I HAVE tried. Really. Year after year. On and on.
I recognize the importance of daily laughter in our lives. It's healthy, emotionally and physically. As it turns out, Reader's Digest has been right all along: laughter IS the best medicine. And so, I have tried.
Episode after insipid episode.
But every time I do I come to the conclusion that, "Curb Your Enthusiasm," that hit show by genius Larry David, just plain sucks. It sucks bad. Why? It somehow refuses to make me laugh. I know people say how funny they think it is. I know that. I just cannot see it. In fact I think it is awful.
So, why do I feel this way? I've been giving it some thought and the simple answer is, is that it's just not funny. But no, that's not enough. Others find it funny. I know Larry David has created some of the funniest and most intelligent humor I've ever seen. So why my revulsion to this show?
That's it! Revulsion. It's not just that it's not funny. It's revolting.
First of all, HE is revolting, Larry David, himself, is so brutal to look at and to listen to. (By the way, are there two more hideous people to look at on television than Richard Lewis and Larry David? My God, when they are in a seen together I have to turn away). Among David's character's other charms is that he is, as is just about everyone else on the show (it seems to be the raison d'etre of the shows' humor) overwhelmingly narcissistic. They are fools but not funny ones.
To make matters irredeemably worse all the character are financially successful. All of them. Fancy, first-class restaurants, expensive cars, mansions, etc, etc. I'm supposed to feel something for these pampered clowns? What is there to draw me in? Why should I care? His biggest problem is that his wife won't let him wear THAT jacket to the next star-studded party? It's all revolting. David has forgotten, or never knew, the first law of comedy, that once must identify with the characters in order to sustain the humor.
Thus every aspect of the show is vile on one level or another which is appropriate considering that it takes place in the most vile place on earth.
Just a cursory look at why we all loved Seinfeld, will reveal a multitude of elements that create a successful (funny) comedy. On the whole we may say that it was the "exact opposite" (ironic, no?) of everything Curb is. It's characters struggle to get through life. It takes place in the anti-L.A., of course, which gives the show much of it's "bite," and energy. New York City is a place where people come to succeed but must struggle first. How many multitude of films and television shows and plays have this as their bases? Countless. (Let us also note that the least effective, (that is, funny) episodes of Seinfeld are the two that take place in Los Angeles, when Kramer decides to move there.)
The characters that comprise the Seinfeld cast although not physically appealing (with the exception of Elaine, of course) are all interesting LOOKING, like the characters in Commedia del'Arte, of which the show is a direct descendant and to which direct lineage is clear: Kramer is the Harlequin, his hair and clothes serve as his mask and identify him (as Ed Norton's vest and hat identified him 40 years earlier) as does his proclivity for trouble-making and foolery. Elaine, their Columbine, at once free with her lusts and emotions, is always honest, sometimes brutally, but we know she owns a heart of gold and a genuine need to be loved. And we love her. George is the pathetic Pierrot, his efforts doomed to failure, and who will never be loved, and we love him. Jerry, Il Dottore, thinks he is in control and separate from of his little experiment but in fact, is part of it. And there is Newman, who is a kind of Scaramouche, a hero in his own mind, waxing on in absurd poetry about Romance, or with great bravura, ordering another round of Strawberry yogurt for his co-workers, but in the end his lot is that of the buffoon.
Where are any of these types, or any types on Curb? They are no where to be found. Seinfeld, is the very and pointedly direct opposite of Curb, for in Curb, we have no link to any comedic or theatrical tradition, nor any ability or desire to like or ability to identify with these awful people. Yes, there are times that David's humor may appear to be of a vaudevillian nature, but again, because the characters are so empty, the humor is doomed to fall flat, inducing, perhaps, a minimal smile, but never a prolonged LAUGH. In Curb we have primarily some odd situations, rather exaggerated, and out of place emotions, along with childish accusations and banter, none of which ring true of life, and through which these dull characters must navigate, and they do this be behaving as retarded -- severely retarded, or utterly stupid and immature people, at best.
The characters of Seinfeld were faced with problems issues to which we all can relate, often leaving us with a sense that what just happened on the show just happened to us. We ARE the cast of Seinfeld. "Curb," cannot achieve this magic - and it is magic.
Critically and crucially, Curb is not filmed in front of an audience, or on a set. Without that, there is far less the sense of "theater" about it. Instead, we see that insipid and overused device of the hand held camera which, among the pretentious, is supposed to lend an air of "reality," as if the cameraman is filming a documentary about people that are real. Real? Real crap. Whether we are aware of it or not the setting affects us. We know a stage, that is, something artificial, and therefore, theatrical, from someone's house, and the house is distracting. The real lamps, carpets, sinks, paintings, all of it. Comedy, in particular, needs the stage. How can we suspend our dis-belief without it? And that suspension is far more crucial for the success playing out of comedy that from straight drama, for the characters, although as real as possible, must be separate from our reality. Only the finest, greatest and most skilled comedians succeed on film, some even excel, when they can create that separation. And the closer one gets to the "stock" character, those of the Commedia del Arte, the more successful the comedy can be.
So, Curb fails on so many levels.
Yet others, I am told, find the show funny. I wonder. I have not seen that phenomenon to this point. I have watched the show many times in the company of "fans," and honestly, the most I've heard has been an occasional light chuckle. Yet they claim they found the show, "extremely funny"! Do they really? Or do they laugh because they think they should? Because it is Larry David? Because everyone else says it is so funny? A case of the Emperor's new clothes? The humor is cheap, but even cheap humor in this desert of banality we call popular culture, may seem hilariously funny. I really do wonder.
Truthfully, I wish I did find Curb funny. I want and need to laugh. I'm not happy about it.
I just don't. Curb sucks.
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