Curb Your Enthusiasm
Larry David isn't afraid to lay bare how much of politics is about appeasing the masses.
Curb Your Enthusiasm is back for its eleventh season of Larry David, playing a semi-fictionalized version of himself, interrogating why we must remain shackled by society's arbitrary social rules.
David turns his attention to local politics this season. His antipathy toward other people comes through particularly splendidly in the seventh episode: Canvassing for a mayoral candidate, he resorts to absurd claims such as that the candidate will ban children under 10 from restaurants. Sucker voters eat it up.
Where other shows are afraid to acknowledge politics for what it is, Curb lays bare just how much it's about appeasing the masses by any means necessary. David's dip into politics is just to curry favor with those who can help repeal a pesky fence ordinance. Peeved about having to stand in line to vote, he finds someone waiting to vote for the opposing candidate and proposes that they might as well both leave, since their votes will cancel each other out. David's preferred candidate, in a made-for-TV twist, loses by one vote, and the pitchfork-wielding mob of his supporters turns on David.
In politics, as in everything else, David is self-interested and on the hunt for shortcuts. Then again, so are the rest of us; we're just a bit better at hiding it.
