By now, most Seinfeld fans have already learned and assimilated the sad truth: we made Steve Bannon rich. The former Breitbart honcho and newly appointed White House chief strategist bought a share of the now legendary sitcom’s royalties back in 1993, and continues to profit from Seinfeld reruns every day. There has not been a #BoycottSeinfeld movement in retaliation—instead, it seems fans have decided to simply groan with guilt and continue viewing as normal. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a bummer, or that people have fully accepted the reality yet. One frustrated party? Longtime Seinfeld writer and producer Peter Mehlman, who wrote such iconic episodes as “The Yada Yada” and “The Sponge.”
To Mehlman, there’s one particularly insidious irony to all of this: as Mehlman recently told The Guardian, Bannon has repeatedly proven himself to be a “raging anti-Semite.” And yet he made “all this money off a show that’s associated with Jewish humor,” Mehlman noted. “That’s pretty galling.”
As The Guardian notes, Bannon has denied being an anti-Semite before. For instance, he told The Wall Street Journal that such accusations are a “joke,” pointing to Breitbart’s staunch pro-Israel stance and saying that he personally has “zero tolerance” for the intolerance associated with the alt-right—specifically racism and anti-Semitism. And yet, according to court filings by Bannon’s ex-wife, Mary Louise Piccard, during their divorce proceedings, Bannon ”said that he doesn’t like Jews and that he doesn’t like the way they raise their kids to be ‘whiny brats’ and that he didn’t want the girls to go to school with Jews.” (Through his spokeswoman, Bannon denied that allegation.)
“If he’s not anti-Semitic what do you have to do to be considered anti-Semitic?” Mehlman wondered. “Shoot Woody Allen?”
Bannon made a “smart decision” in buying royalty shares of Seinfeld, Mehlman conceded, but “it doesn’t make him any less miserable as a human being.”
And Mehlman’s not the only Seinfeld alumnus who is displeased at the unwitting affiliation with Bannon. Rob Reiner, whose production company, Castle Rock Entertainment, developed the sitcom, expressed a similar sentiment to the Daily Beast last month: “It’s crazy. When I first heard about it, it made me sick. It makes me sick. Because I had no idea. . . . So there you have it. I think the Huffington Post had the headline right: ‘Trump Hires a White Supremacist.’”
And then there’s Jason Alexander, who reacted to the revelation on Twitter. Sadly, even the erstwhile George Costanza couldn’t find much dark humor in the bizarre twist of fate.
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