JERRY SEINFELD: ‘I Miss a Dominant Masculinity.’
The film ostensibly pits Post v. Kellogg’s in a cereal slug match for the ages. It also captures what made the ’60s special, according to the squeaky-clean comic. The era featured manly men, Seinfeld argued, the kind rarely seen today.
“As a man…”
“Are you sure you are,” Weiss asked, teasingly. “I did not hear pronouns.”
“I always wanted to be a real man, but I never made it,” he said with a laugh in his voice. He got more serious soon enough.
“In that era, it was JFK, it was Muhammad Ali, it was Sean Connery, Howard Cosell … that’s a real man. I wanna be like that someday,” Seinfeld said. “No. Look at how I dress, like an eight-year-old.”
Weiss defended the comedian’s style, but Seinfeld shared why his childish mien matters in his line of work.
“I never really grew up. You don’t want to as a comedian. It’s a childish pursuit, but I miss a dominant masculinity. Yeah, I get the toxic [inaudible] but still I like a real man. That’s why I love [‘Unfrosted’ co-star] Hugh Grant. He felt like one of those guys I wanted to be. He knows how to dress. He knows how to talk. He’s charming. He has stories. He’s comfortable at dinner parties. Knows how to get a drink, that stuff.”
Masculinity has been in obvious decline in pop culture.
Perhaps “confident masculinity” is a better way to put this. That aspect of human culture has been undermined for decades, to the point where it has largely gone dormant, especially in progressive-elite areas. One has to wonder whether that impacts comedy, as the audience simply isn’t mature and/or balanced enough for it to work.
Not least the wannabe hippies manning the TRS-80s at Rolling Stone: Far-Right Influencers Celebrate Jerry Seinfeld Once Again Claiming ‘PC Crap’ Killed Comedy.