This document provides context for analyzing representations of queer identity in the TV show Seinfeld. It introduces the topic and discusses how media impacts public understanding of queer identities. It then summarizes Michel Foucault's theory on how societies define sexuality. Next, it outlines the social and political climate around queer issues in the 1990s when Seinfeld aired. Specifically, it discusses events like Don't Ask Don't Tell and increasing visibility and debates around queer identities. It also cites a study showing rising tolerance for same-sex relations during this decade. In closing, it sets up an analysis of Seinfeld's representations within this historical and theoretical framework.

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Dylan Elliott
ENG 484
Dr. DeFazio
Spring 2016
“Not That There’s Anything Wrong with That!”:
Analyzing Representation of Queer Identity in Seinfeld
Introduction
From 1989 to 1998, Seinfeld and its famous self-centered misanthropes, Jerry, Elaine,
George, and Kramer have made many famous quips that have entered the American lexicon,
from “Master of their Domain” to “Spongeworthy” to “Yada Yada Yada.” One of the most
memorable comes from an episode titled “The Outing” in season four. I am of course referring to
the phrase already placed prominently in the title of this essay: “Not that there’s anything wrong
with that!” This famous phrase refers to one’s sexual preference, and it comes at an interesting
place in queer history and in the span of Seinfeld’s representations of queer identity.
From Seinfeld’s five-year stint being between the number three and number one show on
television (DailyInfographic.com), to its firm placement in a decade often referred to as the “Gay
‘90s” and considered the latter decade in the twenty year span known as the “neosexual
revolution,” Seinfeld is in a unique position when analyzing the representation of queer
characters and plots in TV and how those representations are either a reaffirmation of the
standing social ideology of queer identity or a progressive response to these views. As Melanie
Kohnen writes in her book, Queer Representation, Visibility, and Race in American Film and
Television: Screening the Closet, “... it’s film and television that have long had a decisive impact
on how Americans understand queer identities” (Kohnen 61).
In this essay, I will use the ideas Michel Foucault lays out in his book The History of
Sexuality (1978) as a base for moving forward in the analysis of Seinfeld’s representations of

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queer identity, then discuss the reigning views in the 1990s regarding people who were queer
before moving into close analyses of scenes and plots in “The Note” (1991), “The Subway”
(1992), “The Outing” (1993), “The Smelly Car” (1993), “The Beard” (1995), “The Sponge”
(1995), and finishing up with “The Wig Master” (1996). The point of this analysis is not to
police Seinfeld’s representations of queer identity. The point of this analysis is to bring a closer
understanding of how media can affect public opinion, but also how public opinion can affect
media.
Foucault
In The History of Sexuality, Foucault explains how the ideas of seuxality have changed
over the past few centuries and how each reigning episteme has affected the social institutions of
the time. According to Foucault, before the 19th century, sex and sexuality were viewed more as
“acts,” but with the growth of scientific cultural involvement in areas such as medicine,
psychology, education, and the church, sexuality became one’s “nature” in the eyes of society.
This then brings about the idea of sexuality being something one confesses if it is not
hetersexuality. Foucault explains, “Situated at the point of intersection of a technique of
confession and a scientific discursivity, sexuality was defined as being ‘by nature’: a domain
susceptible to pathological process, and hence one calling for therapeutic or normalizing
interventions” (Foucault 104). Thus, laws against sodomy sprouted, and practices such as gay
conversion therapy remain even to today.
It is how Foucault views the process of an evolving episteme, however, that helps us
when analyzing Seinfeld. “We are dealing not nearly so much with a negative mechanism of
exclusion as with the operation of a subtle network of discourse, special knowledges, pleasures,

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and powers” (Foucault 106). Though Foucault’s analysis starts in the 19th century, it is this
network and this view of sexuality which he argues also functions in the latter half of the 20th
century, where Seinfeld happens to be situated. The network of “discourse, special knowledges,
pleasures, and powers” includes points as big as media and national politics, and as small as
school board decisions; and they all affect how sex and sexuality is defined. There is no doubt
that pro-queer organizations like the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD)
and anti-queer organizations like the American Family Association (AFA ) are powerful points
in Foucault’s network, but an outlet of discourse that bolstered an average viewership anywhere
between twenty and thirty million per installment, as Seinfeld did (DailyInfographic.com), is a
point to take note of.
For this essay, I plan to follow what Foucault proposes when he says, “...we must begin
with these positive mechanisms, insofar as they produce knowledge, multiply discourse, induce
pleasure, and generate power; we must investigate the conditions of their emergence and
operation, and try to discover how the related facts of interdiction or concealment are distributed
with respect to them” (Foucault 107). This is the terrain I will traverse when analyzing Seinfeld.
But, first, the show should be put into the context of the ‘90s and the decade’s episteme relating
to queer identity.
Historical Perspective
Ah, the ‘90s: Bill Clinton was still president, Madonna still charted hits, and Bill Nye was
just starting his reign as the science guy. If only looking at a decade was as a simple as a three-
point list, but, alas, much and more happened in this ten-year span that had an incredible impact
on the episteme of sexuality. The decade has been dubbed the “gay ‘90s” and the “neosexual
revolution,” because, as Volkmar Sigusch explains in his article “Lean Sexuality: On Cultural

