Seinfeld Moments That Haven't Aged Well

Everybody knows that "Seinfeld" was about four unrepentant jerks who often acted in ways completely inappropriate for civilized society. But audiences loved Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer, so they hung in there — week after week, season after season, laugh after laugh, to record ratings that remain formidable in syndication and streaming decades later.

So admittedly, it's a bit redundant to publish a list of "Seinfeld" moments that haven't aged well, because many of them didn't play well the night they first aired on NBC; that's the way the show was designed, much like another it begat: "Curb Your Enthusiasm."

Nevertheless, this show about nothing, undeniably one of the most popular sitcoms in the history of television, coiner of catchphrases and yada, yada ... had some moments that, well let's just say if anybody tried them today they'd likely get cancelled, put on a "No Fly" list, #MeToo'd, and/or just plain arrested. Re-watching "Seinfeld" now, you might find that some of it hasn't aged particularly well, especially storylines featuring racism, sexism, and other offensive scenarios that, for many, are just super-uncomfortable to watch today. 

Sure, Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer — and on a meta level, Larry David, Jerry Seinfeld and everyone else behind the "Seinfeld" scenes — would undoubtedly laugh at the notion of an article like this, offering a snarky remark and a reminder that the best humor (and an invaluable life necessity) comes from laughing at things society takes seriously. Nevertheless, it's hard to dispute — these "Seinfeld" moments have not aged well. 

Here's another dating scenario with questionable race issues. In the tenth episode of Season 5 ("The Cigar Store Indian"), Jerry brings Elaine a "cigar store Indian" statue as a "peace offering" while she's with her friend Winona. Jerry had been interested in Winona for a while, but when he brings the statue to Elaine and makes Native American whooping noises, Winona reveals that she's Navajo — and incredibly offended. Jerry offers to make it up to her by taking her out on a date, but their date doesn't go well, because Jerry seemingly asks an Asian mail carrier if he knows any good Chinese restaurants in the area. Kramer then drives by with the statue in a cab next to him, making his own offensive "Indian" noises.

The whole episode not only represents Winona as being overly sensitive, but it leaves Jerry as the sad white guy who was trying to connect with a Native woman but just kept making mistakes that dug him into a deeper and deeper hole. The seriousness of the subject matter doesn't lend itself well to attempts at comedy, but Jerry's bumbling "well, I tried!" attitude makes things worse, coming across as smug and out of touch.

Season 4, Episode 19 ("The Implant") is one of the most famous "Seinfeld" episodes, and also undoubtedly in the running for TV comedy's greatest last line: "They're real ... and they're spectacular." But boy, is that episode a weird watch today. 

In "The Implant," Elaine and Jerry meet a woman named Sidra (Teri Hatcher) at the gym, and Elaine makes a comment about how her breasts are too perfect to be real. After taking Sidra on a date, but balking at the idea of dating a woman with breast implants, Jerry enlists Elaine to spy on Sidra in the sauna and Elaine does so, taking a peek at Sidra's naked torso. But Elaine trips in the sauna and lands with her hands on Sidra's chest. After that, Elaine asserts that they are, in fact, real, and Jerry asks her out again. After discovering their little ploy, Sidra dumps Jerry with the famous line.

The whole thing is just downright creepy. From the judgment of what women choose to do with their bodies from Jerry to Elaine's creepy stalking to the unintentional groping, this episode waders into a grey area of actual sexual assault. It's a scenario that would not fly today, and it's hard to imagine that any show — no matter how highly rated — could air a similar storyline.

The Season 9, Episode 10 of "Seinfeld" ("The Puerto Rican Day") is so notoriously bad that it landed itself in the very last position in Vulture's complete ranking of every "Seinfeld" episode. Due to the city's Puerto Rican Day Parade, the gang gets caught in a ton of traffic on their way home from a Mets game. Shenanigans take place, but the big offensive moment comes when Kramer accidentally lights a Puerto Rican flag on fire and tries to stomp it out.

The episode has not aged well, but it was also quite scandalous when it first aired back in 1998. National Puerto Rican Coalition president Manuel Mirabal criticized the episode, saying: "It is unacceptable that the Puerto Rican flag be used by 'Seinfeld' as a stage prop under any circumstances."

