OK, So i haven’t seen a single episode of the American version of The Office but the internet is flooded with clips/memes from the show that I have a somewhat of an idea of the characters. There’s Jim and his girlfriend Pat, Steve Carrell, some various people, and the often tormented Dwight. Most of the clips I’ve seen are about Jim doing some nasty prank on Dwight, whom I suspect suffers from Asperger’s.
If this was real life then Jim would be a horrible bully. I assume in the context of the show all these pranks are somehow justified. Now I understand that it’s just a show and that there’s a lot of people that love the it and Jim. Makes me wonder what characters I like could be seen as huge assholes out of context. Daria is probably on that list.
You’re correct that many sitcom characters would assholes or otherwise unlikable in the real world. For example, did you ever watch Seinfeld? If Kramer lived across the hall from me, I’d lock the door as soon as I got home and the remaining three main characters aren’t any better. The Friends sextet are all annoying in their own way. And so on. But we’re not watching real people. We’re watching to be entertained. People who would be tolerable to be around in real life would be boring to watch on TV.
I wasn’t a huge fan, but I watched enough to come away with some impressions.
Jim and Dwight were by far the most successful salespeople in the office. Dwight saw this as a competition, and he was obsessed with being the best and, eventually, succeeding Michael as manager. Jim didn’t really care; he had a single client big enough to meet his entire annual quota, otherwise, the office was just a place to hang out (and later on, be with Pam.)
So Jim would prank Dwight, either because he was bored or because Dwight was being an officious jerk who needed to be taken down a peg or two. Jim was never a “bully” - he had no real malice - as much as he was a somewhat juvenile slacker. On the other hand, when Jim discovered Dwight was having an affair, he could have either gotten Dwight fired or held it over his head. Instead, Jim never breathed a word of it to anyone.
And at the end of the series, Dwight referred to Jim and Pam as his best friends.
I never could get into the American Office. It’s SO American. The BBC’s Office was the genuine article. Gervais and Merchant were one kind of comedy and Carell and the American crew so very much another…
The Beeb’s Office had that ever-so-British combination of wry humor and brutal gut punches. So did the underrated Extras. (I never got into Derek though.)
The handbags and gladrags…I’ll always remember my college years of 2005-2009 and my girlfriend’s little apartment and the other memories from that time in my life, when I watch The Office. That was when I first discovered it, and Gervais’s character gut-hooked me and reeled me in…I’ve seen that series at least 20 times over at this point (not hard to do, since the episodes and the run of the show itself were short.)
The BBC knew when to quit while they were ahead. Rather than extending it out indefinitely and exhausting every possible avenue of humor until the show is wrung dry of heart, the way the Merchant Bankers here in the US do it.
I couldn’t watch The Office for exactly this reason. I had to work with a bastard like Jim: good-looking, charming, and useless. And he thought he was the most valuable employee in the company.
I’ll admit I’ve never watched Parks and Recreation. But from scenes I’ve seen on YouTube, I’ve formed the conclusion that Ron Swanson is a dickhead.
My understanding is that he’s the head of a city agency. But he doesn’t believe in government. So he refuses to do his job. But apparently he still accepts his paychecks.
Okay, I can accept somebody being opposed to the government. So don’t join the government. But if you do take a job and collect a paycheck then do the job you’re getting paid for.
I agree with this. It is a sitcom, and there are some of the pranks that if you did them in real life would be going way too far. But Jim isn’t a bully picking on the weakest guy in the Office. He is a slacker who’s trying to take the somewhat thoughtless jerk down a peg or two. Dwight craves authority and often abuses it when given, and Rainn Wilson, the actor playing Dwight, described him as a “fascist nerd.”
It is a sitcom so everyone is a little bit of a caricature, but Ron Swanson definitely isn’t a dickhead. It is true that he is a libertarian and believes the government should be privatized, so he does the job that’s required of him and no more, and tries as best he can to bring his department under budget and not spend any more money than necessary.
Also, he employs Leslie Knope who is the biggest go-getter in government possible. They do have their disagreements on philosophies, but he is ultimately supportive as a boss and as a friend. Someone who was more committed to a goal of privatizing the government wouldn’t employ someone like Leslie.
Both Ron Swanson and Leslie Knope exist on the show because either of the characters on their own would be too much. I’m sure some of the clips out of context make him seem like a dickhead. And there are probably people in real life who idolize him too much who are dickheads. But overall in the show he’s definitely a good guy.
At one point Ron Swanson pointed out that Leslie Knope was so gung-ho that she did the work of four people, so that allowed him to save money while getting the work done.
One of the cool things about that sitcom was that the contrast between his libertarian philosophy and her belief that government could do good things for people. How many sitcoms have philosophical debates at their heart? If you think of The Good Place as one, I’ll note that both were created by the same person, Michael Schur.
There were a few episodes where Jim got his comeuppance, such as when Michael leaves for a couple of days and Jim is in charge. He starts making bad decisions and gets everyone pissed off. The nadir comes when Phyllis accidentally calls him ‘Michael’, much to Jim’s horror.
I think this actually came up in the show once. I really don’t remember many of the details, but Jim was recounting a bunch of past pranks for some reason, and they didn’t come off as especially funny in hindsight.
I disagree. No one on that show could do a decent America accent. It’s as though it were set in Britain someplace. They stole the concept from America and did such a bad job it was canceled after half a dozen episodes.
That’s true. I have issues with the libertarian philosophy, but I have no issue with if you have someone who can and is eager to do the work of four people, then there is no need to hire three more people.
That was not great on Jim’s end, but also I’m pretty sure that one of the first things we were told about Andy when he was introduced was that he had an anger problem. So Jim might have pushed him too far, but it also wouldn’t take as much pushing as others.
The clip is here, it’s from when the complaint box and all the complaints in it were discussed. Even the prank in the clip that pushes Dwight to make his ultimatum is a bit too far in my opinion, messing with a security badge and getting him labeled a security threat. But also it definitely shows the incompetence of HR and management, and Jim’s pranks and Dwight’s authoritariasm and plenty of other issues should have been dealt with long before. But then of course, if those issues were addressed and everyone was given enough work so they didn’t have time for sitcom shenanigans there wouldn’t be a show.
I want to make it clear, in general I am anti-pranks. In real life they are often to humiliate someone, and can often and easily go too far. But with The Office and we are in a sitcom universe and we see Dwight harassing all of the staff in various ways Jim’s pranks mostly don’t seem too out of line.
Somebody tell me you didn’t laugh when Jim kept gradually adding coins to Dwight’s phone and then removed them all at once after Dwight had accustomed himself to the heavier weight.
I only watched the first season or 2 and Jim always came off to me as a big dork and also “Nice Guy” (in the way that the “nice guy” is really a jerk and expects to “steal the girl” from her boorish BF simply by his existence) wimp who pined after Pam and would ultimately “win” by doing whatever it is he does. So in a way he was a douche and jerk, but to me he was never attractive or charismatic but more like an underdog regular guy who was destined to get the girl and whatever he wanted out of the career.
I mentioned this before to you guys awhile ago: The office is basically M.A.S.H., but in an office setting.
Hawkeye/Trapper John ----> Jim
Dwight ----> Winchester/Frank Burns
Hot Lips ----> the blonde waspy woman (I think she’s Dwight’s girlfriend)
Henry Blake (clueless) ----> Michael Scott (clueless)
The others I might be stretching it a bit. I don’t have a direct representation of Father Mulcahey, for example.
