Tom Polivka: Seinfeld Season 4- The Outing- A Reporter Believes Jerry and George Are Gay: Not That There’s Anything Wrong With That

Source:Tom Polivka – The Beautiful Paula Marshall, guess-starring on Seinfeld in 1993 

Source:The Daily Review

If you think political correctness is bad now and I sure as hell do, then go back to the early 1990s. When homosexuals, especially gay men were just coming out of the closet and just starting to appear on national TV in reality and fictional programming. Whether gay men were queens, or lets say passable as straight and straight people didn’t automatically think they were gay from meeting them, or talking to them, the level of tolerance for homosexuality and gay life, was better than it was in the 1960s or so, but not to the point it is now. Where an overwhelming majority of Americans don’t have a problem with homosexuality. Simply because they know gay people and are friends with them.

I call this Seinfeld episode, the Not That There’s Anything Wrong With That show. Because that phrase is used a lot in this episode and that’s the basic point of the episode. What Jerry and George are saying, is that they’re not gay and want to make that clear to anyone who’ll listen, because they’re not gay and they sure don’t women and potential dates thinking that they’re gay. But they don’t have a problem with gay people being gay. “Its alright if Joe is gay, but I’m not and that lifestyle is not for me.” Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, the creators and producers of the Seinfeld show, went to gay rights groups and showed them the show ahead of schedule, to get it cleared by them.

There are several things I like about this show as a straight man and as a Liberal whose a strong supporter of free speech and strong opponent of political correctness. Which I see as a form of Far-Left fascism. That they made it clear that there’s nothing wrong with being gay, when the country was still fairly split on that and this episode came out in February, 1993. Same-sex marriage, is nowhere near the political radar and you could still get arrested for being gay in several states. But another thing, is that they took on political correctness directly, when political correctness is still fairly popular in America. And where any joke against any woman, or non-straight person, or non-Caucasians, was considered bigoted. Because the political correctness crowd, even sees, “not that there’s anything wrong with that”, as homophobic, even if gay people don’t.

The other thing that I love about this episode, is actress Paula Marshall. She’s a beautiful, baby-faced adorable actress, whose like 27 at this point and playing a college student a journalism major. And she’s the one who taped recorded Jerry and George in the diner talking to each other pretending that they were gay and were a couple. Which is really how this episode gets started. Because she ends up interviewing Jerry and George in Jerry’s apartment, about Jerry’s career. And has already written her article in her college newspaper saying that Jerry Seinfeld is gay. And Jerry finds out about that and goes out of his way the rest of the show to prove to her that he’s not gay. Including inviting her over to her apartment for a date.
Tom Polivka: Seinfeld- The Outing