Jerry Seinfeld 'misses dominant masculinity'

The 70-year-old comedian has reflected on the American culture in the 1960s after exploring the era in his new Netflix film Unfrosted, which tells the fictionalised origin story of the Pop-Tart.

While he understands "the toxic thing", he still longs for the presentation of a certain type of man in the media.

He told the Honestly with Bari Weiss podcast: "Another thing, as a man ... I always wanted to be a real man.

"When I was in that era, it was JFK, Muhammad Ali, Sean Connery, Howard Cosell. That's a real man! I wanted to be like that some day.

"Well, no. I never really grew up. You don't want to as a comedian because it's a childish pursuit.

"I miss a dominant masculinity. I get the toxic thing ... but still I like a real man."

He said part of what defined that era of masculinity was "those movements of style", adding he liked people with "a little style in everything they do".

"(Hugh Grant) knows how to dress. He knows how to talk. He's charming. He has stories, he's comfortable at dinner parties, he knows how to get a drink," he said.

Seinfeld - who is best known for playing a fictionalised version of himself in his titular 1990s sitcom - is nostalgic for the way the 1960s had an "agreed-upon hierarchy", which he thinks people miss.

"That is why people lean on the horn and drive in the crazy way that they drive. We have no sense of hierarchy," he said.

"As humans, we don't really feel comfortable with that. That is part of what ... if you want to talk about nostalgia, that is part of what makes (the 1960s) attractive looking back."

Australian Associated Press