George Costanza

In honor of Pride Month, I’m taking a moment to honor one of modern television’s best-written gay characters. I am of course referring to George Costanza from Seinfeld.

Costanza, who claims to have “an unblemished record of staunch heterosexuality” (Season 2, episode 3), is TV’s most well-rounded portrayal of a character uncomfortable in his body and sexuality, rivaled perhaps only by Mac in Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia (a conversation for another time). His struggle to fit in with peers is a canonical truth. Many episodes focus on George’s desperate need for social acceptance—no, social dominance—and he resorts to unimaginable lengths (most famously: poisoning his boss, arguably killing his fiancee, lying to said dead fiancee’s parents) to achieve this goal. However, a subtler story is playing out underneath George’s fake bravado and constant scheming. He’s gay.

Costanza blames society for not accepting him as he is: fat, balding, semi-evil. The audience is left to wonder what else might be different about this character who seems so at odds with the cultural norms of the 80s and 90s.

When you Google “George Costanza gay,” most of the results are Reddit threads filled with speculation and uninteresting debate. Most point to Season 3, episode 1 (The Note) as the first indicator of George’s potential homosexuality. In this episode, George feels his penis move during a massage from a male masseuse. This becomes the catalyst for the episode’s B-plot, a full-blown sexuality crisis which includes figuring out the “test” to identify whether or not he’s gay and becoming flustered around other male characters.

I argue that George’s sexuality arc is actually introduced a full season earlier in Season 2, episode 1 (The Ex-Girlfriend). In this episode, in a throwaway scene, George refuses to sit in a car between Jerry and Elaine: “It doesn’t look good— boy, boy, girl,” he says. Elaine responds, “I think you’re afraid to sit next to a man. You’re a little homophobic, aren’t you?” This scene is the first introduction to George’s (internalized) homophobia. Throughout the rest of the season, there are small references to George’s feelings about sexual orientation, such as the comment about his “staunch heterosexuality” just two episodes later. Episode-by-episode, these may seem like filler dialogue to round out a character with yet another flaw. However, looking at the series as a whole, we see a progression for George, starting with comments about homophobia in Season 2, developing into sexuality crises in Season 3 (as with the masseuse-incident), and finally emerging into larger themes surrounding the character in later seasons. Plotlines that come to mind include George and Jerry being mistaken for a gay couple, George having a “crush” on Tony, Elaine’s “mimbo” (male himbo) boyfriend of the week, and George dating a woman who looks exactly like Jerry.

Not to mention, throughout the series, George has troubled relationships with women; on the other hand, his relationships with men often blur the lines between admiration, envy, and I argue, attraction. Seemingly, the only positive relationship in his life is his relationship with Jerry, a friendship so close that it seems to verge upon the unrequited romantic.

Seinfeld’s George Costanza is an outcast who strives for social acceptance while simultaneously deriding it. In the context of the 80s and 90s, when heterosexuality was very much the “norm,” it is easy for the viewer to identify George (a constant outlier) as not-heterosexual. Though George’s homosexuality is never canonically affirmed, I take the constant questioning of his sexuality throughout the series as an affirmation itself. This may have been as close as we could have gotten in the time when the show was released.

George Costanza is Seinfeld’s magnum opus for inclusivity. An icon that proves that anyone can be fat, bald, and evil, even the gays. Happy Pride.