Larry David, the leftist creator-star of HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm has pulled a Homer. In the third season of The Simpsons, the episode “Homer Defined” introduced the expression “to pull a Homer” and defined it as “to succeed despite idiocy.” That’s last night’s episode of Curb perfectly summarized. With a premise that I feared last week would be unwatchable, David has crafted one of his show’s greatest, most important episodes — and all apparently by accident.
(Warning – plot spoilers of course follow. For a fuller summary of the episode check out the AV Club or Hollywood Life. There are other plot threads in the episode that I won’t discuss here.)
The premise of the episode: Larry and his friend/manager Jeff discover a new “Palestinian” Chicken restaurant and decide to go in spite of knowing that their fellow Jews would disapprove. Once there they chow down on the best chicken they’ve ever eaten, indifferent to the anti-Semitic posters on the walls. Larry also discovers a new object of lust: the sexy “Palestinian” woman who manages the restaurant. He confesses:
You’re always attracted to someone who doesn’t want you. Well, here you have someone who not only doesn’t want you, but doesn’t even acknowledge your right to exist, who wants your destruction. That’s a turn-on.
But how does Larry win the affections of the dark-haired Muslim beauty?
Later in the episode Larry and Jeff return to the restaurant with their friend Marty Funkhouser who has recently converted from Reform Judaism to Orthodox. He wears a yarmulke that’s more attention-grabbing and ostentatious than any Orthodox Jew I’ve ever known. Before they enter Larry tries to force Marty to take it off. A fight ensues, attracting the attention of the Muslims eating inside. When the fight is over Larry has ripped off Marty’s yarmulke and frightened him back to his car. When he and Jeff enter they are applauded and embraced as fellow anti-Semites. (One imagines that this is a comparable reaction to what Noam Chomsky got when he visited Hezbollah.) The “Palestinian” manager, Shara, then approaches Larry, sexually aroused by this act of a secular Jew tormenting an Orthodox Jew.
The inevitable sex scene between the two of them follows. Shara is the sexual aggressor, dominating over Larry as he lies on the bed. She shouts anti-Semitic slogans all the while. It apparently isn’t just Larry’s fantasy to have sex with a Muslim woman; rather, he wants to be degraded in the process.
I didn’t see the episode, so I really shouldn’t comment. That said, from your description, the Palestinians don’t come off looking terribly fantastic. That Larry takes their side is not necessarily an endorsement, since the Larry character is not altogether a wonderful person.
And that’s what I’ve found with many Curb episodes. Despite Larry’s real life left wing political slant, the people of the Left, especially the Hollywood left, and progressive politics in general often come off looking not that great on the show. A recent example is the episode where Larry hears a bigot utter the N word in a bathroom and whenever Larry tries to relate the incident, disapprovingly, a black person hears him and automatically becomes hysterical, assuming Larry is uttering the word himself. In their hysteria they don’t even let Larry explain. Thus, people who cry racism at the drop of a hat come off looking bad.
What you’re describing is just a function of the show’s nihilism. Larry has to trash everything. But it’s obvious which side is made to look less cool than the other.
What makes all this amusing is the fact that it is unconscious. These people, just like the gay pride parades led by freaks, do such harm to their own image and they are totally clueless. We have come from Mort Sahl, who always knew who the mark was, to this in 50 years.
Yes, ultimately, this Modern Liberalism/Progressivism is a nihilism. It leads to a nothingness because their quest to force everything to be “equal” necessarily tears down all forms of success and behaviors that lead to success.
While they work to elevate failure too, in the end, there is some success in failure that they must squash – which guarantees the nothingness.
You may enjoy the video “How Modern Liberals Think” by Evan Sayet. Evan used to be a writer for Maher and this video (and Evan’s followup) are key to understanding this goofy leftist mindset and belief system:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaE98w1KZ-c
I know Evan. He’s wonderful and very talented.