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Transformations of Sexuality and Gender in Recent Decades,” of the “combined process of
dissociation and association of the old sphere of sexuality, the dispersion of sexual fragments and
the diversification of sexual relationships that took place” (Sigusch 27). Tension arose in the
mindset of the public as conservative and progressive views started to drastically split. No doubt
this is in large part to the decade’s “proliferation of queer representations and heated debates in
both the popular and academic press over the implications of this allegedly new visibility”
(Kohnen 20). Events such as Ellen DeGeneres coming out in 1997 and Will and Grace getting
picked up by NBC in 1998 created hot water cooler chats, but more impactful events in
generating queer discourse happened than that.
Some of the biggest points in the network happened politically, as the country continued
to grapple with AIDS, as Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) became the presiding stipulation for
queer inclusion in the military in 1994, as the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was passed in
1996 defining marriage between one man and one woman, and as events like the trial of
Matthew Shepard’s homicide in 1998 spawned mass media attention, public outcry, and even an
acclaimed play. As Volkmar Sigusch furthers, “[The neosexual revolution’s] quiet reevaluation
and rearticulation of sexuality as a cultural form is probably much more consequential than the
changes wrought during the ‘sexual revolution’” (Sigusch 27). All these historical benchmarks in
queer visibility and discourse led to this reevaluation and rearticulation, and there is actual data
available that backs up Sigusch’s claim of how consequential the events of the 1990s were.
Charles Turner et. al. decided to question how the number of reports of same-sex
encounters, and attitudes towards those encounters, changed from 1988 to 2002. They argue that
since “the onset of the HIV epidemic, there has been a heightened interest in understanding the
prevalence and patterns of same-gender sexual contact in the population at large” (Turner et. al.

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440). Using information gathered from 21,000 interviews, their findings prove fascinating. “The
reporting of female-female contact in the past year, for example, more than doubles between
1988-1994 and 1996-2002,” though “male reporting of same-gender contacts since age 18 did
not evidence statistically significant variation by year in any of the three analyses” (Turner et. al.
444). (However, this just caused female-female contact to reach the same average percentage as
male-male contact, roughly 5.5% of respondents by 2002 [Turner et. al. 446].)
More interestingly, Turner et. al. found that, “Analysis of reported tolerance of same-
gender sex between 1988 and 2002 yielded the surprising finding of a dramatic increase in
tolerance during the 1990s. Comparing the periods 1988-1994 and 1996-2002, we found
judgements that same-gender sex was ‘not wrong at all’ increased from 15.6 percent to 26.0
percent among U.S. men and from 19.4 percent to 31.3 percent among U.S. women” (Turner et.
al. 458). According to Turner et. al. these changes in societal tolerance can affect “ both the
prevalence of same-gender sexual behaviors and survey repondents’ willingness to report these
behaviors” (Turner et. al. 460). Their findings for this change in tolerance and reporting in the
1990s towards same-gender sexual relations prove that the “Gay ‘90s” and the “Neosexual
Revolution” are not hyperbolic labels, and Foucault's assertion that powers and discourses have
the ability to change people’s views, and, in turn, the entire episteme, is not inaccurate.
To be sure, these are amazing increases, but, by the end of the ‘90s, more than half of the
population was still not completely on board with same-sex relations. It is important to
remember going forward that though the decade saw such a proliferation in visibility, the daily
lives of queer individuals, out of the closet or not, were far from being void of discrimination and
emotional strain.

