The Lenore Thomson Exegesis Wiki

Seinfeld

Hypothesis: A show about Extraverted Feeling from the perspective of people who don't believe in it

Seinfeld bills itself as a "show about nothing", but really it's a show about extraverted feeling from the perspective of people who view it as a foreign, somewhat frightening world. In other words, it's a show about secondary and inferior extraverted feeling.

The plot of nearly every episode involves the characters trying to analyze what other people have obligated them into doing. Kenny Banya (ESFJ) gives Jerry a nice suit because it doesn't fit him anymore. Jerry is somewhat reluctant to accept the gift, though, because he senses that it carries unwanted obligations. Sure enough, people suggest that Jerry ought to take Banya out to dinner as a thank you for such a nice gift. Banya would like to have dinner at Mendy's. When they get there, though, Banya decides that he only wants soup. So he'll collect his Mendy's dinner from Jerry some other time. Now analysis-of-Fe begins in a big way: did the soup count as a dinner? Jerry can't stand Banya, though as a political move, he doesn't express that feeling in public. Does the suit obligate him to spend a second evening with Banya, buying him even more food? And what if Banya decides he only wants dessert that night? What an insane, arbitrary world, where a gift can't just be a gift, it's got to bring along all this unresolvable complexity.

Banya, being a dominant-Fe type, has no inhibitions about expressing his feelings and pushing for everything he can get in the Fe sphere. Probably only unconsciously, Banya knows that if Jerry turns him down, it will be Jerry who looks like the bad guy, not Banya. Banya lives and breathes Fe, while to Jerry, the Fe world of relationships that exist through recognized signs is something to ridicule, to point out the illogic of, to turn against itself (as in the abortion episode), but especially to fear and respect because it's frightening to think of what would happen if people turned against you. Jerry doesn't himself feel any of the obligation of the Fe world; but he knows that other people do, so he goes along.

Calling itself "a show about nothing" actually illustrates the show's attitude toward the Fe world of relationship and obligation: it's nothing, just a bunch of meaningless nonsense. And yet we're caught up in it, trying to navigate our way through it, terribly worried that we'll come out losers in terms of Fe, never fully understanding what it is that we care about so much or why.


See Jerry Seinfeld, George Costanza.

Version 6 2005-Apr-03 13:51 UTC

Last edit by Ben Kovitz