How about the one where Larry’s environmentalist wacko wife wants to use biodegradable toilet paper and Larry has to hide the food stuff so she won’t go ballistic?
Someone commented that though David is left wing and surrounded by left wing friends, his jokes are mostly mocking left wingers. I think that is so true. Now if we can only get David himself to see that, we could have a good ally. Of course the biggest butt of all of his jokes is himself. How about the way he is used in this episode to do the uncomfortable things others have too many scruples to do?
Whatever, if anyone could watch that episode and not laugh, as I’ve said elsewhere, I feel sorry for him.
Damn these typos. the GOOD stuff.
OK, what makes him different than any other Jew in Hollywood? He does not represent the Jewish community in general, just the neurotic, leftist death-wish entertainment industry Jews.
That is if you discard the 75% + that voted for obama.
78% IIRC.
Holy cow! So many people here the joke and don’t realize that he makes fun of Hollywood and Jews. But understanding that would require actual thought instead of filtering everything through that right-wing prism of fear and hatred.
anthony wiener, anyone?
Yup. We didn’t fail to notice Weiner went after non-Jewish females only… he would not use a Jewish female since he had an agenda. Agenda was to degrade as many Christian, or non-Jews as possible. Just a little ding here and there to undercut any morality, like he was edging in on the young college girl, infecting her memory. It’s funny how a lot of Jewish males marry Christian or non-jewish females only if they have money, power, or access to power like Weiner’s wife. Rich non-jewish women are all too vulnerable to Jewish males. Rich Jewish males abuse non-jewish women by making them their mistresses. Their wives know they are just doing their job to shove our country’s morality and standards farther down, making us vulnerable to their growing power. It’s not all about sex, ladies and gentlemen. In these cases it is all about power and destroying females who could be a force to block their power.
wasn’t there a similar episode in some ways when the object of his affection was a Hasidic woman who ran a dry cleaning store? Anyway, this article is brilliant but I think you could have made more of it (precisely because it is so good) in that the left lusts politically for groups that want to destroy it and acts masochistically toward people who hate their country, society, and even community (Jewish, Christian). Finally, your articles are very good and a great addition to PJM.
Thanks Barry! I agree that the subject warrants more than just a blog post. I hope to explore it more in the future.
Amazing–I was about 5 words into it, and thought of Weiner too!
Brilliant minds as they say!
Cheers
Is anybody actually ‘Jewish’ outside of Israel now that God’s Promised Land is available again?
I’m just curious..
Yeah. I am. You have a problem with that?
Have you ever been to New York? America has about 5-6 million Jews depending on who you count, and NY alone has 2 mill.
Once again, Larry David ridicules he own Jewish faith, and by extension, all Jews. He’s just another far left atheist Jew. I really hope Jewish people boycott his anti-semetic show.
oy!
He mocks the anti semitic Palestinians, too. Picture Mel Brooks with ostensibly a bit more class and relax and enjoy the ride.
The man Larry David, may be an annoyance, and even his character, but he sure knows how to skewer prejudices and pretensions.
I didn’t see it but by the description, I don’t see how a Jew could laugh.
Danny Pearl’s beheading must have been absolutely hilarious.
And every time a Jew wants to be cheered up, just go look at some of the photos of Jews in the camps. And I don’t mean the camps in the Catskills.
I understand Larry David hates himself and hates life but that’s still not a laugh-riot. Either you get how sick this is or you don’t. No amount of explaining, like with a joke, will get the point across.
Larry David hardly creates a character for himself that is heroic or admirable, does he? He is rather the anti-hero and I am not surprised about this story. Perhaps he should hire Coulter, who bumps into him at the start of the next episode and lures him into a limo.
