Pretty, Pretty, Pretty Good by Josh Levine

Author:Josh Levine
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ecw press

EPISODE NINE

Affirmative Action / Original Airdate: December 10, 2000 / Directed by Bryan Gordon

Until now Larry has occasionally been selfish and mean, but he hasn’t been truly ignorant or tasteless. But that is about to change. This is not a “Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People” episode. This is a “Why Do Bad Things Happen to Stupid, Thoughtless People” episode.

Which of these characteristics is most important to Larry: that he is rich, white, Jewish, in show business, or from Booklyn? The first two, if what happens early in the episode is any indication. Larry goes on a walk with Richard Lewis, who, like a petulant girlfriend, complains that he always has to initiate their get-togethers. When a black man jogs by, Richard says hello and introduces him to Larry as his dermatologist. Larry tries to be funny by suggesting the man has become a doctor through the “whole affirmative action thing.” The doctor is naturally offended; Larry has suggested that he wasn’t good enough to get into medical school on his own.

But wait a minute. Was Larry really trying to be funny? Would the line be funny if it wasn’t offensive — or even if it is? Not at all. Perhaps what Larry was really doing was saying that for him the man was black before he was anything else, and that his race makes Larry uncomfortable. He’s saying it without realizing the true meaning, of course. Larry is, indeed, someone who says aloud the thoughts that most people manage to keep to themselves. This is rather brave of Larry David (the man, not the character). I can’t think of a single actor in television who would wish to appear as even a mild racist, unless, like Archie Bunker, it was an essential part of his fictional character.

Larry David does like to pile one related incident on top of another to raise the stakes and he does so here when Larry the character runs into a black woman in a Mexican restaurant. She had interviewed for the job of line producer on Sour Grapes, but the position had gone to somebody else. She implies that she didn’t get the job because she’s black and then claims that there was not a single black character on Seinfeld. (Not quite true, but close.) “I’ve got your number,” she cries. “There’s no number!” insists Larry. To add insult, she notes that the film wasn’t very good and she was better off not getting the job.

This Larry-as-accused-racist has to reach a crescendo and to do it David relies on his favorite structure — using one plot to fulfill another. That other plot, begun early in the episode, has poor Cheryl suffering from a seriously itchy case of dermatitis. Among Larry’s issues is an excessive aversion to picking up other people’s cooties. First there was the incident with Mary Steenburgen’s mother’s glass. This time he flinches and backs away from Cheryl. But he really messes up by losing her prescription (he hands it to a maître d’, thinking it’s a rolled-up bill).

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