“The office manager is simultaneously oblivious to his horridness yet painfully insecure. He resembles Trump. His ignorance mirrors the Trumpist.”
Michael Scott presenting the white power hand sign. (Retroactive)
I wanted to speak briefly on the NBC television mockumentary The Office. Speaking of the show isn’t necessarily timely. However, I would like to say that conditions are such, currently, that I projected a great deal onto a recent rewatch.
In 2004 while I was living in the U.K. (That’s what they call it. The United Kingdom—because East Anglia.. fucking Norfolk, is a Kingdom. As though the giant Uhtred is still Prince Valienting around the Moors.) Occupying the living room telly in the hamlet of Terling, Essex were Southerners, like myself, but in the British vein. Southerners are considered soft, it was said of them. And there is, to my own frontier ears, a whiff of the mollycoddled, precious, and easily outraged sensibility.
Erstwhile and previous to Brexit, the urbanites in Britain are said to be working or middle class while the countrified posh and landed. Where we met socially is that the urbanites are champagne liberal and their class comes from an education. We could agree on that. Even marry if only temporarily.
That the Office was distinguishable as satire was immediately familiar; like Swift’s A Modest Proposal excruciating. In England, they say cringeworthy. E.g. we have a problem with over population we say. The solution is obvious. Babies are tasty. We saw this in Oscar winner Bong Joon-Ho’s Snowpiercer. Our Captain America of social responsibility Chris Evans tells us, tearfully, that babies are delicious. This is no accident. Perhaps, like our current government has suggested, feeding our wise and elderly to the virus as a sacrifice to the economy. It’s a thought balloon. A trial really.
And, so the 28 year old me cringed, and watched Ricky Gervais present every manner of office horror. Every racist, sexist, homophobic, ableist trope was on display and every time his David Brent was the winner. This is key to the whole critique. The office manager is simultaneously oblivious to his horridness yet painfully insecure. He resembles Trump in that his sense of self disgrace is so complete that self-attention is his only salve. And yet it burns. The narcissist burns like the crust on the raw chafed scrotum dry brushed with a razor.
The show is dead brutal to endure, and not any easier 15 years later. Cringeworthy comedy has a lineal ancestry in the U.K. in Armando Iunnuci. He and Chris Morris’s developed the The Day Today, a send up of the kind of sensationalistic news coverage that Mike Wallace made so popular. (and his son Chris Wallace maintains on Fox) Steve Coogan, the weirdly self-deprecating though self-styled genius (making an exquisite metacaricature of his self-opinion on the Trip) made a caricature of the sport presenter on this news cast. His later exquisite plot device is to have himself fired from television and to join a Norfolk radio program as a talk host on I’m Alan Partridge. This goes, without saying, is a step down. Norfolk can’t be adequately described. It is where the Queen vacates, and also the most boring place on earth[1]. I suppose there must be some village near Camp David… Thurmont, Maryland it says on Google. It’s like that, but with more seals and lay-bys.
[1] Norfolk was the site of the stag do for my first marriage. I asked for a playstation and filled the weekend with bouts of GTA intermixed with coastline seal watching. Something short of fabulous.
Steve Coogan as Alan Partridge admiring simple unfettered racism
Likewise, Steve Coogan’s character Alan Partridge is a disgrace. He is an aging far right, sexist pig on daytime radio. That is to say, not atypical. Armando is obsessed with this kind of character. After the show ended, he and Morris produced the Brass Eye, which did a wonderful magazine show on pedophilia, which he followed with his The Thick of It, which introduced your author to co-equal branches of British government—Alistair Campbell and marzipan dildos. Armando then took this toe curling comedy to America with Veep. The Office there had already paved the way, and HBO allowed them, with Larry David, more cunts per minute.
In contrast, the American Office, also produced by Ricky Gervais and the giant Stephen Merchant is a little easier to endure. I wasn’t hopeful for the show. Watching it then, I found it unoffensive. Rainn Wilson was an unexpected delight. Jenna Fischer managed to make the most boring girl next door absolutely captivating.