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Moving forward, this information provided by Turner et. al., combined with
remembering major legislative and social events of the 1990s, creates a meaningful backdrop
when analyzing how Seinfeld’s representation of queer identity operates in this episteme.
Seinfeld
In proceeding with answering Foucault’s primary inquiry to investigate “the conditions
of [these positives mechanisms] emergence and operation, and try to discover how the related
facts of interdiction or concealment are distributed with respect to them” in Seinfeld, while
remembering the “revolution” that was happening sexually through the 1990s, it is perhaps most
productive to map out Seinfeld’s most notable inclusions of queer characters and queer-themed
plots from the show’s genesis to the show’s finale.
As a backdrop to this analysis, the words of Judith Butler, from her essay Imitation and
Gender Insubordination (1991), will prove to be invaluable as one’s thoughts about each queer
representation meander in cerebral terrain. In her essay, Butler embarks on deconstructing the
idea of “being” queer, along with society's representations of queer identity. “Which version of
lesbian or gay ought to be rendered visible,” questions Butler, “and which internal exclusions
will that rendering visible institute? Can the visibility of identity suffice as a political strategy, or
can it be the starting point for a strategic intervention which calls for a transformation of policy”
(Butler 561). Of course, it is likely folly to assert that Seinfeld has a political strategy to make
queerness visible, but the show (and every show) chooses its words and its images for a reason.
No two queer characterizations are the same, and queer visibility in itself cannot be deemed
progressive outright. Let us not forget going forward, as Butler asserts, that the inclusion of one
type of visibility inherently excludes another.

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But, already, there may be a problem with queer visibility in the show, for it is not until
season three when queerness emerges. (It should be noted, though, that season one is a mere four
episodes in length and season two is but twelve.) And this instance, “The Note,” from September
1991, may be the high water mark for homophobia in Seinfeld’s nine-season run.
The episode’s title refers to Jerry, George, and Elaine trying to get doctor’s notes so
insurance will pay for their messages. Things go sour for Jerry and well for Elaine, but for
George, well, let’s look at this early and telling exchange between George and Elaine after
George finds out his message therapist is a man:
George: “I can’t get a massage from a man.”
Elaine: “Why not?”
George: “What are you crazy? I can’t have a man touching me. Switch with me.”
Elaine: “No, I don’t want the man either.”
George: “What’s the difference, you’re a woman, they’re supposed to be touching
you.”
Elaine: “He’d just be touching your back.”
George: “He’d just be touching your back, too.”
Elaine: “No, it could get sexual.”
George: “I know, that’s the point. If it’s gonna get sexual it should get sexual with
you.”
Elaine: “I wouldn’t be comfortable.”
George: “I would? What if something happens?”
Elaine: “What could happen?”
George: “What if it felt good?”
Elaine: “It’s supposed to feel good.”
George: “I don’t want it to feel good.”
George shows here that he fears there is some latent desire within him to be with another
man, and all it will take for this desire to manifest itself is some sensual contact by the massage

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therapist (who just happens to be an empirically attractive man). Simply put, George is afraid to
be gay. He may try using the same sexual argument with Elaine, but it does not equate. For
Elaine, a male therapist may try make a move on her, but for George, a male therapist might
might upend his whole life and worldview by unintentionally arousing him.
“I think it moved,” a worried and bewildered George tells Jerry after the message. Jerry
doesn’t think much of it, but George, going into self-convincing mode, starts explaining that he
doesn’t even like it when, say, his knees touch another man’s knees on a plane, or that he prefers
to pee in a stall so he doesn't have to stand so close to other men in the bathroom. Later on,
George enters Jerry’s apartment looking downtrodden and with a scuffed knee. He says some
kids called him a Mary after he made an effeminate jump over a puddle. “Kids can be very
perceptive,” replies Kramer.
The joke of the episode is is becoming clear: it is supposed to be funny watching
someone question their sexuality, which, of course, is not funny at all. As George shows by
never laughing at himself, the process of coming to terms with one’s own queerness is not an
easy ride (even if George is really straight.) As Sigusch explains, “Clearly, sexuality is no longer
discussed and mystified in positive terms as the great metaphor for desire and happiness. Instead,
it is seen in a negative light as the source and breeding ground of suppression, inequality and
aggression” (Sigusch 27). For George, and many people struggling with their identity, admitting
their own queerness can be seen as surrendering their heteronormative social standing. After all,
who would want to be on the receiving end of sentiments like, “The ACT-UP slogan on stickers
plastered all over Manhattan is ‘Silence=Death.’ But shouldn’t it be ‘Sodomy = Death’?” (Ron
Paul Political Report qt. in The New Republic). And yet, the episode was written so that the
audience would find his crisis funny. Likely unwittingly, “The Note” captures the angst of many