This stuff is rather topographical and rarely does David’s humor run very deep. As for Seinfeld, didn’t that end with everyone going to jail because they filmed an assault on a fat man rather than to help him? Perhaps, by making our worst elements come out in a funny way, he gets us to notice them. I’m not sure what I think he is trying to say, but it sounds like Jewish women have driven him to seek emasculating antisemitic women. I rather doubt that is going to resonate among Jewish women, nor do I think it “let’s make it funny” is a cure-all for the ideological divide. Imagine a black Larry David seeking out white women who treat him like a slave. Not so funny, eh?
Larry runs where he thinks there is an opening. As for comparing this to Nazis misses the mark. We are talking about America and I buy pizza from a Palestinian restaurant in NYC. Quite good. Larry is trying to get opposing sides to laugh at themselves obviously with himself as a foil. Now maybe the Jewish Bakery and the Palestinian Restaurant could merge. There is a long history of this massaging the viewers going back before Archie Bunker and the Meathead…..
I rather doubt Larry would try this in Gaza…..
If anyone actually watched the whole series of Curb Your Enthusiasm you would realise that Larry D constantly gets himself into the most excruciating social situations, some of them so cringeworthy and nerve-wracking they’re almost impossible to watch ion one sitting.
One of the hardest to watch was one that involved no poolitics, no Jew-hatred, just a series of episodes where LD’s intentions are constantly misread and he mcops a lot of flak.
Another is where he gets into trouble because of his extreme selfishness and lack of empathy. All the episodes turn on the most hot-making social mistakes.
This episode (and no I have not seen it buit trust to the writer’s excellent description here), while politically charged, it’s funny for the same reasons all the others are funny – becaseu LD’s character is torn between his own desire and what the right thing is to do.
i don’t say I’d necessarily like the episode. BUt the premise is funny and it clearly paid off. I have in the past found myself laughing at comedy while disliking the content, but that’s the way a well-constructed comedy show works. Everyone in this episode is following who they are and the contrasts give us the comedy. Simply because we recognise the idiocy of humanity and its capture in a comedy show.
Doesn’t mean we want to finance Hamas or march in a Hezbollah rally…
Exactly. Amen.
From the description I’d have to agree. It does not seem as if Larry David is endorsing this behavior or even thinks much of his eponymous character. If anything he seems to be “playing out” the logical conclusion of some weird self-hating impulse that he either acknowledges in himself or sees in others of a similar bent.
Ben Stein always reminded us not to confuse TV with reality. That seems like a good rule to apply here.
Going to have a kapo during World War II getting abused by Warden Ilsa?) too late.
Portiere della notte is about a concentration camp victim that found a camp official in a hotel and renew her sexual realtionship with him. She had sex for life while in the camp
Going out on a limb here because I’ve never seen the show. But, based on this review (excellent) I’ll offer my take on the merits of the plot, exclusive of its origins.
It is possible that what this episode is about is simply apolitical. Don’t forget that the woman is having sex with him as well, and apparently, enjoying it. One could argue either that both parties have stooped to a new low, or that they have transcended their political limitations. One could also argue that they are simply animals. If I had written the story as described, it might have been to illustrate what humans are, apart from what they say they are. I’m told that David’s politics are on the left and I’ll take that at face value. On the other hand, don’t forget the heart-stopping brilliance of “Seinfeld” before the politics of the writers were at issue.
In some ways, David is saying the penis is greater than the mind. Gee, how original. So he spins the idea in the most un PC way as he usual does. Now if that Palestinian woman wasn’t a hottie, which she is, the spoof wouldn’t work. Look at David and then imagine two beauties in bed with such a schlep. This is the tension he’s working with. If it was 1956, he’d be debating the merits of a fling with Natasha from the KGB.
Or, if you want to pursue it further, David could be saying “we’ve hated each other (and ourselves) for thousands of years…our other constant is sex.” It sounds like a genuinely absurd episode, and I don’t mean that as a criticism or a compliment. Again, you can watch some of the “Seinfeld” episodes today and the stories are fresh. I loved watching “Seinfeld” because, even though they were internally consistent, you never “solved” the key characters. It was left open-ended.