So.. now, over the last 5 years I had become a kind of executive, if toothless and also unoffensive. I made director at my company, and flew twice sometimes 3 or 4 times a week mastering the efficiency of the professional traveler. (You may see my BonVoy Titanium Elite card by request or dm.) At some point between Calgary to Milwaukee for the 153rd night I decided to rewatch the entirety of the Office. Available for download on Netflix and at 22 minutes I could watch 2 and touch down. I’m not sure if you have noticed, but the brief period between 2016 and 2020 had been newsworthy.
The Trumpian dynamic of the office space.
The show thrives by positing risible situations that would result in immediate firing for normal persons therefor tickling the id of the viewer who has suffered similar reckless bigotry themselves and are satisfied by Pam and Jim’s likable resistance. We could almost imagine being actually trapped in this narrative. And here we are.
Regional Manager Michael Scott’s narcissism has prevented his any possibility of learning, self-responsibility, or leadership. His rash corruption is coddled into payment schemes for friendship. He is loathed and pitied. Feared only by those who prefer working to not working. He is uniquely Trumpian in the popular media landscape. His power, like Trumps, was a mistake.
Assistant to the Regional Manager is an outstanding beet farmer in Dwight Schrute. The ringleader is constantly paid obeisance to by Dwight. Michael Scott is the buffoon who holds the all powerful position of führer; the obsequious Dwight in support of this illusion. Michael is eagerly receptive to flattery and easily manipulated. And even when caught, Dwight so easily slides into obeisance that Michael forgives him. I suspect the self-loathing Jews Kushner or Stephen Miller play a similar role.
A present from Jenna Fischer to Rainn Wilson
That Michael is a gifted salesman is not in question. He is presented as extraordinarily talented in this respect. The mercurial Head Office in “the city” placed him in charge of training the entire cadre. This was the mistake.. a similar mistake we have made as a populous. Michael is not gifted at training. He is gifted at sales. Trump is not gifted at policy work. He is a gifted showman who, regrettably, lacks any sort of process orientation.
This, Plato, tells us is the essential vulnerability of the democracy to a demagogue. A sophist who is confident in one regard, say beet farming, attempts to speak to international relations. Based on his bluster and confidence we trust this sophist to apply his mind to these relations. A candidate emerges who convinces most of us that his profession having nothing to do with policy will in fact shake up policy wonking. (A wanking?)
When our candidate inevitably fails it is again our responsibility to discern past the spin doctoring for fault. This is a lot to ask of us. We are, in fact, not qualified. Almost all of us are descended from farmers. Most of us, the American People, do customer relations management at some paper company, will be soon transitioning to insurance.
For your reference:
Plot S03E03 The Office
Written by Paul Lieberstein (Toby) Directed by Greg Daniels
Jan Levinson (Melora Hardin) berates Michael Scott (Steve Carell) when she discovers that he calls the entire office into the conference room every Monday to watch a movie. Angela Martin (Angela Kinsey) prods Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson) to ask Jan to give him Michael's job. After her awkward meeting with Dwight, where he declares he can be a better boss than Michael, Jan calls Michael and demands he get his branch under control.
The Stamford branch plays Call of Duty under the guise of a team-building exercise. New to the game, Jim Halpert (John Krasinski) plays poorly and draws the ire of his teammates. As he leaves for home, Jim pretends to toss a grenade at Karen Filippelli (Rashida Jones), who responds by creating a pretend explosion with paper clips. Karen longingly watches Jim leave.
Meanwhile, Pam Beesly (Jenna Fischer) decides to revamp her wardrobe after her separation from Roy Anderson and ordered some new clothes. When Pam's clothes are shipped to the office, Kelly Kapoor (Mindy Kaling) insists that Pam perform a lunchtime fashion show to show off a new blouse. When it draws unwanted attention, Pam concludes that it is too revealing.
Michael leads Dwight to believe that he has been given control of the branch before revealing the ruse. Dwight begs for his job and for Michael's forgiveness while Angela and the rest of the office watch him prostrate. Dwight offers to do Michael's laundry for a year. When it appears that Michael is on the verge of firing Dwight, Michael insists that they "hug it out, bitch." Dwight quickly returns to being Michael's loyal right-hand man, but Michael is still resentful, and forces Dwight to stand atop a box in the middle of the office, wearing a sign that says "LIAR"—and then promise to do Michael's laundry for a year.
Le Coup De Gras