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people at the time (and even now) who have questioned their sexuality. If it were not for the
shows insistence of laughing at George’s struggle, I would say this was an instance of positive
queer visibility. But, it is not.
Season three moves on a dozen episodes before we get another queer plot point. This
time smaller, but just as telling. In “The Subway” Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer all having
to take the subway somewhere. Elaine happens to be going to a wedding, a “lesbian wedding,” as
it’s referred to by everyone save for Elaine. Of the two notable exchanges over this wedding, the
first comes between Elaine and George:
George: “How do they work a bride and groom on that? Do they flip a coin?”
Elaine: (sarcastically) “Yeah, they flip a coin.”
George: “What? Was that not politically correct? It was a legitimate question.”
We see here George’s heternormalizing of a homosexual couple. This exemplifies a
common problem of the time that Butler makes a point to note: “The negative constructions of
lesbianism as a fake or a bad copy can be occupied and reworked to call into question the claim
of heterosexual priority” (Butler 560). George is portraying a same-sex wedding as a copy of a
hetero wedding. In this episode Elaine seems exemplifies what Turner et. al. found: that women
have become more tolerant of same-sex contact than men in the ‘90s when she refuses to take
George’s question seriously. But right when one wants to give the show credit for having Elaine
recognize the absurdity of George’s question, Seinfeld turns right around and decides to have
Elaine be “the best man” at this wedding between two women. This is just as strong of an
instance of representing heterosexual norms as the original, and everything queer as a copy, as
Butler would say.

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There is one little moment of redemption for this episode, though, and it comes when
Elaine has a conversation with another woman about the wedding. On the subway, an older
woman portrayed as dimwitted (she doesn’t know what “ironic” means) and tradition (she begins
the conversation by telling Elaine that she’s been riding the subway for 40 years back when men
would give up their seats for a woman) asks Elaine why she has a gift in her hands. “I’m going to
a wedding,” Elaine responds. The older woman is delighted and asks what the man does (another
sign of a traditional mindset). Elaine, sensing this, tries for a long as she can to give answers
without saying it is a wedding between two women. Elaine does give this detail after persistency
from the older woman, which sets the woman aback to the point of to leaving Elaine in a huff.
The moment is funny, and the dichotomy between the traditional older woman and Elaine
may be a true reflection of the generation gap in queer tolerance. Elaine, however, makes a point
of saying to the older woman that she isn’t a lesbian herself, recognizing what George did in
“The Note” that to be queer, or, in this case, be perceived as queer, reduces one’s social standing.
Onto season four, starting perhaps the most famous episode of Seinfeld, “The Outing.” In
the episode, Jerry is waiting at Monk’s with Elaine and George for to get interviewed by an NYU
student. Since they have never seen each other, both Jerry and the reporter arrive and sit down in
neighboring booths, but think the other never showed. Elaine, noticing the women in the booth
next to them (who happens to be the reporter) is eavesdropping, decides to play a prank and tells
Jerry and George that they should just “come out already.” Jerry finds the joke sophomoric, but
doesn’t outright object. He even adds that he is often mistaken as being gay because he is
“single, thin, and neat,” and “get along well with women.”
Later, the reporter comes to Jerry’s apartment to do the interview. George is there and
bickers with Jerry about how clean a pear is and if his sweater is nice or not. The reporter, and

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the audience, sees this now through a same-sex relationship lense. Jerry eventually recognizes
the reporter as being from the coffee shop and instantly defends himself as being straight, “Not
that there’s anything wrong with that!” And so the episode continues, as the story and joke of
Jerry and George being a gay couple gets added to and eventually released to the papers.
Before continuing on a close analysis of the episode, it should be reminded that this did
win a GLAAD Media Award in 1994, GLAAD citing Seinfeld’s “continued inclusion of gay and
lesbian characters” (LA Times), and that the plot of the episode is not really even that original.
As Kohnen writes, “The worlds of homosocial sitcoms… are ripe with queer meanings--to the
point, for instance, where singular episodes featuring mistaken-identity plots (when the main
characters are perceived as gay, which gives them a chance to articulate their heterosexuality)
and have the task of (unsuccessfully) containing all the queer possibilities offered through the
shows’ diegeses” (Kohnen 55). So, this schtick has been around before Seinfeld’s reiteration in
1993.
In the beginning of the episode we already see parts of what Kohnen articulates, that the
characters fail to contain all the queer possibilities. In Jerry and George’s case, the main instance
is the “old couple”-like argument over a pear and a sweater. Interesting about this exchange,
though, is that it is not at all unlike a common bit of dialogue the show regularly puts forth. The
only aspect that changes is the way the audience views the context. The episode does a good job
of showing how “straight” behavior from the male characters that is not atypical for them can
easily be seen as “homosexual” behavior in the right lense, such as the one of the NYU
journalist. This subtle act plays with the very assumptions and stereotypes one puts on
homosexuals and questions their validity. Cleverly, and perhaps unknowingly, Seinfeld here is

