Jerry Seinfeld is catching some heat for comments he made about diversity in comedy. When asked about the majority of his guest stars on Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee being white males, he said he isn’t concerned with showing a broad range of races.
While being interviewed by BuzzFeed on CBS This Morning, Seinfeld said he has “no interest” in gender or race equality when it comes to comedy.
“People think it’s the census or something,” he said. “This has gotta represent the actual pie chart of America? Who cares? Funny is the world that I live in. You’re funny, I’m interested. You’re not funny, I’m not interested. I have no interest in gender or race or anything like that.”
He also said the fact that it’s an issue to some people “really pisses me off.” He said it's actually "anti-comedy" to think that way, and referred to it as "PC nonsense."
CNN reports Seinfeld has previously spearheaded a race debate when his sitcom Seinfeld ended in 1998. Many media outlets reported on the finale being unimportant to the black community because the show had failed to win them over by excluding them.
The race issue in comedy has come up recently when it came to the lack of diversity in the Saturday Night Live cast, which prompted them to hire African American female Sasheer Zamata.
Watch Seinfeld’s response here:
image: CBS