This is largely how I viewed the episode. As well as not wishing to be viewed as homosexual I suspect the characters were slightly discomforted with homosexuality. The characters realise they should not be judgemental, and by and large they are not, but as a bunch of people born around 1960 they would not be quite as relaxed about the issue as your average man or woman born thirty years later. They know outwardly how they should act, but inwardly there is just an element of discomfort.
In addition to some of the remarks made above, I think it was also mocking the whole social convention of having to say “I’m not gay. Not that there’s anything wrong with that”. If you say “I’m not gay” then it is generally understood that you have to follow that with “Not that there’s anything…etc”. It’s become a mantra.
This is shown by the fact that if, for example, Jerry said it to George then George would nod and indicate with his arms that he understood Jerry had to append the “Not that there’s anything wrong with that” because that is now an accepted mantra. Or if Elaine said it to Jerry, you could see from Jerry’s body language that he understood that she has to say it.
They were kind of mocking the fact that it’s become a mantra. In fact they were mocking the mantra more than anything to do with being gay. Which is what Larry David and Seinfeld tend to do - mock social conventions more than anything else
For the characters George and Jerry, it would make sense they were afraid of being labeled gay. IIRC they were just short of being terrified at the idea. It going public that they were gay probably wouldn’t do their rather dismal dating luck any favors.
And Buck Naked’s film career would have probably been ruined too.
Not to get too serious, it was just a 20 year old sitcom joke, but political correctness run a muck is the core of the problem. The word ‘racist’ used to be just an adjective that could vary greatly in terms of context. Now ‘racist’ is always only a noun, a person who is absolutely a 100% evil neo-Nazi Klan member. Now you have to say something much longer like, “That has a racial element to it” etc.
And the exact same thing applies to the term homophobe or homophobic. All straight guys are a little homophobic. If they say they’re not they’re either lying or cowing down to the PC police. But homophobic doesn’t mean gay-bashing, it means exactly what it means: Afraid of and uncomfortable about homosexuality to some degree. Straight men’s brains are simply hard-wired for that and just pretending that they’re not doesn’t help things. It actually makes things worse. Because in a modern, Western, civilized society men are also most often ***not ***taught to automatically respond to this feeling with violence or even real prejudice. But that’s not enough now, you must say you don’t even *have *the slightest homophobic feelings at all, even if everyone knows they’re lying.
Does that one make your eyes roll less or more than when George was convinced he was why Susan turned gay, then Kramer turned her lover, who’d never been with a man, straight?
Obviously whatever George did to Susan didn’t take, as she later got back together with him. Not that there’s anything wrong with that so long as you don’t cheap out on the envelopes. Not that there’s anything wrong with cheaping out, so long as the envelopes aren’t poison. Not that there’s anything wrong with poison so long as you’re using it for pest control or something like that.
That’s complete crap. It sounds like you are describing yourself and assuming that all straight men are the same as you. We’re not. I am enthusiastically straight and have zero interest in dick (other than my own), but I am completely comfortable with gay men, and have some very close friends who are gay. One of my dearest friends is a transman who identifies as a gay male. I have no problem in saying that I love that guy, in a completely non-sexual way. If you’re assuming that means I’m secretly gay, that says a lot about you but nothing about me.
Yeah know, you’ve just proven my point. ‘Secretly gay’?!? Where the hell did I even remotely imply that? You’re indeed ‘cowing down to the PC police’ in that you believe if anyone admits to having even the slightest uncomfortableness towards gay people they are either secretly gay or a closet bigot. There is miles of room in between…
No, you called me a homophobe. You said “All straight guys are a little homophobic”. I am not, not in the least. You are wrong. And I don’t give a fuck about whatever you imagine to be “the PC police” either; I’m very far from politically correct. I simply do not have any negative feelings about gay people.
If you’d said “everyone is at least a tiny bit racist” I wouldn’t have a problem with that, but I do have a problem with your notion that I am a little bit homophobic. I’m really not, and if you are, that’s YOU, it isn’t everyone.
I don’t want to speak for Hail Ants, but I took his comment about everyone being a little homophobic more as, not fear or hatred or anything, but more that homosexuality is something that straight people don’t understand / relate to 100%. I too have several gay acquaintances - hell, for some reason it seems all the places I tend to hang out are owned and mainly frequented by gay people- and I wouldn’t say I’m in any way uncomfortable around anyone, but there is an element of their lives that I have never and will never experience. Sort of like when I look at married people with children. I don’t dislike them or their situation, nor is it something I want for myself. Is that really such a terrible thing? Sorry if I’m not making myself clear, I just get tired of everybody around here falling all over themselves to appear the most open minded, neighbor loving, all accepting, beings of light(not directed at you, Shakester, I just mean in general).
It sounds like you’re trying to define “homophobic” as “not being homosexual”.
Yes, this is exactly what I’m saying.
Unless you’re gay or bi, it is 100% normal to be a little homophobic. But as I stated earlier the terms ‘homophobe’ and ‘racist’ have been hijacked into being 100% absolutely negatively charged language. No one can say or discuss homophobic or racist issues without being considered ‘a homophobe’ or ‘a racist’, and that’s nonsense.
Let me do the mods a favor and say we’re passing the limits of Cafe Society here. I’ve made my point and don’t really want to bother continuing in either GD or IMHO, so back to the Seinfeld episode…
Horseshit. It absolutely is not.
Yep, the gag is reflective, based upon how Jerry and George are intellectually and culturally aboard there being nothing wrong with it, but at the same time viscerally wanting to make clear they are not – and at how their usual self-centered attitude led them to troll the journalist w/o realizing their act may be taken at face value and now they have to walk it back, again, wanting to still look good.