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proving that the only thing different between something being “gay” and something
being”straight” is the mindframe of the interpreter.
Still, though the characters say “there’s nothing wrong” with being gay, and even go as
far into explicitly progressive sentiments as, “People’s personal sexual preferences are nobody’s
business but there own,” they are nevertheless vehement at squashing this rumor, enforcing what
past episodes have already shown: straight men really don’t want to be gay. The show now sets
up a contradiction that lasts the whole episode: there is nothing wrong with you being gay, but
there obviously is something wrong if people think I’m gay. If there really was nothing wrong
with being gay, then Jerry and George would not mind a bit over a prank gone awry, like this
one.
But it would be too soon to write off the episode yet. Take this line, by Jerry, when he
found out the prank story went national: “Oh, no! The Associated Press picked up the NYU
story! I’ve been outed, I wasn’t even in!” This line, obviously meant to be a joke, does, however,
recognize the phenomenon of being “outed” before one is ready as a negative, which is a
respectful and empathetic recognition. And the episode continues on to show why this is so
negative. As word spreads over Jerry’s sexuality, he gets a call from his distressed mother and
father. They are portrayed as being visibly upset and even get into an argument over a pair of
coolots Jerry’s mom bought him in the girls department when he was younger. Jerry’s mom
apologizes for buying this piece of clothing as a mistake, which she and his father think have
caused his gayness. This shows the very real generation gap in attitudes towards sexuality in the
90s that Turner et. al. found in their study, and a glimpse at what a lot of queer people had to go
through when they came out of were outed.

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As the episode nears its end, a former soldier comes up and thanks Jerry for his courage
in coming out, which inspired him to do the same, even though it caused him a discharge from
the service (a direct result of DADT). The studio audience gives its warmest and most
enthusiastic applause at this genuinely touching moment. And yet, the moment causes Jerry to
change his mind about seeing the musical “Guys and Dolls” with George. Apparently, though the
audience loved the moment, the showrunners used it as another instance that causes Jerry to get
fed up with “being” gay. And George, in a twist, decides he wants to embrace his perceived
sexuality, and to use being gay as a way to get out of a bad relationship. This reinforces the idea
that the characters would only truly be okay with being gay or perceived as gay if it came with
advantages, which they know, for the most part, it does not in the ‘90s. The last line comes from
Kramer, with a final “not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
Overall, it’s easy to see why GLAAD gave Seinfeld an award for this episode. On the
surface, it really does look like a show that is consciously trying to make a positive point, while
staying funny, about gay sexuality by trying to normalize it. The “Not that there’s anything
wrong with that!” phrase can be seen as especially progressive considering less than one third of
America actually thought there was nothing wrong with same-sex relations (Turner et. al. 458).
But, conversely, it shows the privilege of straight people who still don’t want to be gay
themselves, but can afford to play with sexuality like it’s game (though, anyone who has ever
been on the receiving end of homophobic sentiment would attest in a second that it is no game).
Still, in fleeting instances, like Jerry’s lament about being outed prematurely, Jerry’s tense phone
call with his parents, and the moment with the discharged veteran, Seinfeld does shows empathy
in this episode towards the plight of queer people.

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Fast forward a few episodes to “The Smelly Car,” and we realize that this empathy has a
limit, and the showrunners, likely expressing what the episteme of the time, fail to grasp the
whole idea of what it actual means, scientifically, to be queer.
In “The Smelly Car,” George runs into his ex-girlfriend Susan in a movie store and sees
that she is in a relationship with a women. First seeing two women holding hands from behind,
George thinks, “Oh, look at that a Lesbian sighting. It’s my lucky day,” trivializing and
demeaning all queer people in one foul swoop. But, when the couple does turn around, and
George realizes one of the women is Susan, he becomes instantly uncomfortable. Of course, part
of this discomfort is because of the simple occurrence of seeing an ex in public, but much of it is
clearly from the same-sex coupling. Susan, after greeting George, quickly addresses the elephant
in the room: “You weren’t expecting to see me holding hands with a woman.” To this, George
replies that he has always advocated for “experimentation.” Apparently, Susan has been dating
this woman since she and George broke up, leading George to think he might have turned her
gay.
Later, when Jerry and George are in the “smelly car” together, George asks Jerry if he
thinks he really could have driven Susan to lesbianism. Jerry jokes, “Suicide maybe, but not
lesbianism.” This continues a theme that has been developing throughout the series that George
is the most ignorant character about queerness on the show. He seems to have been thus far
portraying all the negative and false views of queerness of the time. In this instance, specifically,
George sees gayness, like Jerry’s parents in “The Outing,” as something that was caused by a
traumatic event. Inherent in this view is that queerness is not original. Butler points this out when
she says, “Compulsory heterosexuality sets itself up as the original, the true, the authentic; the
norm that determines the real implies that ‘being’ lesbian is always a kind of miming, a vain

