Gen X Ruminations: My Sitcom, My Life
Every generation since the 50s has had their sitcom. For my mother, it was M.A.S.H. Part of my deep appreciation for humor was fostered by watching her uncontrolled laughter in response to Alan Alda’s antics. Hawkeye could do no wrong and, together, my mother and I watched the show religiously. But, the show was for another generation. Though it depicted the Korean War, it’s parallels to the Vietnam experience were overt and intentional. And, in keeping with the precedent set by All In The Family, it wasn’t limited to laughs. M.A.S.H. often tackled very difficult subjects and its finale in 1983, as a last homage to America’s experience in Vietnam, did not offer anyone a “happily ever after” resolution. Though my mother was no Boomer, M.A.S.H. was a Boomer sitcom.
Later, as I made my way through high school, there came along a series “where everyone knew your name”. Cheers premiered in 1982 and was most definitely a Boomer sitcom. It presented the lives of working stiffs in the 80s who were just a bit past their prime (some more than others) but who still sought out the community offered by an unpretentious Boston watering hole. It avoided the heavy social commentary of All In The Family or M.A.S.H. and, in its place, extended the comfort of a bar where people from every station came to forget their problems and enjoy some reassurance that we were all in this together. Wonderfully written, Cheers was witty, warm and consoling during a time when, outside the bar, things were changing at would could be a frightening pace. Inside the bar, however, everyone was on equal footing and regardless of their education, prior fame or assumed prowess, life proved to be a great equalizer and friendship offered the only worthwhile way to make it through. “Surely,” I once thought to myself, “no show could be more entertaining than Cheers.”
What I didn’t realize, as Cheers was waning in its seventh season, was that my show had come along. A show for my generation that, during the 90s, would prove far more relatable than any sitcom that had preceded it. I’m referring to Seinfeld — a self-proclaimed “show about nothing”. (That was never directly stated about Seinfeld itself, but when the concept was introduced within the series, it was obviously self-referential.) Now, I want to be fair. The creators and actors in Seinfeld were (are) all Boomers. As I write this, Jerry Seinfeld is 67 years-old and this fact blows my mind. Wasn’t he a guy my age who lived in my building just a few years back? No…he wasn’t, and it was more than just a few years back. But TV and movies are rife with actors playing people much younger than themselves. By the time Saved By The Bell finally ended, I think half the cast were on their second marriages. I could be wrong about that, but you get the point. Regardless, I’m claiming Seinfeld for Generation X.
I was living much of Jerry’s TV life by the time the show really hit its stride. I had a small apartment, a close group of friends of both sexes, and there was hardly a situation that I faced as a single, straight guy that Seinfeld didn’t address at some point. The first example that leaps to mind is the hilarious battle between Seinfeld’s penis and his brain while dating a woman to whom he feels a tremendous physical attraction, but simultaneously finds painfully vacuous. Is there anyone who hasn’t faced this conundrum? Your brain is begging — literally begging — you to end the relationship but you just can’t give up the sex. Not right away, at least. They say the brain doesn’t actually feel pain, but after prolonged intellectual torture, you have to reluctantly say goodbye.
And Elaine, played wonderfully by Julia Louis-Dreyfus! She was the epitome of what I termed the “guy-girl”. A guy-girl is a heterosexual woman who prefers to have friendships with men rather than women. I don’t want to run the risk of offending anyone here and I’ll try not to generalize, though I probably will, but I think my guy-girl friends would agree that they find men to be more direct, more transparent and less “catty” than their female acquaintances. They prefer sports to gossip and are every bit as open about their interest in sex — not love — as are their male counterparts. (Though it was never the focus of an episode, it was obvious that Elaine had the same brain vs. sex drive conflict when it came to her on again/off again onscreen boyfriend Puddy.) Elaine perfectly depicted the kind of platonic relationships I was having with women. We were all “up for stuff” and had a ton of laughs along the way.
I could name a million other similarities between the comical experiences that made up the show and my own life at the time but I’ll conclude with one notable way that Seinfeld was analogous to my little world in the 90s: they stayed single! Unlike the tiresome, and sometimes implausible, matrix of hook ups that Friends drug us through as their writers clearly ran out of ideas, the Seinfeld core maintained their single lives. So, for the most part, did my good friends and I. We had relationships — some more serious than others — but this never really interfered with our ability to hang out and enjoy each other’s company. Like Cheers, we valued a community of friends and if Jerry was busy we had coffee with Kramer, so to speak. Artistically, I really admired this conviction to the original concept. (“If Relationship George walks through this door, he will KILL Independent George!”)
Some have criticized the final two-part ending of the series, but I found it both entertaining and fitting. If there’s anyone who hasn’t seen it, I won’t recount the details here but it suffices to say that it revisited many of the classic characters the show had introduced over the previous decade. But, the decade was coming to a close and all things must end. The show was still very popular in 1998 and certainly enjoyed ratings that could have justified dragging it out for a few more seasons, but I applaud the decision by Jerry Seinfeld and co-creator Larry David to go out on top. As a “show about nothing”, it was absolutely perfect in my humble opinion. However, my views are undoubtedly shaped by a generational bias and, just as M.A.S.H. was for my mother, Seinfeld was my sitcom.
