#9 "I'm Queen of the Castle!"

When everything is a competition or a game in the show SEINFELD, SEINFELD watchers and critics were amazed and shocked when the episode "The Contest" came out when the competition between the characters got a little more interesting. The contest over which of the 4 characters could withstand masterbating the longest, was very critically successful and was a big audience pleaser throughout the summer of 1992. The episode, "The Contest", is so different than what most sit-com fans are used to because this episode deals with an issue that is used most in shows and/or movies that deals with adolescence. But it is the respectfulness that the show uses in a way that creates the show to have such high ratings and not have bad taste. SEINFELD realizes that its audience isn't majority of young teenagers, so it finds other ways to describe masterbation. Rather than use the word, the show uses scenes of the cast sleeping and phrases like " Master of your domain", and "Queen of the Castle" to get the point across. Even though these 4 characters are supposed to be in their 30's and part of the mature working class of New York, this episode contributes to the extended adolescence that these 4 unique characters have that separates SEINFELD from other sit-coms, which makes the show so interesting. Like most adolescent characters, the characters of SEINFELD see members of the opposite sex as objects of pleasure rather than people they could potentially give love or share a life with. It is the shallowness and the absurdity of these 4 working-class characters that makes this show what it is.