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effort to participate in the phantasmatic plentitude of naturalized hetersexuality which will
always and only fail” (Butler 563). And the show makes Susan’s lesbianism fail, as we shall see
in a later episode.
Also inherent in this episode’s discourse is the perceived binary between straight or gay
that was prevalent at the time. You are either gay or you are straight. There is no inbetween and
definitely no notion of fluid sexuality that is prevalent today. However, “The Smelly Car” also
may show how sexuality could not be a binary after all, as when Susan’s girlfriend secretly
meets with Kramer to start an affair. It’s hard to tell. Within the show, everyone, not just George,
who talks about sexuality only speaks in the binary of straight and gay. If someone is engaged in
same-sex acts, then they are gay. If that same person turns around and has hetero intercourse,
then they become straight. “It’s amazing,” George says, “I drive them to lesbianism, and
[Kramer] drives them back.” Though the idea of bisexuality was around (Butler recognizes this
in her essay), the vast majority of discourse is within this binary. Just look at the title of
GLAAD, any news reporting of the time, and even the title of the book in which Butler’s essay is
included: Inside/Out: Lesbian Theories, Gay Theories.
But perhaps the most telling moment of the episode comes from when George is
comforting Susan after she learns Kramer is with her now ex-girlfriend. George says, “You’re
beautiful, you’re intelligent, you’ll find other girls!” This gets laughs from the audience. Laughs!
This indicates the showrunners and the audience view this common line of break-up comforting
as somewhat absurd when it is a gay person being comforted.
So far, from seasons one through four, Seinfeld has shown that, though it can be
empathetic while egregiously ignorant to the experience of people who are queer, it holds a
general view that can be described as, “We don’t care if you’re gay, but we sure as hell don’t

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want to be!” This attitude continues on through season six, where we get the first real visible
queer character after Susan.
The episode is “The Beard.” In it, Elaine is helping out a gay man, Robert, who senses
his boss would not be okay with his sexual orientation, by posing as his girlfriend on a date to the
theater. This can be seen a genuine act of kindness by a straight woman who realizes the gravity
of a homophobic boss learning one of his employees is gay. (Though, when Jerry asks why
Elaine is doing this, she responds, “Swan Lake at the Met!”)
But the premise helps show where America was at the time. The fact that a plotline can
revolve around Elaine being a “beard” to help out a gay man represents how conservative the
episteme was, or, at the very least, how conservative people in power were, like many
employers. The latter half of the episode, where Elaine tries to convert Robert to hetersexuality,
continues to show Seinfeld’s ill-understanding of queerness. “They don’t want to change teams!
They like their team!” Jerry says at one point, talking about being gay (once more, implying
there is a choice). But, here again, it is hard to tell when Jerry gives his sports analogy how much
is a ignorance and how much is a joke. Clearly, this scene with him and Elaine at the end is
meant to be funny. But, whether it is funny because of how absurdly wrong it is, or funny
because it is another instance of Seinfeld tackling another mundane occurrence makes all the
difference. Considering what the show has put forward already, specifically in “The Smelly
Car,” the joke at the end of “The Beard” is probably not meant to be funny because of absurdity.
Interestingly, Elaine does not hold the moral high ground in this episode, as she does in
“The Subway” and “The Smelly Car,” and actively believes in sexuality being fickle. Moreover,
by having Robert go along with this “teams” analogy, the showrunners are presenting this

