After being informed that our english class would spend an entire semester studying SEINFELD and the sitcom genre, I was greatly perplexed. I had grown up watching SEINFELD weekly with my parents as a child, and over time have fallen in love with the show. But I had never before seen the correlation between SEINFELD and cultural learning.
It did not take long to discover how many cultural and social references of the 1990's decade were featured in SEINFELD. Since I only viewed the show in the past as a child, I obviously did not pay much attention to issues such as abortion, in relation to Cramer's controversal pizza making in "The Couch." I also did not focus on the minute real life annoyances the show focuses on, such as how to order soup "The Soup Nazi," the annoyance of quiet talkers "The Puffy Shirt," or how people frequently discriminate last names "The Chinese Woman."
By realizing the numerous cultural references in SEINFELD I believe I have a better understanding of how much the show impacted its' decade. Not only was SEINFELD a pioneer in the sitcom genre for bringing up issues others could not talk about (gays, lesbians, and abortion), but it also gave the public a comedic view of what would be everyday mundane situations. SEINFELD proved it was more than a "show about nothing," it is a revolutionary leaving a profound impact on American society for years to come.
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