Is Larry David the Last Man?
On this episode of The Time of Monsters, Daniel Bessner talks about Jewish comedy, Seinfeld, and Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Larry David on April 18, 2024, in Hollywood, California.
(Kevin Winter / Getty Images)As cocreator of Seinfeld and star of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David has dominated American television for more than three decades. The recent airing of the final episode of Curb, which mirrored the plot of the final episode of Seinfeld, marks the end of the era.
To discuss Larry David’s legacy on The Time of Monsters, I was joined by historian Daniel Bessner, who wrote an essay about the comedian for The Nation. In a wide-ranging talk, Daniel places David’s career in the trajectory of Jewish American comedy, looking at both predecessors (Mel Brooks, Woody Allen) and successors (Ben Stiller, Seth Rogen). We take up the comedy of rudeness and the humor of shared frailty, as well as the question of David’s somehow evading cancel culture. Tying in with Daniel’s earlier writings on Francis Fukuyama, we also ask if David is the singular comedian of the end of history and the embodiment of the “last man” that Nietzsche feared would one day dominate the world.
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Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation