The Office

“Throughout The Office, Phyllis, Stanley, and Kevin are repeatedly fat shamed in a way that normalizes the mockery rather than satirizing or critiquing it.”

Title: The Office (US)
Episodes Reviewed: All (Seasons 1-9)
Creator: Greg Daniels 👨🏼🇺🇸
Writers: Greg Daniels 👨🏼🇺🇸 (188 eps), Mindy Kaling 👩🏽🇺🇸 (22 eps), B. J. Novak 👨🏼🇺🇸 (15 eps), Gene Stupnitsky 👨🏼🇺🇸 (15 eps), Brent Forrester 👨🏼🇺🇸 (11 eps), Michael Schur 👨🏼🇺🇸 (10 eps), and various

Reviewed by Ishmeet Nagpal 👩🏾🇮🇳🌈♿

Technical: 3/5

Based on Ricky Gervais’s BBC sitcom, Greg Daniels’ The Office (2005–2013) has gathered admiration among loyal fans for its awkward, mockumentary-style comedy. Portraying a dysfunctional corporate office—a branch of the fictional Dunder Mifflin Paper Company—where incompetence and shenanigans reign over propriety, the show definitely has its funny moments. However, the cringe-inducing antics of a racist, misogynistic, fatphobic, and downright inappropriate boss Michael Scott (Steve Carell) are decidedly disturbing.

This core component to the show’s humor can take away from viewer enjoyment—especially if the viewer is from any marginalized or oppressed community. On the other hand, audiences may identify with characters like the charming Jim Halpert (John Krasinski) and his love interest, Pam Beesly (Jenna Fischer), who are wise to Michael’s antics. Their romance is the highlight of the series, barely soured by the complicated fact that they’re coworkers. The better part of the laughs are provided by the quirky, yet sincere character of Dwight Shrute (Rainn Wilson). He is surprisingly less problematic than Michael despite his often worrisome and absurd behavior. These characters have earned a soft spot among fans, and significantly lift the caliber of this comedy.

Additionally, the mockumentary format works well. Even if the sitcom’s pacing flails a bit, that’s to be expected given its nine-season run. Lowlights include Season 1, which takes some time finding its legs, and the palpable desperation of the writers to keep the shenanigans coming after Carell’s departure in Seasons 8 and 9. By these latter episodes, one realizes that The Office relied heavily on the comedian’s talent to sell a manager who, in any other setting, would be perceived as repulsive.

But how long can cringe stay funny? How many laughs can a viewer muster as a woman, or as a gay person, or a fat person, or a person of color, watching white characters in positions of power insult your counterparts for amusement? Ultimately, it’s this punching down, and a lack of good, fresh storylines, that makes watching all nine seasons of The Office an ordeal rather than a treat.

Gender: 3/5
Does it pass the Bechdel Test? NOPE, not really

Women in The Office are portrayed as narrow stereotypes who rarely, or belatedly, step outside of their caricatures. Early on, receptionist Pam engages in two consecutive office romances while playing a mommy role to the incompetent Michael. Her Season 5 front desk replacement, Erin Hannon (Ellie Kemper), falls into the “jolly airhead” stereotype. Other women in the office also exist in cliched frameworks—Phyllis (Phyllis Smith) is constantly fat shamed, Angela (Angela Kinsey) is a “tightly wound cat lady,” Meredith (Kate Flannery) is a one-dimensional worker who loves to drink, and Kelly Kapoor (Mindy Kaling) comes off as clingy and lacking in common sense.

The sexual contact between the coworkers feels particularly jarring. Meredith exposes her breasts and vagina to the entire office (this is played for laughs), Pam walks in on Michael while he changes in his office with the door unlocked (yes she sees “everything”), and Dwight and Angela have sex on one of the workstations as Phyllis watches.

With all the chaos that Michael and his sidekick Dwight bring, women have little space in the script and in the storylines. For example, according to Michael, the Party Planning Committee is to be composed only of women. This is a familiar scene in many real life offices where women are asked to take on additional housekeeping and social tasks. To the show’s credit, Pam takes control as Office Manager in Season 7 and shuts down this sexist practice. But by this point, Pam’s evolution seems performative.

The other women don’t get much redemption either. Their discomfort and protestations against Michael and Dwight’s misogynistic views and behavior are treated as punchlines, not moments of reflection. In Season 3, Episode 22, when Michael is told that a stranger flashed Phyllis, he proceeds to mock Phyllis’ physical appearance and jokes that he should have assaulted a “hotter” woman like Pam. When the women and Jim (to his credit) point out how demeaning his comments are, he proceeds to open his zipper and poke a finger through it, simulating the flasher’s penis.

If this happened in a regular workplace, we would expect to see this person severely reprimanded and possibly fired. No such luck here. In fact, Michael’s behavior only gets worse over time. The egregious sexism continues to get played for laughs instead of leading to even a semblance of course correction. And it’s not just Michael—other men in the office also behave inappropriately. For example, Creed (Creed Bratton) tells the documentary crew in Season 4, Episode 14, that he would like to see Pam topless—and faces no consequences. In Season 3, Episode 6, Kevin also speculates aloud about Pam’s nude body in front of the entire office, and then laughs as Pam is left aghast.

Even using a kind interpretation, where the sitcom might have intended satire to showcase how awful these moments are, it never takes the time to openly critique such sexism. By the end of its 201 episodes, The Office merely winds up normalizing it.

Race: 2.5/5

In Season 1, Episode 2, Michael hijacks a racial sensitivity training session, pushing aside the Black trainer meant to lead the session. He then proceeds to spew racist assumptions and offensive language, forcing his employees to stereotype one another by their racial and ethnic identities. This early episode sets the tone for how people of color are treated by The Office.

Among its worst offenses, a blackface scene from Season 9, Episode 9, which aired in 2012, was eventually deleted by creator Greg Daniels in 2020. He apologized, saying, “The show employed satire to expose unacceptable behavior and deliver a message of inclusion. Today we cut a shot of an actor wearing blackface that was used to criticize a specific racist European practice. Blackface is unacceptable and making the point so graphically is hurtful and wrong. I am sorry for the pain that caused.” But the fact that it took so long for the realization to happen is testament to the lack of sensitivity and forethought in the writers’ room.

While racial diversity somewhat populates the corporate office at Dunder Mifflin, it’s fairly segregated, with management mostly white and the majority of warehouse workers (who get minimal storylines or dialogue) being Black. Among the main cast, recurring characters of color include Stanley Hudson (Leslie David Baker), Oscar Martinez (Óscar Núñez), and Kelly Kapoor (Mindy Kaling) representing Black, Cuban, and Indian ethnicities, respectively. They’re later joined by warehouse employee Darryl Philbin (Craig Robinson, who’s Black).

At its best, Stanley is a beloved character, often compared to Eeyore with his resigned and drawling dialogue delivery. Importantly, he’s also the only character to ever snap back at Michael. Still, it’s frustrating to watch both Dwight and Michael treat him with the utmost insensitivity. In Season 2, Episode 18, Michael makes lewd comments about Stanley’s 8th grade daughter “turning into a stone cold fox,” and in Season 5, Stanley suffers a heart attack due to Dwight faking a fire at the office. Viewers learn that Stanley’s health problems trace back to workplace stress, exacerbated by proximity to Michael. Underpinning these seemingly one-off events are real racial inequalities: Black girls are unfairly perceived as older than they are (and thus seen as less innocent, leading to harsher punishments and hypersexualization) and it’s also known that Black life expectancies are shorter that those of other racial groups in the United States due to prolonged stress from racial discrimination. Stanley’s time in The Office echoes these real world issues, so it feels glib and unfunny when the showrunners present the situations, and Stanley’s justified exasperation, as a source of amusement.

