Elaine Benes was not in the original Seinfeld pilot. The show was conceived as three men — Jerry, George, and Kramer — and NBC executives asked for a female character to be added. Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld created Elaine for the series, and in doing so produced the most significant female comedy character in television history.
This is the case for Elaine Benes.
The decision that made Elaine revolutionary was not her creation but her characterisation. From the beginning, the writers made a deliberate choice: Elaine would be as selfish, as petty, as incapable of growth, and as funny as the men around her. She would not be the moral centre of the group. She would be exactly as bad as everyone else.
This was not how female sitcom characters worked in 1990. Female characters in American comedy were typically warmer, more sensible, more emotionally available than their male counterparts. Elaine broke every one of those conventions. The writers gave her the same moral latitude as the men, and it made her the most fully realised female comedy character that the form had yet produced.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus was not the first choice for Elaine. What Louis-Dreyfus brought to the role was a physicality and specificity that made Elaine feel like a real person rather than a type.
Her dancing — the full-body, thumbs-forward spasm in The Little Kicks — was entirely her own creation. The writers did not describe a dance; Louis-Dreyfus invented one. Her timing, her reactions, and her willingness to be unflattering gave Elaine a texture that the writing alone could not have produced. Louis-Dreyfus won the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress for the role and has since become the most Emmy-decorated performer in television history.
Before Elaine, the template for a female character in an ensemble sitcom was the one who kept things together. After Elaine, it became possible to write female characters who were as chaotic, as self-interested, and as funny as the men around them.
The wave of complex female comedy characters that followed — from Liz Lemon to Selina Meyer to every character in Broad City — builds on the foundation Elaine established. The idea that a female character could be central to an ensemble without being the moral compass is now unremarkable. It was not unremarkable in 1990. Elaine Benes made it unremarkable.
Elaine Benes appears in all 180 episodes. She dates 18 men, holds three major jobs, has a terrible dance, and never once learns a lesson that sticks. She is the character who changed what female comedy characters were allowed to be. That is, in the long view, the most significant thing Seinfeld did. It gave women in comedy permission to be as messy, as funny, and as fully human as anyone else.