offensive-than-friends-seen-with-todays-eyes/963626/143 "2022-05-20T18:54:58Z")
Yeah no autocorrect on my fire tablet. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2022, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-seinfeld-less-offensive-than-friends-seen-with-todays-eyes/963626/144 "2022-05-20T19:02:46Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > That’s not what I understood @lissener to be saying. Rather, as I understand it, he felt _that_ it was distasteful, and therefore he tried to stop and think and analyze _why_ it was distasteful. > > Which is the appropriate response to being bothered by something . . . Exactly thanks ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2022, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-seinfeld-less-offensive-than-friends-seen-with-todays-eyes/963626/145 "2022-05-20T19:02:53Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > The fact someone is actively analysing stuff that’s not actually intended to be analysed (a sitcom, for example) would, I suggest, be at least a subconscious form of offence seeking. I don’t think so. I have no doubt lissener also analyzes work he finds non-offensive or even praiseworthy. > [@lissener](#): > > Watching Seinfeld made me feel depressed, almost dirty; complicit in something inhumane. So I asked myself why. It’s more of a self analysis, really, than an exegesis. It’s absolutely not a fishing exhibition in search of turds, if you’ll allow a mixed metaphor. This seems like a rather extreme reaction to what was a fairly innocuous sitcom. You feel what you feel, but dirty and depressed? ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2022, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-seinfeld-less-offensive-than-friends-seen-with-todays-eyes/963626/146 "2022-05-20T19:23:15Z")
I live with severe major depression. Its just the ocean I dogpaddle in. Some things i take in feel like a swell, some feel like a trough. Seinfeld felt troughy as fuck. To contradict the creators, it’s essentially a show about self loathing. A trigger for me in the technical, medical sense of the word. Also, yes, I analyze everything. You should hear my 45-minute exegesis of _Showgirls_ and why it’s a masterpiece. 😁 ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2022, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-seinfeld-less-offensive-than-friends-seen-with-todays-eyes/963626/147 "2022-05-20T19:35:15Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > Also, yes, I analyze everything. You should hear my 45-minute exegesis of _Showgirls_ and why it’s a masterpiece. And I’ll defend you 100% on this. I’ve certainly participated in my fair share of threads about _Alien_ and _Aliens._ ---
**Author:** ![Chingon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chingon/32/17645_2.png) [@Chingon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chingon)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2022, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-seinfeld-less-offensive-than-friends-seen-with-todays-eyes/963626/148 "2022-05-20T20:54:18Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > George likewise is motivated to get “revenge” on someone for seeing him naked and then laughing at the size of his penis. That’s not really why he did it (her initial seeing him naked and laughing). He was getting revenge for her telling George’s girlfriend that he had a small penis and then laughing with her. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2022, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-seinfeld-less-offensive-than-friends-seen-with-todays-eyes/963626/149 "2022-05-20T23:08:02Z")
Why are sitcoms supposedly immune from being analysed?? Every form of arm, pop culture, and basically everything made for entertainment purposes can be analysed, and frequently is. I mean, we’ve had nearly 800 years of analysis of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and 500 or more years of Shakespeare’s comedies, and they were both intended to entertain large plebescian audiences. Any writer of a comedy now not only must expect their work to be analysed, they’d want it. The alternative is being forgotten. Also, you don’t need to analyse something to have a reaction towards it. Sometimes you have the reaction and don’t analyse it at all, sometimes you have the reaction and wonder why. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-seinfeld-less-offensive-than-friends-seen-with-todays-eyes/963626.md?page=7)