Derrida on Seinfeld

Watching Jacque Derrida try and interact with normal ass humans while growing more and more exasperated is still one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.

The visible look of disgust is perfect.

I thought he was going to deconstruct the name: Seinfeld translates from German as "field of being." Derrida could have had fun with that.

I think she did an excellent job conceptualizing it for him.

i need someone to edit the sigma male music playing over derrida when he lays out the cold, hard truth

I feel like there was confusion between the traditional definition of 'deconstructing' (i.e. the breaking apart of an object or piece of media to investigate/analyse/satirise its constituent parts) and Derrida's deconstructive thought (i.e. the much broader theory of language/meaning as a decentralised relational system). Seinfeld is a deconstruction of the sitcom in one sense of the word, but wholly unrelated in the other. I think you can kinda see where the interviewer was coming from.

These pretzels are making me thirsty.

After a couple episodes of Seinfeld Derrida would be deconstructing his philosophy of deconstruction and discover he is Kramer’s doppelgänger.

Insert laughtrack

Derrida was among other things a philosophical jokester, a clown of sorts. You might even call him a "merry prankster." His saying, "Turn off the sitcom and do your homework" could be partly tongue-in-cheek. He would have appreciated this Seinfeld scene in any case: https://youtu.be/BLXtHU_HGXs (In French, 'dérider' is a verb meaning to cheer up or brighten up; 'ridērer' is Latin for laugh and 'deridēre' means to deride. In English we have 'deride', 'ridicule', and 'ridiculous'. Did Derrida regard his own name as a sign of his vocation as jester?)

"Americans, your lack of Education is the joke of the world." Gore Vidal

Reporter: I have a real intelligent analysis regard Seinfeld to share with you. Derrida: (feels IQ dropping points)

Obviously truncated. Pretty sure Derrida is just differentiating his philosophical method from the generalized and very popular usage of the word deconstruction, which is very very different from what Derrida was talking about. Notice Derrida’s not saying anything negative about sitcoms, which would be really out of character from his own thought, which was playful through and through, but rather trying to say if you want to understand what he means by ‘deconstruction’, actually do your homework. His concepts were widely misused and misrepresented (especially in America). And because of said misrepresentation, many people developed a derogatory caricature of Derrida and his ideas without cultivating an understanding of his influences or the lineage of philosophical thinkers against whom he establishes his thought.

This situation gives me “Curb your enthusiasm” vibes rather than “Seinfeld”. DJ play the piano song. Larry David would profit anyway.

Deconstruction = Seinfeld

cue the music

One of the best questions ever asked, got him fumbling

rekt

Mud sometimes gives the illusion of depth

Based