Jerry Seinfeld Says He Wasn’t Right About the ‘Extreme Left’

Photo: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for Good+Foundation

Jerry Seinfeld is correcting his comments about political correctness. “I did an interview with The New Yorker, and I said that the extreme left has suppressed the art of comedy,” Seinfeld recalled during a recent episode of Tom Papa’s Breaking Bread podcast. “I did say that. That’s not true. It’s not true.” During his Pop-Tarts movie press tour in April, the comedian appeared on The New Yorker Radio Hour and suggested that there aren’t many funny shows on TV anymore because of “the extreme left and PC crap, and people worrying so much about offending other people.” At the time, he added that audiences are going to see stand-up comedians since they’re “not policed by anyone,” unlike scripts that have to go through multiple hands. His comments awoke the industry for a discourse about wokeness that even reached fellow Seinfeld alum Julia Louis-Dreyfus (who, for the record, disagreed with him).

Now, Seinfeld has a new perspective. “Does culture change, and are there things I used to say that I can’t say [because] everybody’s always moving [the gate]? Yeah, but that’s the biggest, easiest target,” he explained to Papa. “You can’t say certain words, whatever they are, about groups — so what? The accuracy of your observation has to be 100 times finer than that, to just be a comedian.” Ultimately, he’s “officially” taking back his previous claim that “the extreme left has done anything to inhibit the art of comedy.” All the debate has also taught him that people care what comedians say, which he told Papa was news to him. “Who the hell cares what a comedian thinks about anything?” Seinfeld wondered. Maybe the people listening to the comedy podcast that you’re on right now? Just a guess.