Seinfeld: The Making of an American Icon is one of the most poorly-written and badly-edited biographies it’s ever been my displeasure to read. The author’s obsessive accounting of every possible indication that Seinfeld is probably gay ultimately implies, quite strongly, that the comedian’s notorious public relationships (one with a 17-year-old girl when Seinfeld was 39, one with a married woman who later left her husband and married Seinfeld, bearing his children) are merely cynical distractions from his true sexuality.
One of my longtime pet peeves has been the way in which some gay and lesbian celebrities have gone to extreme lengths to cover up the truth about their sexuality. I don’t care what any two or more consenting adults do in the privacy of their own bedrooms (or anywhere else, pretty much), but I do think that the struggle for the recognition of equal marriage (and other) rights could have progressed far further than it has if more queer celebrities had been willing to plainly state their sexual orientation earlier than whenever you’d care to pin the date that it started to become more common practice. That said, I do recognize the right to privacy of every individual, and I guess that’s where Oppenheimer’s book really rubs me the wrong way.
Jerry Seinfeld, gay. It could be true, or it could be the author’s fevered imaginings; whatever the truth, the manner in which Oppenheimer returns again and again and again to his thesis on virtually every page of the book (I only wish I were exaggerating) seems sensationalist, embittered and not a little bit like the sour grapes of a lover, scorned. I came to the book looking for insight into the formative years and working methods of one of our smartest and funniest living comedians. Instead, I got a non-stop litany of not-even-veiled references to Seinfelds love of theatre and theatrics, and his fabulous friendships with other flamboyant, usually black, comedians. The final product feels like the fruit of a poisoned tree, not so much biography as the dull head of the ax Oppenheimer cannot stop himself from grinding. Avoid at all costs.
