Larry David: His Fictional Life After Fiction

Curb Your Enthusiasm clip

Larry David's sitcom of his own life 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' has been a popular show on HBO and has now just completed it's 6th season.
The show started out as just an hour long documentary of the same name. Larry David's claim to fame is being the creator of 'Seinfeld', an even more popular show that has been in syndication since the early 1990's. What makes Curb Your Enthusiasm so interesting is that it is a TV show about Larry's life, but not in a fictional or non-fictional way.
The stories are written, but the dialogue is improvised. It's shot in a pseudo-documentary style but it's not at all reality television.

As it documents Larry's life, it shows his private life in the public world of television. It blurs the boundaries of fiction and non-fiction, as Larry plays himself and everything but the written storylines is somewhat based on the facts of his life. Larry David engages with the mechanism of play here, as he has a "license to explore" his own life and himself as a character and human being. The show's humour is based mostly off of Larry's tactlessness and anal retentive attitude towards everything. He is at times cynical and stubborn, which all adds up to a hilarious depiction of how a person should not act. Because it is a staple of the show, we applaud his flaws and laugh at them whenever they arise. This is a perfect example of media as a mechanism of engagement to play. The rules of decency are broken repeatedly, and even though the show is fictional we assume that Larry David is actually like that yet he still has the arena to play and push these boundaries.

On a more personal note, whenever I've felt the need to say something I know is tactless, I've steered it into a joke by saying "I know I may sound like Larry David when I say this" before revealing the statement. This allows me to transcend seriousness and engage in my own arena of 'play'. I'm engaging with media, by referencing a TV show and claiming that my own actions are directly influenced by this article of media. Even though I am able to cross the boundaries though, I am firmly reclaiming the boundaries because I know that what I'm saying is wrong. When I think of the tactless thing I'm going to say, it reminds me of Larry David, because I know that it is wrong. Through the arena of play, and referencing Larry David, I can still show that I value tact and know that what I'm saying is wrong. What I'm saying is clearly a joke, and because it's play, I know that is wrong and will leave it in the 'arena of play'.

Another thing that makes the show interesting is the fact that it goes along with a lot of what Adorno talks about with the problems of 'free time'. Larry has this fictional show that has him living off of the successes of Seinfeld. In most episodes, he fills his days with leisurely activities and you often wonder what he does for work anymore. The interesting thing is that as you watch him live this comfortable and relaxed life, he is in reality working hard at making this TV show that you are watching. To sum it up, it takes a lot of work to appear as though you are relaxed and comfortable. This is the dark reality of leisure time that shows that time free of work does not exist and we are perpetually chained to labour despite not being punched in.
It's just like our own lives, where even in our free time we are perpetuating this idea of work and labour. We consume, like workers, we relax, like workers.

Curb Your Enthusiasm shows that by it's conception, but one wonders whether it is aware of this? Just like every other part of the media, it does need to make money. The sales of the DVDs that fuel the production of more seasons just proves that it Curb Your Enthusiasm is part of an industry and not just a clever piece of art that dissects our ideas of media and fiction. Yet we trust it by giving it our money and receiving more entertainment. By tuning in each week, we give it our trust, and when it makes us laugh it gains our trust. There is a back and forth discourse of trust, as we commit through our purchasing of DVDs and as it distributes more entertainment for us to enjoy. We are stuck in consuming the show, but we always know the exit is by changing the channel. We know that we have freedom in not purchasing and in not watching, but we are convinced by each episode to stay committed.

So now we wonder - would Larry David watch this show? If he was a fictional character, maybe he wouldn't, but as a real person he is self-absorbed enough to watch every episode. Since we are designed to believe that he is the real Larry David, then we follow and watch each episode without ever being disappointed. Not by the character, the real person, or the show.