This is simply not true, at least for the vast majority of the show. Any jokes that might be read as punching down are generally being told by characters who are themselves the actual butt of the joke. Example: the episode where Jerry and George keep getting misinterpreted as being a gay couple. The jokes are all built around their embarrassment about the fact, and the punchline is never “lol gay people exist”.
I think your defense is true in broad strokes, but Seinfeld definitely parodies LGBT+ folk very directly and repeatedly. The hyper-aggressive hyper-camp gay couple who target Kramer, the worries from Jerry about being seen wearing a fur coat because people might make assumptions about his sexuality, the “female version of Jerry” that George dates and worries about how it’s perceived, Jerry’s handbag, and a hundred less plot-pivotal jabs which really do add up.
Some of those are pillorying the main characters, saying that the concern from the characters is petty and ridiculous, and others less so. As I see it, they aggregate into what feels to me like punching down. You do still need to view it in the timeframe and social attitudes in which it was written, too, but I don’t think it earns total carte blanche. “Tasteless” might be a balanced conclusion.
This is simply not true, at least for the vast majority of the show. Any jokes that might be read as punching down are generally being told by characters who are themselves the actual butt of the joke. Example: the episode where Jerry and George keep getting misinterpreted as being a gay couple. The jokes are all built around their embarrassment about the fact, and the punchline is never “lol gay people exist”.
I think your defense is true in broad strokes, but Seinfeld definitely parodies LGBT+ folk very directly and repeatedly. The hyper-aggressive hyper-camp gay couple who target Kramer, the worries from Jerry about being seen wearing a fur coat because people might make assumptions about his sexuality, the “female version of Jerry” that George dates and worries about how it’s perceived, Jerry’s handbag, and a hundred less plot-pivotal jabs which really do add up.
Some of those are pillorying the main characters, saying that the concern from the characters is petty and ridiculous, and others less so. As I see it, they aggregate into what feels to me like punching down. You do still need to view it in the timeframe and social attitudes in which it was written, too, but I don’t think it earns total carte blanche. “Tasteless” might be a balanced conclusion.
That episode is the best argument for why it’s homophobic to be angry/offended about being thought to be gay.