Have you ever noticed... no one is neurotic anymore?
No wait, that’s not quite right. What I mean to say is: No one calls themselves neurotic anymore. People — particularly affluent comedians who drink coffee in cars — can still exhibit the classic symptoms of neurosis, but when was the last time you heard someone self-identify with the psychological disorder?
[Seinfeld voice.] It was a thing!
Neurosis peaked in popular culture in the 1950s, but most psychiatrists found the term vague, and it was finally expunged from the DSM in 1980. Nonetheless, neurotic self-diagnosis soldiered on, particularly within the literary circles of the 1990s, where it was used to feign self-deprecation. As in: “I’m so neurotic, I read the collected works of Proust last month.”
Today, anointing oneself neurotic has fallen out of favor. What happened? Here’s my theory: The people who once claimed “a neurotic personality” have adopted a new term; today, they call themselves “on the spectrum.” Even Seinfeld has called himself on the spectrum.
So in the end, nothing has changed. We simply traded one slippery pop diagnosis for another.
Anyway, Curb Your Enthusiasm, perhaps the most neurotic show in television history, premiered on HBO 20 years ago today. Here’s Larry David pretending to be... [checks notes] on the spectrum:
Did you know? Curb’s distinct theme song was originally composed for a 1974 Italian movie. It went largely unnoticed for decades, until Larry David heard that indelible tuba bomp, bomp, bomp in a bank commercial.
OTHER ANNIVERSARIES
100 Years Ago Today: Mario Puzo, author of The Godfather, was born.
80 Years Ago Today: Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator (1940) was released.
30 Years Ago Today: Mikhail Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (1990).
40 Years Ago Yesterday: The Odeon opened in Tribeca.