Wasn’t there a nineteenth century German dude and novelist who wrote about groveling male sexual relationships with females? Name of Masoch, right? Yeah, Masoch, otherwise known today as masochism. Funny how the modern masochist still always requires the female sadist. Weinerman!!!!
Since tribalism is enforced by the tribe at birth precisely why should the rest of the world care about anti-tribalism? You equivocate politics with the personal, Pal.
This has nothing to do with “tribalism.” And non-Jews (like myself) should be very concerned about anti-Semitism. When people want to persecute Jews usually the Jews are just the first in line…
Don’t forget that Muslim women have been told it is justified for their menfolk to rape Jewish women as part of the struggle (see: Egyptian Lawyer Nagla Al-Imam Suggests Arab Men Should Sexually Harass Israeli Women and Declares: Leave the Land So We Won’t Rape You, Al-Arabiya TV (Dubai/Saudi Arabia) – October 31, 2008 ), but actually do it themselves and to Jewish men? [see: http://myrightword.blogspot.com/2011/07/can-tv-sex-entertainment-be-politically.html
So maybe I’m just dense. I can’t find any humor, satirical or otherwise, in this episode or the show. I saw it once, found it gratingly immature and misanthropic, and never returned to be insulted (Jewish woman here) or annoyed again. Our culture has certainly slid into the abyss when plots and dialogue revolve around self-loathing, misogyny, and Antisemitism practiced by Jews.
Two and Half Men? Entourage? Dexter? You don’t watch TV too much if you think Larry David is why our “culture” is sliding downward.
Or maybe Borat is to blame……
Chicks don’t generally enjoy black humor.
sounds familiar: we have been fighting all of our married life,….It has been going on for 2600 years. We call each other names, throw things at each other, we express all kind of curses, ” I hate you, I wish you were dead, I’d like to kill you and then all of a sudden we back off and are drawn to making passionate love , covering each with kisses like there is no tomorrow. And then we remark,”that was the best sex we ever had” “Enough Already”
Why don’t we work at deminishing the bad speech and the sexual repression and see if we can make the next 2600 years honoring my mother’s often command,
“Children, don’t fight, make love!”
Um, interesting insights aside, you do realise this show is a COMEDY don’t you??
WEird stuff happens in comedy, often following bizarre premises that have to play out according to the character’s desires.
Just by reading the description alone I can see that this is a perfect representation of the Liberal outlook on life: they are at their happiest when they can have sex while dining on the rhetoric of hatred against a culture they reject at the same time. Hatred and fornication – the ultimate passions…the Liberal Heroin.
its probably not your mother’s dream that you be in an abusive relationship, though…
I’m a fairly traditional Jew (daven at orthodox synagogue, send my kids to day-school (Jewish parochial school) and have seen CYE a few times on airline flights (including the episode where Larry tries to have an affair with a married Hasidic women.
It’s a comedy people, a hilarious comedy!
If anything it’s a closet neo-con’s take on the bizarre view of the world-view of secular Hollywood limousine liberals (Larry David, meet David Mamet). The religious Jews in CYE have little resemblance to real Jews. It’s a secular liberal’s distorted PoV and, bottom line, Larry, the secular liberal focus of the show, almost always ends up being humiliated with his hypocrisy, narcissism and/or foolishness revealed.
P.S. Don’t forget the classic “Jewish” moment in CYE when Larry’s wife pushed him to have a marriage re-commitment ceremony. Nervous, arrogant Larry jumps the gun at his big moment of breaking the shot glass and steps on it while it’s still in the rabbi’s hand on the floor, giving the Rabbi a big, bloody cut as his guests gasp.
i believe you are hitting the mark marcH
we must recall that larry david’s ex-wife laurie (the embodiment of leftist/environmentalist nutjobs and the blueprint for elaine benes), who eventually hooked up with algore, may be the catalyst for a possible neocon outing for david
as far as curb is concerned- the biggest antagonist is the pc/hollywood/westside status quo– yes, i do believe larry david is a possible closet neocon — someone send a copy of “road to serfdom” to his offices stat
The two political issues that he weaved into this episode had to do with the mosque at Ground Zero …which was trivialized and belittled by the opening of a new Palestinian chicken joint next to Goldblatt’s Deli. Those who were on the “side” of the Deli made statements such as: “It’s disrespectful”, “Why can’t they put it a mile away”, “How far away is respectful”…etc.