Not only does the series downplay workplace harassment, writers attempt to make the scenarios more palatable by covering for Michael’s behavior. In “Scott’s Tots” (Season 6, Episode 12), Michael had flippantly promised to pay the college tuition for a group of mostly Black third graders. This was 9 years ago, but fast-forward to the show’s present day: Michael is far from having the means to make good on his words. The students invite him to their classroom and show him a room named after him, then proceed to do a song and dance routine praising him. Only then does he break the news that he cannot pay their tuition. The disappointment and pain on the children’s faces eventually compel Michael to acknowledge he did a terrible thing, but we also see Erin console him with, “The principal told me that 90% of Scott’s Tots are on track to graduate, and that’s 35% higher than the rest of the school. So I think if you hadn’t made that promise, a lot of them would’ve dropped out.” By the next episode, we’re back to regular business. The consequences the kids will face, the shattering of their lifelong dreams, is not only forgotten, but it’s condescendingly implied that a white character’s mistake and lie was actually “better” for the Black kids.

But to be fair to the long-running series, a few episodes are culturally competent. In Season 3, Episode 6, Kelly invites her coworkers to a Diwali celebration in her community. Michael calls it “The Hindu Halloween,” and even American-born Kelly is fuzzy on the details. But the episode is funny, thanks to mostly accurate depictions of diasporic Indian Hindus. Little details like taking off footwear when entering a Hindu festival, the decorations, costumes, and dancing—appearing as they would be in a real gathering—are done right. This sense of authenticity is likely helped along by the episode being written by Kaling herself, who’s Tamil American.

But a culturally aware episode here or there doesn’t counter the overwhelming sense that The Office was written by and for white people. It repeatedly begs the audience to excuse Michael’s racism by portraying him as a lost soul with arrested development who harbors no real malice. This routine gets old quickly and has even prompted former cast members to speak out against The Office’s legacy on the topic.

LGBTQ: 1/5

“Gay Witch Hunt” (Season 3, Episode 1) opens with Michael trying to justify the use of the word “f--gy” while the HR representative outs Oscar as gay. Of course, Michael then declares Oscar’s sexuality to the rest of the office and teams up with Dwight to “guess” who else among the employees could be gay. The episode then spins out of control with Michael physically forcing himself onto Oscar and kissing him, also prompting Dwight to follow suit.

If one really thinks about it, this is a terrifying storyline. Given that Oscar remains the only queer representation of note in the show, his treatment is abysmal. Angela says openly homophobic things to and about him and takes a while to “come around” and be cordial with him again. He is compensated with a three-month paid vacation by corporate to make up for what Michael put him through, but is that the solution to homophobia and workplace sexual harassment that The Office would like us to applaud? The fact that the kissing wasn’t even scripted also indicates that no thought or care went into this scene—one that’s perhaps the worst in a series with so many cringeworthy options to choose from.

Deduction for Body Diversity: -1.00

Season 5’s opener, “Weight Loss,” is a master class in harmful, fatphobic writing. Dunder Mifflin organizes a competition incentivizing employees to lose weight. Among the day’s horrifying antics, all of it played for humor: Kelly goes overboard in pursuing the prize and develops an eating disorder, fainting; Michael puts on an inflatable sumo suit in order to fat shame his colleagues; and Dwight suggests that coworkers Phyllis, Stanley, and Kevin Malone (Brian Baumgartner) get liposuction. Dwight then tricks Phyllis into accompanying him to a far-off and isolated area and leaves her stranded so she can burn calories walking back to the office.

And it’s not just contained to the above. Throughout the series, Phyllis, Stanley, and Kevin are repeatedly fat shamed in a way that normalizes the mockery rather than satirizing or critiquing it. Kevin in particular is portrayed as a one-dimensional stereotype of a “dumb, fat man” whose body is always the butt of jokes. Fat jokes and playing fat bodies for physical comedy is frankly the lowest hanging fruit possible, and The Office gleefully mines both.

Mediaversity Grade: D 2.13/5

Kaling has said that “most of the characters on [The Office] probably would be canceled,” and it would be for good reason. The sitcom hasn’t aged well at all and rightfully belongs in the past. But with Peacock spin-off The Paper slated to release this year, one hopes that Daniels and new co-creator Michael Koman (Late Night with Conan O'Brien) find ways to use the mockumentary style to form punchlines that don’t attack already marginalized groups for laughs.

Like The Office? Try these other half-hour comedies.

Grade: DLiJune 25, 2024