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misconception of team preference as agreed-upon by everyone, straight or not, possibly making
the audience believe in this misconception if they haven’t already.
This false idea of choice is continued in season seven’s first episode, “The Engagement,”
when George gets Susan to agree to marry him. Jerry asks, “But I thought she was a lesbian?” To
which George responds, flippantly, “No, didn’t take.” This furthers Butler’s argument that being
a lesbian is too often thought of as a sure failure in playing with heterosexuality.
Coming to late 1995 during Seinfeld’s seventh season, AIDS (or more precisely, an AIDS
charity walk) becomes a central plot point in “The Sponge.” In the episode, Kramer goes on an
AIDS walk, but refuses to wear the red ribbon, and Jerry dates a woman who is in part
sponsoring the AIDS walk and whose number he found on the AIDS walk list. Along with other
negative correlations between AIDS to the gay community at the time, sentiments like,
“[HIV/AIDS] hadn’t spread into the general population yet” was a reason given as to why
President Reagan took so long to publicly address the crisis (Kohnen 70). So, the positive
incorporation of an AIDS charity walk in an episode in the mid-90s shows a show that follows
science, not prejudice, and perhaps paves the way then for other media texts of the same stature
to do the same.
Like in “The Soup Nazi” three episodes earlier, Seinfeld brings in same-sex couple and
noted “street toughs” Cedric and Bob, this time to chastise Kramer over not wearing an AIDS
ribbon. Cedric and Bob represent the only onscreen same-sex couple since George ran into Susan
with her new girlfriend back in season four, and are the only male same-sex couple the series
portrays.
What is interesting about the couple, and how the show portrays them, is how they
simultaneously defy and follow male gay stereotypes of the time. We know a bit about these

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stereotypes from Jerry’s description in season four’s “The Outing,” and the men here, too, are
effeminate, skinny, and neat. The show diverges from there interestingly, however, by making
them appear strong, tough, and, overall, developing them as characters that people, notably
Kramer, fear. And yet, despite this conscious decision not to make Cedric and Bob seem fragile,
a trait too often put on gay men, Seinfeld still regulates its only onscreen same-sex male couple
to a caricature drawn for comedic device. All one has to do to realize how homophobic their
portrayal is is by asking, “Would the schtick be as funny if a stereotypical straight man like
Kramer were bullied by other straight men?” The answer is “no.” Comedy thrives off
contradictions and gay men being able to bully a straight character is the contradiction the show
is choosing for these scenes in “The Soup Nazi” and “The Sponge.”
Maybe there is a plus side to this instance of queer visibility, though. As Sigusch
explains, the neosexual revolution was “the greatest leap toward banalization in the history of
western sexuality” (Sigusch 54). And if there is one thing this episode does, it is it makes
fighting AIDS and a male same-sex couple seem commonplace. It might be easy to overlook the
fact that in each episode that Cedric and Bob are a part of, they are never described as gays, or
sissies, or pansies, or any other word that explicitly or implicitly suggests homosexuality in men
(not to set the bar low for what counts as prejudice portrayal). The only adjectival phrase ever
used for them is “street toughs.” The main cast in Seinfeld treats this same-sex couple like they’d
treat any other pair of street robbers and trash talkers: with trepidation.
So, while it should be noted how Seinfeld uses Cedric and Bob’s sexualities as a point of
humor, it should also be noted that the show never has any of its other characters seem at all
phased by their sexuality: a combined paradox of progress and regress, perhaps showing how
society’s views were at the time.

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This brings us to the last instance of queer representation in Seinfeld’s nine-season run:
“The Wig Master.” Like in “The Soup Nazi” and “The Sponge,” the Wig Master, Ethan, though
queer, is never treated derogatorily or called anything derogatory by the characters. George
doesn’t like him, but that could be accounted for the wig master’s long stay at George’s
apartment (two weeks, as George complains), or his close relationship with Susan, regulating
George to boredom and annoyance. It’s hard to tell if George’s attitude comes from homophobia
or not. Within the episode, there isn’t enough evidence to say one way or the other; but, within
George’s history in the show as the least understanding and tolerant of the four protagonists
toward queer issues, the evidence would lean more toward homophobia.
Though “The Wig Master” is the last episode with queer visibility, on the whole, it shows
a developed Seinfeld. Now, Ethan, unlike Cedric and Bob, is not included as some type of
comedic prop, but a character that two plots revolve around (George and Kramer’s). He may fill
out the shows previously mentioned gay stereotypes (thin, neat, gets along well with women),
but the stereotypes are not purely a basis for comedy. The most notable example of growth
comes when Ethan gets asked out as he and Jerry are having drinks. Jerry is actually upset by
this because he thinks the man who asked Ethan out should have assumed he and Ethan were a
couple. Essentially, Jerry is upset he wasn’t perceived as gay. This is a far cry from “The
Outing” a few seasons back. Mostly likely, the main reason Jerry is upset is because, in the
episode, people have been constantly assuming he and Elaine are not dating, causing him to feel
emasculated. Here with Ethan, it happens once again. But still, though Jerry being upset for not
being mistaken as homosexual is part of a longer joke in the episode, it still shows a level of
comfort around the issue that has not been shown before. Coming in at the latter half of the