The other issue occurs when Larry tries to tell Funkhouser to take off his yarmulke and forcibly tries to remove it, before they go into the chicken joint. The staff and patrons see this…and break out in applause…for a Jew attacking another Jew for showing his Judaism through clothing.
Larry “turning against his own kind” is hailed as worthy of “favors”.
These two positions fit perfectly with the leftist playbook. They are aligned to a tee.
I almost always agree with what you write, but not here. This is satire, and very funny.the absence of a sense of humor is typical of the extremes of left or right. Please lighten up!
I might see your point about the satirical aspect if there were even some semblance of this class of morons in Hollywood presenting the opposite point of view humorously. When was the last time, or even the first time you saw a portrayal of a mooselimb being an idiot, or presented in a less-than-favorable light by these apologists, i.e.. David and leftists.
I find it tiresome to always get fed the same biased PC BS.
I laughed quite a bit at this episode. You should read more carefully.
While I’m on the opposite end of the political spectrum from David, I found this episode hilarious. He may be a Hollywood lefty, but unlike many of them he has a very wry sense of humor.
Curb is brilliant and LD is gets credit for tackling a tough subject to laugh about. For those unfamiliar with the show, LD is supposed to be the anti-hero, as others point out. This is critical to getting the show. What his character does is definitely NOT supposed to be an endorsement of that action – usually the opposite.
The one thing that sounds too difficult to believe is the sexually liberated Palestinian woman manager character. Not thatthey don’t exist. Just that they would be afraid of being attacked by their insanely protective male relatives.
I have not argued that Larry David is endorsing anything.
How are people missing the big joke here? Larry David’s character is loathesome. You’re not supposed to take anything he does as good. You’re supposed to hate the self-loathing jerk. That’s the point – the whole show is a sendup of various Hollywood archetypes, not least of which is the leftist secular Jewish entertainment industry guy.
The better comedians in Hollywood have to do a court jester act. They can’t say straight up how loathesome a lot of Hollywood people and our culture is. But they can joke about it, and they can speak very painful truths if they make themselves the butt of the joke. They skewer themselves, knowing full well that there will be additional casualties. To think Larry David is arguing in favor of a perverse type of Stockholm Syndrome here is just nuts; you’re missing the joke. So he makes fun of an ostentatious convert. Do you know anybody who has found religion in a big way? They’re very often a pain in the rear; he’s not off base to point that out. But that minor joke seems to have colored everybody’s interpretation of the big joke, which is that Larry (really a lot of Hollywood types) are infatuated with people who would destroy them, just wipe them out. He’s managed to tell that truth in a hilarious way, and it’s possible that a lot of the people who are the brunt of that joke either aren’t smart enough to get anything he’s saying, or they get caught up in his taking the Yarmulke off his buddy’s head and cheer him on for that.
I suppose if you hated that episode, you had better really stay away from Sarah Silverman, because she takes this attack-Hollywood-by-attacking-myself routine to new, milk-out-the-nose heights.
I didn’t hate the episode. It was the strongest so far of the season.
I like the fact that you’re trying to draw some kind of generalized political conclusions based on a single episode of a satirical sitcom. That’s like trying to learn architecture by looking at Snoopy’s doghouse through the bottom of a Coke bottle. Keep straining like that and you’re gonna get metaphoric hemorrhoids.
