Seinfeld on Comedy

Earlier today I mentioned getting to hear Joe Strummer talk about The Ramones being pure magic & I have to say the exact same thing about Jerry Seinfeld talking about the role of comedy & class in America. Fascinating.

Comedy really defined the first moment in American culture where we really created a context for upward mobility. I mean, that was the whole idea of America. Let's have a place where you rise and fall based on your ability and eliminate the class system. So people were encouraged to kind of step up, and let's see what you have, and that is the comedic metaphor, really, is if you think you can do this, go ahead. Standup comedy is wide open. You don't have to know anybody. You don't have to have connections. You don't have to be trained. They just go, well, get up there. So, and I think Americans kind of like that. That's our country. That's what we love about it. It's like, you wanna do something? Go ahead, try it. If you can do it, you're in, you can't, you're out.