In the spirit of John Green’s book of the same title, our theme for the month of October is “the Anthropocene reviewed.” Writers were asked to review and rate some facet of human experience on a five-star scale.
A Very Important Preface
This post is not about nostalgia and memes and jokes and merchandise and the collective social cultural monument that is The Office.
Leave your baggage at the door. I certainly don’t want it, and Lord knows you can finally let that security blanket of the early 2000s go…
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I hated Michael Scott. Michael Scott is not hot. Michael Scott can go sit in snot. Michael Scott is the worst part of the plot. Michael Scott should be marooned on a sinking yacht. I don’t care what dumb funny things he’s said; Michael Scott is a menace and I still don’t know how his character became so fucking popular among millennials.
I first watched The Office in college because I was tired of not understanding all the references people around me kept making to it. It was okay and fairly funny, but I didn’t dwell on it and moved on (with the exception of my illustrious career of academic meme-making that included Office-based memes). However, I recently rewatched the entirety of The Office with Andrew and, naturally, had a very different perspective than I did when I was a freshman or sophomore in college.
The Office is a lot more funny than I originally gave it credit for. It’s easier to laugh with someone else, true, but there really are a number of hilarious moments in nearly every episode. And as someone who’s grown more and more invested in the role of meta-commentary in visual culture as well as the proverbial breaking of the “fourth wall,” the humour is not as shallow and lackadaisical as I used to think. Pam and Jim are the “normal” people at the office and see themselves as such, but, really, they’re just as odd and quirky as everyone else (though maybe in less dangerous and/or salacious ways). Also, wow—you know how when you go to an art museum and a lot of things you don’t really know anything about but then you see Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks or George Stubbs’ Whistlejacket and you say, aha! I know that one is important; I’ve seen it before in popular culture? The Office is studded with these moments like the mysterious and bulging holiday fruit cake that no-one wants.
The wedding of Pam and Jim is not only the inflection point for those two characters, but the inflection point for the entire show. Things begin to shift and we begin to see that the whimsy of the office is not so whimsical after all. The characters become more than just vehicles of humour and we get to plumb beyond the surface waters. After we watched the final episode, I had the oddest feeling because what I walked away with was not at all what I had expected. I was impressed with the importance of grace and how it was, in fact, a central element of the show.
Michael Scott is literally the worst! But people do nice things for him anyway for no apparent reason. (Of course, I think their loyalty is misguided, but whatever…) He’s certainly done nothing to deserve the kindness he receives (though credit where credit is due for Belles, Bourbon, and Bullets), yet he still receives it. Pam and Jim struggle through their marriage, but they find their way through in the end and we get to see the very special moment when Pam has the grace to still try to run after Jim with his forgotten umbrella (I know I teared up). And then, of course, there’s Dwight and Angela (and Philip and Oscar, I guess). From whence come the chummy and charitable feelings of Jim for Dwight? And why does Phyllis treat Angela like a friend when all she’s ever seemingly done is run Phyllis down? Who knows… but they do, and that’s what we’re supposed to remember, nevermind jello-enshrined office supplies and Mexican Christmas.
I give watching The Office a second time as an adult five out of five stars.
I watched through The Office during grad school because, like you, I was tired of not being in on the joke. I came away with the same response you had post-first watch: it was okay and fairly funny, but everyone seemed so dang mean, and fuck Michael Scott. I think I was already getting spoiled by the trend toward kinder comedies (a la Parks and Rec, Brooklyn 99, The Good Place, etc).
Maybe one of these days I’ll give it another shot.