Notice what Seinfeld does with his voice, his face, and his gestures.
Mirrors
The ancient Greeks had a myth about a myth, well, not exactly, but close enough. Poor Narcissus saw his reflection in pond, became entranced, and stayed there until he died. Thus we have a flower, the kind that sprouted from the spot where Narcissus rotted into the ground, and the name of a mental disorder, narcissism.
Think about it, though, how would an animal recognize its own reflection? Chimpanzees can do it, but monkeys can’t. I don’t know about other species, but I believe the capacity for mirror recognition is rare.
In the first place, mirrors don’t exist in the natural world. There are ponds and streams, but how many animals actually stare at the surface as opposed to drinking? Nor does will a surface produce a very good reflection unless it is still. Should an animal come across a mirror, how would it recognize its reflection as itself? If it attempts to touch the creature in the mirror what happens? It bumps into the mirror. It may still be able to see the other creature, but how can he tell that that other creature is itself?
It’s faced with contradictory evidence of its senses. Vision tells it that there’s a space over there and a creature in it. But when it moves, it bumps into the surface of the mirror. Touch says there’s a barrier there and the motor system is trying to move, but can’t. It just doesn’t make any sense.
And that’s what mirrors are about. Frankly, I don’t quite understand what’s going on in this joke. But it has something to do with our confusion over and, yes, obsession with, mirrors.
The Bit: Parakeet Mirror
You’ll that this version, from Seinfeld’s book, Is This Anything?, is a bit different from the version he delivers in the clip. Jokes are like that.
My mother would always talk to me about what she’s going to do with the living room.
This was her obsession.
She was gonna fix the living room.
“I want to change the living room.”
My mother would say,
“You know, if you make one wall of a room a mirror people think
you have an entire other room.”
She believed this.
What kind of an idiot walks up to a mirror and goes,
“Hey look, there’s a whole other room in there.
There’s a guy in there that looks just like me.”
My parakeet would fall for this.
I would let him out of his cage.
He would fly around and he would go “BANG” right into the mirror.
With his little head that was very smooth at the front.
And the feathers would fly.
And he’d hit the ground.
Then he’d fly off in another direction a little askew.
But even if he thinks the mirror is another room,
why doesn’t he at least try and avoid hitting the OTHER parakeet?
“Look—up!”
What happened to bird’s-eye view and all that?
There’s another parakeet coming right at you!
Analysis and Comments: The Parakeet
My mother would always talk to me about what she’s going to do with the living room.
This was her obsession.
She was gonna fix the living room.
“I want to change the living room.”
Seinfeld’s heading toward a parakeet, but there isn’t a hit of it here. He’s starting out at home, with his mother talking to him about the living room. Their living room. Her living room. He’s got two voices, his own, and his mother’s.
My mother would say,
“You know, if you make one wall of a room a mirror people think
you have an entire other room.”
She believed this.
Again, he gives voice to his mother, who is expressing her belief in the home-improvement efficacy of an illusion. Why does he say, “She believed this”? She wouldn’t have said it if she believed it, would she? He says it to take up a bit of time, give us room to think, and simply to emphasize her state of mind, her belief.
What kind of an idiot walks up to a mirror and goes,
“Hey look, there’s a whole other room in there.
There’s a guy in there that looks just like me.”
Add another voice, for the idiot.
What if Seinfeld had said, “What kind of an idiot believes such a thing?” Then he’d be accusing his mother of being an idiot, which is not a nice thing to do. When he starts the sentence we don’t know where he’s going with it. If he’d gone to his mother we’d have been a bit shocked, but not surprised. Before we have a time to anticipate that far he heads off in a benign direction, toward some unnamed idiot – definitely not his mother – walking up to the mirror. This guy IS an idiot, though, because he doesn’t recognize that he’s looking at a mirror. Moreover, he explicitly remarks on the doppelgänger in the room, mistaking them for someone else. In fact, any reasonable competent human being would see the mirror for what it is.
My parakeet would fall for this.
I would let him out of his cage.
He would fly around and he would go “BANG” right into the mirror.
With his little head that was very smooth at the front.
Now Seinfeld brings the parakeet on stage. Why bring up the detail of the smooth little head? It does emphasize the parakeet’s vulnerability, perhaps leading us to worry about the parakeet’s fate.
And the feathers would fly.
And he’d hit the ground.
Then he’d fly off in another direction a little askew.
Whew! The little guy’s OK.
But even if he thinks the mirror is another room,
why doesn’t he at least try and avoid hitting the OTHER parakeet?
“Look—up!”
What happened to bird’s-eye view and all that?
There’s another parakeet coming right at you!
But how could the bird possibly avoid illusory parakeet? If the parakeet moves to the left, the illusory one follows. To the right? Same thing. Up? Down? No difference. There’s no way out.
And what about mom? Where’d she go. Would the joke work without using her to set it up? I think not. If you start with the parakeet it’s just a dumb bird flying into a mirror. They fly into windows too. So what?
No, what makes this joke work is Seinfeld’s mother’s desire to get something out of the illusory room, some improvement to the home, and what happens when the parakeet attempts to fly into that illusion. Between mom and the parakeet, that’s where the laughter comes from.
And it has to be his mom and his parakeet; it has to be in the family. It won’t work with some other person and a third party parakeet. This is a very intimate joke. How does a young child see themselves in their mother’s face? The French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan calls this the stade du miroir, the mirror stage. But it’s not merely a stage. It continues, on and on.
Note: See the story about a chimpanzé named Vicki in this post, Two Puzzles Concerning the Self.
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From Jerry Seinfeld, Is This Anything? Simon & Schuster, 2020.
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