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1990s, maybe this could be mirroring the change in comfort level towards queer identity going
on in America at large.
Conclusion
Going back to Foucault and analyzing Seinfeld as a positive mechanism in the network of
power: remember, Foucault argues, “...we must begin with these positive mechanisms, insofar as
they produce knowledge, multiply discourse, induce pleasure, and generate power; we must
investigate the conditions of their emergence and operation, and try to discover how the related
facts of interdiction or concealment are distributed with respect to them” (Foucault 107). After
closely reading into Seinfeld’s representation of queer identity, this challenge by Foucault can
now be broken down and at least partially answered.
Seinfeld, by it’s mere existence as a TV show, produces knowledge, as we saw Kohnen
argue. It also, fairly obviously, multiplies discourse (this essay for example), and induces
pleasure (the number one show on TV for a reason). But looking at how it generates power is
less obvious, but maybe more interesting. After analyzing all of the show’s queer plots and
characters, it seems that the people it generates power for are mostly straight people, and the
institution it generates power for is mostly NBC. On the whole, this probably isn’t too bad of a
thing for queer identity. NBC went and picked up Will and Grace the year Seinfeld went off the
air, and the straight people Seinfeld generated power for were likely more progressive and who
began to truly think, “there’s nothing wrong with that!” This of course, is small, incremental
progress, but that is likely the best one can hope for in a time were more than two-thirds of the
American public were uneasy about same sex relations and from a show whose writers grew up
when there was even less queer visibility in media.

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As far as the “emergence and operation,” and discovering how “related facts of
interdiction or concealment are distributed in respect to them,” Seinfeld is no easy river to travel
up. Really, when holding the view that societal norms are a result of a “subtle network of
discourse, special knowledges, pleasures, and powers,” one’s theory on the show’s emergence in
representing queer identity, and the show’s effect on related interdiction or concealment in
representing queer identity, is likely as complex and as good as any other’s. But what this
analysis has shined a light on is Seinfeld’s operation. Though the show’s representation of queer
identity appears to be as complicated, layered, and sometimes as contradictory as society’s, it
always is fairly obvious the show operated under the management of straight people: straight
people who wondered (“Who’s the man and who’s the woman in the marriage?”), who feared (“I
don’t want it to feel good!”), who characterized (Cedric and Bob), but who also showed the
ability to empathize and normalize (Susan to George: “You’re an idiot!”).
Before coming to the final concluding remarks, one counter argument should be
thoroughly addressed. There may be some readers who say that this is just a sitcom and to not
take it this seriously. After all, there seems to be a push back against what is being referred to as
“Politically Correct (or PC) Culture.” Last year, Jerry Seinfeld cited this as the reason why he
will no longer be doing stand up on college campuses (Huffington Post). But, though Seinfeld
most definitely is entertainment, it still affects how audiences view their world. To restate
Kohnen, “... it’s film and television that have long had a decisive impact on how Americans
understand queer identities” (Kohnen 61). And it is queer identities, along with other identities
less prevalent or obvious in areas of America, that might stand the most to gain or lose in TV, for
it very well could be one of the only instances where audience members get introduced and
educated about people who are queer. If an identity if falsely constructed on TV, even if it is a

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joke, then that idea of that identity could stick with the viewer and change how they perceive
those types of characters in their real-life counterparts.
In the end, it is almost a certainty that Seinfeld influenced people’s views in the 1990s,
but this analysis revealed that maybe more of a certainty is that the people in the ‘90s influenced
Seinfeld’s views. The show proves itself to be able to simultaneously hold the popular
progressive and conservative views of the ‘90s. So, maybe all this analysis did was prove again
the old idea that a text is a product of its time, but I think it does more than that. I think this
analysis shows the real potential people have in changing the episteme they are born into. This is
especially true now in the age of social media and instant news: points in the power network that
Foucault could only have dreamed of. Though I am looking at Seinfeld with 20/20 hindsight, this
type of analysis can be done with shows that are on air (or online) now. When one of our beloved
shows has an episode with a character that doesn’t represent the real-world equivalent well, we
can speak up and add discourse to the power network that has the ability to lead to tangible
changes in the way people are treated and represented. And there’s definitely nothing wrong with
that.

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