I love the way Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Elaine Benes shoves people to express shock and surprise in The role of Elaine set up Louis-Dreyfus for a legendary career in film and television. She’s since played unscrupulous politician Selina Meyer in HBO’s Veep, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and forged a strong working relationship with renowned writer-director Nicole Holofcener. She has a wide and varied body of work, but it can all be traced back to Elaine.
There are many things that make Elaine a great character. Her bluntness is refreshing, her dry wit is hilarious, and Elaine’s iconic dance will never not be funny. One of the best running gags involving the character is the classic Elaine shove. Whenever Jerry, George, or Kramer deliver some unbelievable good news to Elaine, she shouts, “Get out!” and gives them a shove (sometimes so hard that it knocks them off their feet). I’ve always loved this recurring sight gag, but the history of how it came to be makes it even more endearing.
The Elaine Shove In Seinfeld Was Actually A Trait Of Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Louis-Dreyfus Developed The Shove As A Way To Assert Herself In Male-Dominated Comedy Shows
According to a New Yorker profile, Louis-Dreyfus took Elaine’s iconic shove from her own life. That shove predated Seinfeld by at least a decade. In the piece, Paul Barrosse, who went to Northwestern University with Louis-Dreyfus and cast her in a college comedy show, explains that Louis-Dreyfus has been shoving men for comic effect since the beginning of her comedy career. It wasn’t just about shoving people; it was specifically about shoving her male co-stars. Barrosse said, in a male-dominated field, “That’s the way she had to treat us.”
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When Louis-Dreyfus first got into comedy in college, there was a clear gender inequality. Any given show would have around seven male performers and just two women, if that. Even as a freshman at age 18, Louis-Dreyfus knew how to assert herself in this environment. That often took the form of shoving her male co-stars across the stage. Barrosse said that he and the other male seniors had “huge egos,” but Louis-Dreyfus “really stood up to that.” One way or another, she was going to make the audience notice her.
Knowing that Elaine’s shoves are based on Louis-Dreyfus’ history of having to assert herself over egocentric male actors makes them even more endearing.
Those self-asserting skills came in handy years later when Louis-Dreyfus was hired as the only female actor in the main cast of Seinfeld. Shoving Jerry Seinfeld, Jason Alexander, and Michael Richards was a way of making herself seen and heard in the same way she’d done at those early college shows. Knowing that Elaine’s shoves are based on Louis-Dreyfus’ history of having to assert herself over egocentric male actors makes them even more endearing.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus Improvised The Elaine Shove For The Sitcom
The Shoves Weren't In The Script
Elaine’s shoves weren’t in the script; that’s something that Louis-Dreyfus brought to the table. After she started improvising the shoves and they got a big response from the live studio audience (and the audience at home), it became a big part of the character. It perfectly sums up Elaine’s dynamic with her friends. She pushes them around, both figuratively and literally. The New Yorker dubs it a kid-sister move, both obnoxious and irresistible, and that’s the perfect way to describe it — and it’s perfectly in line with Elaine as a character.
The Elaine Shove Got More Exaggerated Throughout Seinfeld's Run
Elaine's Shoves Got Bigger & Bigger
Any comedian or comedy writer worth their salt knows you can’t just do the same joke over and over again without some kind of escalation or one-upmanship. Elaine’s shove continued to recur as a sight gag throughout Seinfeld’s entire nine-season run, but it got more and more exaggerated as time went on. Eventually, she was shoving Jerry through doors and pushing Kramer onto the floor. From Kramer’s entrances to George’s tirades, Seinfeld’s running gags all got bigger and bigger as the series progressed — and, as a result, they got even funnier.
Source: The New Yorker
Seinfeld
- Release Date
- 1989 - 1998-00-00
- Network
- NBC
- Showrunner
- Larry David
WHERE TO WATCH
- Directors
- Jason Alexander
- Writers
- Larry David
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