Critical Reception
Since its 2000 debut, the show has enjoyed wide critical acclaim and a steadily growing, dedicated audience that has helped it emerge from its early "cult" status. On Metacritic, the fifth season scored 91 out of 100 based on five reviews, the seventh season scored 81 out of 100 based on 18 reviews and the eighth season scored 85 out of 100 based on six reviews.
Online publication Slate Magazine named the characters of Cheryl David and Susie Greene as two of the best on television and as reasons they were looking forward to the return of the show in the fall of 2007. Curb Your Enthusiasm has also received praise from Galus Australis magazine for being even more unashamedly Jewish than the Seinfeld series.
Curb Your Enthusiasm asserts the Jewish identity of its characters in ways that no other show has. By incorporating episodes that deal directly with Jewish identity and tradition, the show offers a commentary on what it means to be a Jew in modern American society.
On the show's depiction of Jewish characters, academic Vincent Brook stated, "Curb's commitment to Jewish identification greatly enhances its storytelling capacity, as it lends greater realism and dimension to the characters and opens the show up to episodes with meaningful Jewish themes."
The character of Larry on the show is in many ways reminiscent of the schlemiel character often present in traditional Yiddish folklore. The schlemiel is usually a comic character whose actions lead to his inevitable downfall, but also stands as a form of resistance to social and cultural values and norms. David Gillota wrote: "As a true schlemiel, Larry's failure serves as a direct challenge to the status quo and encourages viewers to question the myriad unwritten rules that we follow in our everyday lives." Gillota also observed: "Whereas the schlemiel of Eastern Europe encountered problems that mostly affected Eastern European Jews (such as anti-Semitism and economic survival), Larry encounters problems that affect contemporary middle- to upper-class American Jews, namely, Jewish assimilation, secularism, intermarriage, and, as all of these suggest, the Jews' precarious ethnic identity in an increasingly multicultural environment."
Read more about this topic: Curb Your Enthusiasm
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