Larry David
By Richard Saenz
Biography
Larry David is an American comedian, writer and producer. Those who are unfamiliar with him
have undoubtedly heard of his work as the co-creator of Seinfeld and now star and writer of his
own show Curb your Enthusiasm. Larry was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York by his Mom
and Dad. His upbringing he describes as smothering* due to the fact that many of his aunts and
uncles lived in the same Housing section as he did. Although Larry later came be one of the
greatest comedic writers of all time he never thought of himself as a funny kid and ironically
neither did his parents. “I was not a class Clown.”* His impressions and bits that he would do
for his family were not appreciated and came off as obnoxious. It was not until Larry went off
to college that he realized that he was funny. In an interview with the New York Times Larry
describes this self-revelation where he would go out on these horrible dates, afterward he
would come back to his dorm and his friends there would ask about his date and he would use
his self-deprecating humor for their amusement and laughs. Early in his career Larry worked
multiple jobs, as a chauffeur, a bra salesman and a paralegal all while still trying to make it as a
comedian. His big break would not come until 1989 when he and Jerry Seinfeld created the hit
sitcom Seinfeld. Today Larry is the star and writer of the HBO show Curb your Enthusiasm. It’s
similar to Seinfeld in the situational social satire however the acting is mostly improv and
unscripted. The show is based on his life where he plays a fictionalized version of himself acting
in a manner he believes correct even if no one else does and thus creating the most awkward of
social situations.
Perspective 1: Freudian Psychoanalytic Perspective
Freuds Psychoanalytic Perspective is comprised of three main components, the id, the
ego and the super ego. The Id component is your personality’s basic desires, drives and
emotions which includes hunger, sex and avoidance of pain. It is seen as the greedy or pleasure
seeking side of your personality. The Super Ego component is your moral compass or the
responsible side of your personality, acting in accordance with societal norms. The Ego
component is the balance between the id and superego it accurately describes real life; our
middle ground in acting on our desires and behaving responsibly. Freud also developed the
psychosexual stages of development which he believed all people went through in their life.
Each stage of development had a conflict and with that conflict the possibility of developing a
fixation which develops with your personality and is responsible for how you may act or are in
life. Freud’s personality theories rely heavily on the unconscious part of our mind; in the
unconscious he believed we could find answers to the reason behind our personality. His
methods of accessing the unconscious were through our dreams, free association and hypnosis.
According to Freud, Larry David would fall between the ego and the super ego. He
behaves in a proper manner sometimes pushing limits with the comedy he writes. However
Larry has created an alter ego of himself when you watch his show Curb your Enthusiasm. That
Larry David I would say leans more towards the id component of his personality. That Larry
speaks what is on his mind and lives by his own code of conduct. An example, Larry described,
in his interview with The New York Times brings up a situation where he and his wife just
finished dinner with another married couple. The check comes out and the other couple offers
to pay for the meal seeing as Larry paid for the last dinner. Larry then thanks the husband for
paying for the meal. The wife then jokingly says “Thank me too Larry.” Larry simply responds,
“Why should I thank you?” “You didn’t pay your husband paid.” This sparks an awkward
conversation where the wife insists that Larry thank her as well for the meal but Larry doesn’t
see why he should thank her, his reason being that she didn’t pay for the meal because her
husband, the breadwinner, did. In the interview Larry jokes that this situation did occur in real
life and he thought about not thanking the wife for the meal but he did thank her of course
because it was proper; later though he wrote in a notebook he keeps for ideas for the shows,
“don’t thank the wife.” Larry David later says, “Sometimes I wish I could be like that guy.” This
clearly shows that there’s a Larry David that works on the superego and a Larry David that
works on the id.
When looking at the stages of psychosexual development Freud would say that he has
passed through all stages of psychosexual development, he doesn’t display any fixations form
the stages.
In his New York Times interview Larry reveals a fear he has by sharing a dream he had
back when he was starting out his career. The manifest content was him coming into his living
room to find a war taking place with guns firing everywhere he ducks and covers when one of
the soldiers comes over and puts a gun to his head and says, “go do a bit for us,” and point over
to a small stage in the middle of all the shooting. This shows that Larry had a big fear of doing
stand-up comedy and performing and could very well be the reason why he never really did too
much stand up and prefers more writing comedy.
Perspective 2 Traits and Skills: Murrays Needs
Murray describes four needs that he believes all people display. The need for achievement,
which is basically attaining success as defined by society, an example would be a fulfilling
career. The need for affiliation or having good relationships with friends and family. The need
for power, wherein you would seek a position where you can exert control over others. Finally
the need for exhibition where you would seek ways to show off to others. Larry has displayed a
need for achievement by working hard on his comedy and writing. As I mentioned he worked
multiple jobs and despite his fear of performing went on stage to do stand-up comedy. Larry
doesn’t demonstrate a need to win the affections of others, throughout his life he remained an
independent person, in college he mentioned that he accepted the fact that he wasn’t a
charmer with the ladies but kept his humor went it came to failure in that area. Although Larry
is known for wanting his “personal stamp,” on his acting, writing and comedy he does not show
the need to seek out positions of power. He wants control only of his material not over others.
“he never wanted to be anyone but himself comedically,”() Larry’s living room war dream is
clear evidence that he does not display a need for exhibition this can be contributed to his
childhood when he would do bits for his family and would receive less than satisfactory
feedback. Larry states that the only time he felt comfortable showing off to an audience was in
college when he would joke with his friends about his awful dates. There were times he
mentioned when he was doing a stand-up bit at a club and saw someone whisper to another
person in the crowd and Larry would end his bit there and walk off stage throwing off his
audience. There was on instance when he went on stage looked the crowd over and said “Yea,
I’m not doing this.”*
Discussion
Larry David is an interesting person to analyze from the Freudian Psychoanalytic method
because he has created an alter ego, the Larry David character seen on Curb your Enthusiasm.
On his show Larry has created a way for him to live out his pleasure seeking side or id. In this
way he relieves tension. His childhood sets the basis for his alter ego; living with people who
really didn’t understand his sarcasm and satire, however not caring if he comes off as
obnoxious. His misunderstood character in Curb you Enthusiasm is almost mocking his family
and in yet another way Larry lives out an id desire of revenge.
When looking though Murrays perspectives Larry can be characterized as an individual
through and through never changing who he was or his humor for anyone. This is exemplified
when he worked a season on SNL and had an argument the head writer, whom did not
appreciate the humor in the skits he wrote, leading to him storming out, cussing the head
writer and announcing that he quit. Afterwards he feared losing his salary and on the advice of
a friend went in to work on Monday as if nothing happened. However he still did not change his
style of comedic writing even though little to none of his material got used for SNL. He also
demonstrated his need to achieve from all his hard work early in his career. He jokes that his
low point was when he was 25, and had absolutely no money and lived with his parents; some
nights he said he would walk around the city looking for a place to live if he became homeless.
From that low point in his life he worked hard to now being the best comedic writers of all
time.
References
Interview with Larry David. Arts and Leisure Weekend, 2006, January 11 for New York Times,
WBCSTV. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yTBtW1LG30&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpC5R_b_oT4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHEcigQ4IP0&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mu2p6xkhzw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aqr9quYy_bY&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Oj5_7cGQCg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fNc36j1UQU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52dfbKWZMDU&feature=related
Allen Jason. (Copyright 2011). The Larry David Story: A Parallel Universe Biography. Retrieved
from http://www.thelarrydavidstory.com/index.html