NBC decided to not rerun the episode, with executive vice president for broadcast standards and content policy Rosalyn Weinman saying in a statement: "We believe the comedy was aimed, as always, squarely at our own characters' ridiculous, misguided behavior, not at the Puerto Rican community ... Nevertheless, we are sorry if you were offended."

Writers Steve Koren and David Mandel defended the episode in a Season 9 DVD commentary, saying they could have moved the episode's parade to any New York heritage parade without changing most of the dialogue — and in 2002, distributor Sony Pictures Television began reinserting "The Puerto Rican Day" into syndication packages.

Season 4, Episode 7 ("Bubble Boy") revolves around taking a trip to a cabin owned by the parents of Susan, George's fiancee.

On the way, Jerry promises to visit a young fan named Donald, who lives in a bubble. But the boy turns out to be a grown man, so anemic he had to live in quarantine with his parents. He's angry, jaded, and emotionally abusive. George and Susan get to the Bubble Boy's house first, where George quickly enrages him by playing a game of Trivial Pursuit. Bubble Boy reaches out to strangle George through the arm holes in the bubble, and George fights back. His bubble pops in the scuffle, and Donald has to be taken away in an ambulance — just as a confused Jerry and Elaine arrive.

While a disgruntled grown man living with his parents can be pretty funny, the "Bubble Boy" scenario could be seen as ableist and derogatory to those with disabilities in this day and age. Donald's fragile emotional status, as the result of his confinement, is something we could all perhaps relate to after the COVID-19 pandemic — but that would probably also make audiences all the more upset that it's played for laughs.

Racism aside, the premise behind "The English Patient," the 17th episode of Season 8, is pretty funny. Elaine goes to see the popular movie "The English Patient" with her boyfriend and hates it. As a result, he dumps her. When she's forced to go with her boss J. Peterman, she can't take the melodramatic, stuffy, overlong film anymore and has a meltdown in the theater. The physical comedy is great here; Elaine's intense desire to just go see the silly "Sack Lunch," and her intense distaste for the 1996 Ralph Fiennes/Juliette Binoche period drama, make for a really funny episode.

But there is a pretty bad subplot here, however, about Kramer ordering some "Cubans" from Florida. What he meant to do was order cigars, but when they arrive, they are actually human Cubans. 

Kramer puts them to work, rolling cigars in a quasi-sweatshop environment, only to find out that they're actually Dominicans pretending to be Cubans. Ethnic identities, stereotypes, and problematic immigration issues abound in this episode that hasn't aged particularly aged well. It's a shame, since Elaine's "English Patient" drama is hilarious.

By its fourth season, "Seinfeld" was a major hit — so much of one, in fact, that storylines began getting meta, referencing the creation of a show about nothing. 

In the episode "The Shoes" (Season 4, Episode 15), an NBC executive's 15-year-old daughter comes into his office in a low-cut top. George can't stop staring at her cleavage, which gets him kicked out, putting their TV show in jeopardy.

It would never fly today to have a main character of a comedy TV series staring at the breasts of an underage girl, and it would be doubly bad if that main character then made excuses about it as bad as "they were in my field of vision." What's worse is that the gang then uses Elaine in a low-cut dress to convince the honcho that boobs can be distracting, putting all of this skeevy pressure on women to keep their body parts out of men's faces, lest they do something stupid.

When George's phone lines get crossed with a woman who has the last name Chang, Jerry just assumes that she's Chinese, so he sets up a date. He tells Elaine that he likes Asian women, and she says, "Isn't that a little racist?" he replies, "It's not racist if I like them." This is followed by some Confucius jokes, some jokes about mixing up the letters L and R, and a whole lot of stereotypes. When Jerry finally meets Donna, it turns out that she's a white lady who shortened her last name from Changstein.

Jerry's Asian fetish is the exact kind of creepy infatuation that Asian women have been fighting for centuries, so it doesn't help that "Seinfeld" is also feeding into racist Orientalism. When Donna offers George's mom some advice over the phone by citing Confucius, Mrs. Constanza takes the advice, thinking Donna is Chinese. But much like Jerry, Mrs. Costanza reverses course when she learns Donna isn't Chinese, rendering her advice invalidated. 

All said, "The Chinese Woman" (Season 6, Episode 4) is a really uncomfortable episode to watch, anchored by a scenario that hasn't aged well — especially when you consider the increased amount of hate crimes against Asian Americans since the pandemic began.