Coming out less subtle than I had envisioned, but I'm in a venomous mood
A Show about Nothing: The Role of Predictability in Seinfeld
One cannot begin a review of Seinfeld without addressing the irony of the fact that it professes to be “a show about nothing”. This statement by the show itself is significant. Stating that the show is “about nothing” establishes Seinfeld as a self-aware sitcom. Other quintessential Nineties sitcoms included Frasier, Friends, Married with Children, all of which, under criticism by cynics, armchair intelligentsia and anyone too pretentious to enjoy popular media, could be said to be “about nothing. In ironically professing to be “about nothing”, stating this fact outright, Seinfeld rebelled against the genre of the stereotypical modern Nineties sitcom by establishing itself as a caricature thereof, giving pretentious malcontents something they were allowed to watch on primetime television.
One cannot begin a review of Seinfeld without addressing the irony of the fact that it professes to be “a show about nothing”. This statement by the show itself is significant. Stating that the show is “about nothing” establishes Seinfeld as a self-aware sitcom. Other quintessential Nineties sitcoms included Frasier, Friends, Married with Children, all of which, under criticism by cynics, armchair intelligentsia and anyone too pretentious to enjoy popular media, could be said to be “about nothing. In ironically professing to be “about nothing”, stating this fact outright, Seinfeld rebelled against the genre of the stereotypical modern Nineties sitcom by establishing itself as a caricature thereof, giving pretentious malcontents something they were allowed to watch on primetime television.