Article By:Matt McQuaid
On Nov. 22, Larry David’s hit HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm wrapped up its seventh season. While the exploits of Larry David and company may not have delivered as much Seinfeld as people originally expected, the seventh season of David’s hit series still delivered more than enough laughs to compensate.
For those not familiar with the show, Curb Your Enthusiasm follows the daily life of Seinfeld co-creator Larry David as he breaks social conventions and routinely offends and angers everyone around him with petty and bizarre antics. The story arc of season seven focuses on David getting back together with the Seinfeld cast to make a reunion show, with David’s ulterior motive being he can cast his ex-wife Cheryl in the show and hopefully win her back.
The genius of Larry David is that he does all the things we want to do, but don’t because it’s not appropriate in polite society. Larry offers to help out his friend Marty Funkhouser with his mentally ill sister, but when Funkhouser asks him if he was serious about his offer, Larry responds, “Of course not!” Larry’s blatantly self-serving attitude is also a constant source of humor. Larry dates a woman in a wheelchair solely to get himself into an exclusive concert, and when deciding whether to do the Seinfeld reunion and win back his wife, or let a TV executive die of lime disease for his own perverse revenge, Larry flips a coin.
Many are quick to criticize Larry’s actions and manners as selfish, petty, immature and obnoxious, but how many of us find ourselves wanting to do the same thing Larry does, only finding we lack the courage to follow through? When Larry scuttles off his best friend/manager Jeff Greene’s daughter at a party because listening to her sing is painful, no one can deny his actions are rude, but does anyone want to listen to her awful renditions? Larry overreacts when he screams at a slow golfer to hurry up (subsequently causing the golfer to die) but how many times have you been frustrated by someone taking too long to do something and wanted to do the same thing?
It can also be said that many times Larry means well. Larry pays for his niece’s college tuition, and goes as far as wearing panties so he can protect a secret for Jeff. Larry means well when he has a friend of his pretend to have a disease to reassure Michael Richards (Kramer) and lets Leon stay in his house even after his family leaves.
In short, season seven of Curb provided a great deal of laughs while simultaneously making us think about the unconscious social conventions surrounding our everyday lives. Not everyone may agree with Larry’s unconventional approach to dealing with people, but his complete disregard for etiquette shows an audacity that is hard not to admire.