And I like the fact that you’re not actually responding to anything I’ve written and are instead creating a strawman argument that you can more easily refute.
Wow. All these right-wingers here taking Larry David’s character and show so seriously. But it sailed right over their heads.
Get a clue folks: It’s a joke! He’s not trying to come off as someone people should respect or emulate. But, even given that, he makes valid statements, such as that Palestinians are people, too, and that not all Jews hate them.
I’ll never understand right-wingers. They’re so dominated by fear that hatred — or admiration for those who hate — are the only attitudes they can summon. That can’t be a pleasant way to live.
“I’ll never understand right-wingers.”
Really? What is it that’s preventing you from understanding half of the country? Wouldn’t this be a useful form of empathy to acquire, in an effort to spread both tolerance and diversity especially in era where the president has called for a new tone of civility? Please try to answer these questions without employing an ad-hominem attack in the process.
/Curb Your Enthusiasm/ is a very popular show, while there is not a similar conservative-leaning show with anything near its popularity.
Half of the country? You demonstrate many of the misconceptions held by right-wingers. Much more than half wanted a strong public health insurance option. Much more than half of the country did not want to extend tax cuts for the rich. Much more than half of the country wanted strong finance industry regulation. Much more than half of the country does not want to cut Medicare or Social Security.
In case you don’t get it, those are not right-wing positions.
By the way, only 42% of Americans identify themselves as conservative, while 55% identify as liberal or moderate. 42% is not “half of the country”.
http://washingtonindependent.com/88453/a-plurality-of-americans-self-identify-as-conservative-whats-new
And among those who identify themselves as conservative, how many of them do you think actually have the progressive positions of wanting to strengthen Medicare and Social Security rather than weaken it and to increase taxes on the rich rather than reduce them, as actual right-wingers want to do?
One final note: you should learn what an ad hominem attack actually is. I didn’t use one. One of the major and most dominant characteristics of right-wingers is their fear, and that often results in hatred. That’s why fascism always comes from the right and not, as they nevertheless like to claim, from the left.
“That’s why fascism always comes from the right and not, as they nevertheless like to claim, from the left.”
How did a policy that espoused…
…And called itself “National Socialism” be considered rightwing? It’s to the right of Communism of course, but I missed the issue of Reason that espoused that style of libertarianism.
The episode was about Larry finding a great place to have a plate of chicken. The chicken was so great, he couldn’t care less who owned the place.
Then, he had sex with the same premise. All the while surrounded by partisans from both sides of the argument with no sense of humor. So many partisans have a zero sense of humor.
I love how everyone’s trying to smear me as not having a sense of humor when I note how much I laughed at the episode in spite of its politics.
I feel left out. What is entertaining about this?
This is a parody article, right?
um…WOW.
talk about over-analyzing.
DUDE, it’s a COMEDY SHOW.
no matter your politics, we all need humor to survive this cray world. you need to lighten up, man.
Um, DUDE, half of what people say when they’re joking they’re actually serious about. And I said that it was a hilarious episode in spite of its horrific politics. Read more carefully next time.
whether or not larry david is concious of it, all his stories are jewish stories and have a morality thread connected to a question just like the torah might ask.
is it right for a man to want a chicken made palestinian-style?
is it right for a man to eat a palestinian chicken in a palestinian place?
is it right for a man to fornicate with a palestinian woman?
before marriage?
is he still jewish, afterwards?
apparently, not according to larry, who appeared from the bedroom speaking in an english accent like ralph richardson.
the english accent will go away. poor larry david. you can’t “lose” your jewishness. it is the DNA. it is your civilization, regardless whether you practice the religion.
there are no atheists in foxholes. same concept.
In real life, a Muslim woman that will have sex like that will be killed in a matter of days, with or without anti-Semitic screaming.
Ever heard of honor killing?
In the sequel episode, Larry shows up for a second date just as the woman’s father is beheading her for sleeping with a Jew. Hilarity ensues.