I watched all of MASH a few years ago and while the show’s rep is that it got more socially conscious and “preachy” in later years, but there was an episode about a gay soldier being beaten up by his platoon in series 2, and I’m pretty sure there was a couple of episodes about racism prior to that but I couldn’t find references quickly.
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You know, a lot of Seinfeld’s most famous bits were to do with the limits of what was ok to say (not that there’s anything wrong with that, the contest, and so on). If there weren’t social constraints he couldn’t have done them in the first place.
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I need to talk to the fire marshall over this burn 
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Just the premise that the United States military was getting in over its head fighting wars in East Asia for dubious motivations was a pretty lefty position to stake out when the show premiered in 1972.
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The show was always socially conscious and preachy. A show about finding humor and solace in war made at the tail end of the ongoing Vietnam War, had to be in some regard.
But the humor changed from reliance on pratfalls and absurdity (Frank Burns as whipping boy) to more one liners and character based situational stuff. Which is natural for a show which was on the air for so long.
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DING DING DING.
it’s perfectly ok to be lewd and aggressive nowadays if you punch up and that rubs some folks the wrong way.
Curb Your Enthusiasm had much fewer constraints but managed to be better – Larry and crew do some bad things, but it’s always much clearer he’s not the good guy.
You can’t blame “the censors” for things like “almost zero black people”
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Just off the top of my head, more funny/deep TV with queer/feminist/Black/neurodivergent characters: Somebody Somewhere. Insecure. Master of None. Blackish. Atlanta. Hacks. Work In Progress. One Mississippi. Better Things. Inside Amy Schumer. Community. I could go on but I need more time to watch comedy TV.
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Possibly the most poorly-aged line in the history of his show:
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Obligatory
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I still haven’t figured out WTF he is whining about? Did he tell some jokes that fell flat and now hes all “Uhhhhgh, PC/Woke destroyed comedy.”
Nah, man. You told some bad jokes. It happens to every comedian. I say this as someone who has seen him live twice (my Ex-Wife really liked him), he’s funny, but also very structured. I was very surprised, despite more than a year between shows, his shows were pretty much identical. He may have swapped a few things in or out, but most of it was the same. I think he has been on this pedestal for awhile where he thinks his carefully crafted jokes are the pinnacle and if you don’t laugh, something is wrong with you.
In reality, tastes change. People want something new. Yes, they see you for your bits and style, but no one is going to laugh at everything you do. Tastes also vary by region and audience. Something you could get a laugh at 30 years ago may be met with a groan now. Adapt and move on.
I do sorta kinda feel his point that there aren’t a lot of great sitcoms, but there are still some out there - though honestly, I am not watching most of them. Animal Control is the one I watch frequently only because I like watching smarmy Joel McHale. But TV in general has changed. While there are less sitcoms, there are SO MANY more comedy specials available on streaming.
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Seems right.
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What I find odd about this is a few years ago I hear him say pretty much the opposite. The question was raised that how is a comedian supposed to know where the line is not to cross before your career is tanked and Seinfeld was like “the audience will let you know”. He was taking the anti-PC complaint and just saying instead of framing it that way, frame it as you need to know what works and doesn’t with audiences, they are the ultimate arbiters. It’s up to you to change your material, not the audience’s job to change their taste.
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Basically that he can’t say racial slurs or gendered slurs or whatever. Same thing these dipshits always whinge about, because they’re bullies who find hurting others “funny.”
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I’m still curious what exactly the bits were. I wouldn’t consider Seinfeld ever being edgy. I don’t recall him using slurs in his stand up, though I could see him clinging to old terms (that’s just what they were called then!) instead of adopting the new “polite” language. That’s just growing old and dying inside when you refuse to update with the times.
Like if you get so bent out of shape because you told a joke using an older term and no one laughed - that’s just so (as the kids would say) cringe.
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One of the last Seinfeld stand-up bits I’ve seen was when he did his “tight five” on the Tonight Show in 2016. Like I remarked at the time, the whole routine felt incredibly dated; the most recent social phenomenon he’d worked in was robot vacuum cleaners (already old news by 2016) and the rest of the material felt like a routine that might have been written in 1982.
He had a whole extended bit on “Swanson Hungry Man™ brand TV dinners” (so edgy and topical!) even though Swanson hadn’t even owned that brand for many years at the time of the recording.
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I don’t know enough about his stand up to say (most of what I’ve seen comes from the opening bits on Seinfeld). But that comedy is being “ruined” by the wokes seems to be an article of faith among some comedians (him, Chappell, etc).
But that’s just basically what it is…
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Ooh! Take that, Swanson’s. What’s he gonna do next, the flapping dickey?
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I don’t recall Seinfeld throwing around slurs or punching down particularly when he was waving a microphone around in front of a brick wall at the beginning of every episode. It was mostly stuff about splitting restaurant bills or taking your car to the mechanic. What exactly does he think he’s lost since those supposedly unrestricted glory days? I’m pretty sure wokeness doesn’t prevent you from complaining about airline peanuts.
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IIRC, Seinfeld’s ‘offensive’ bits were always passive aggressive A/F; on being gay, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that” or Elaine dating a guy she thought might be a biracial Black man, but she wasn’t enough of an adult to just ask politely…
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MASH was always about breaking boundaries. While there was a huge tonal shift in later seasons, it always had an edge. Even in the more comedic early seasons, there was some extremely progressive stuff for having taken place during the Nixon and Ford administrations. (Not to say it always got it right — there is a ton of dated, racist, and sexist stuff, but it was still largely way ahead of the curve.)
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