Jerry Seinfeld is walking back comments he made earlier this year blaming political correctness ruining comedy.
In a new interview, the Unfrosted director is expressing his regret for blaming the “extreme left” killing humor.
“I did an interview with The New Yorker, and I said that the extreme left has suppressed the art of comedy,” Seinfeld said on Breaking Bread with Tom Papa. “I did say that. That’s not true. It’s not true.”
Seinfeld started his mea culpa saying, “There were two things that I have to say I regret saying and that I have to take back.”
The comedian started by saying, “One of them, I didn’t say but people think I dod so just the same. I said I don’t play colleges because the kids are too PC and you can’t do comedy for them.”
Seinfeld said he never said it and noted he plays colleges “all the time,” adding, “I have no problem with kids, performing for them.”
In April of this year, Seinfeld said in an interview with the New Yorker, “It used to be that you would go home at the end of the day…People would go, ‘Oh, Cheers is on. M*A*S*H is on. Oh, Mary Tyler Moore is on. All in the Family is on. Where is it? Where is it? This is the result of the extreme left and P.C. crap and people worrying so much about offending other people.”
“When you write a script, and it goes into four or five different hands, committees, groups – ‘Here’s our thought about this joke’ – well, that’s the end of your comedy,” he said earlier this year. “With certain comedians now, people are having fun with them stepping over the line, and us all laughing about it. But again, it’s the stand-ups that really have the freedom to do it because no one else gets the blame if it doesn’t go down well. He or she can take all the blame [themselves].”
Seinfeld is now using the Uno reverse card on those comments explaining to Tom Papa, “If you’re Lindsey Vonn, if you’re a champion skier, you can put the gates anywhere you want on the mountain. She’s going to make the gate. That’s comedy. Whatever the culture is, we make the gate. You don’t make the gate, you’re out of the game. The game is, where is the gate? How do I make the gate and get down the hill the way I want to?”
“Does culture change and are there things I used to say that I can’t say that everybody is always moving? Yeah, but that’s the biggest, easiest target. You can’t say certain words, you know, whatever they are, about groups, so what?” he added.
Watch Seinfeld’s full interview on Breaking Bread with Tom Papa in the video below.
