The uncancelable Larry David

IN THE 12TH AND FINAL SEASON OF CURB YOUR Enthusiasm, Larry David-a character based on and played by creator Larry David-pressures a busy hotel housekeeper to fish his glasses out of the toilet. He whines about having to pay a big "condolence tip" to a waiter whose mom just died. He muses to his buddy Leon Black (J.B. Smoove), who is Black, "I wonder if a Black man going to Africa is like a Jew going to Israel." He calls Apple's Siri the C word. And that's all in the first episode.

- JUDY BERMAN

Since Curb debuted on HBO in 2000, fans have relished such excruciating scenes, where Larry's unique combination of privilege and neuroses unleashes politically incorrect chaos. With Leon and his manager Jeff Greene (Jeff Garlin) as accomplices, he makes an art of causing offense. No one is safe from his trifling: women, kids, people of color, LGBTQ people, service workers, characters with disabilities, and adherents of every major religion and political orthodoxy.

The fictional Larry wouldn't last a day in the public square circa 2024. But the real David never seems to get canceled, no matter how many cultural third rails he touches. It's quite a feat at a time when the discourse around comedy is so combustible. The social media masses scrutinize award-show hosts' old jokes. Rightwing pundits sic their viewers on comedians who mock their pet causes. Onetime liberal heroes Dave Chappelle and Louis CK have been knocked off their pedestals by antitrans humor and reports of sexual misconduct, respectively.

David, by contrast, is more widely beloved-and cooler-than ever before. GQ hails the 76-year-old boomer as a fashion icon. He gets name-dropped by Natasha Lyonne and Ayo Edebiri. In 2021, the same year streetwear brand Kith released a Curb collab, he set the internet ablaze by engaging in perhaps the most Gen Z activity possible: sipping espresso martinis with Timothée Chalamet.

For 24 years, the critical distance and self-deprecating humility that separate comedian from character have saved David from provoking the kind of outrage his avatar so relentlessly sows. He has, for the most part, managed to send up the universally irritating virtue signaling of rich liberals and channel the unspeakable frustrations of viewers without endorsing actual bigotry or injustice. As Curb airs its final episodes, its misanthropy has never felt more timely.