Academic Research on The Office

With The Office having been such a big hit during its time on air (and for some time after it ended), it is no surprise that it has been the center of much academic study, with quite a few journal articles written about the show. One particular article by Eric Detweiler titled “‘I Was Just Doing a Little Joke There:’ Irony and the Paradoxes of the Sitcom in The Office,” looks at how the show uses irony in ways that is different from sitcoms popular in the 1990s and earlier. Older shows, such as Seinfeld, used irony as a way to “exploit gaps between what’s said and what’s meant” (Detweiler, 2012, p. 728). Conversely, in The Office “the gaps are often between not ‘what’s said and what’s meant,’ or what’s said and what’s seen,’ but between what’s said and what’s said… or what’s seen and what’s seen” (Detweiler, 2012, p. 728). An example of this heavily discussed within the article is how the character Jim Halpert often will make an ironic facial expression to the camera following something ridiculous that Michael Scott or Dwight Schrute has done. As a result, Jim is established as a “sympathetic ironic guide for viewers” (Detweiler, 2012, p. 729). Not only this, but the article argues that The Office “simultaneously undermines and reinforces the ideals, dreams, and realities of the post-millennial American middle class” (Detweiler, 2012, p. 730). One way this is done, as brought up in the article, is through the depiction of gender roles. Pam, for example, is depicted as someone who conforms to gender roles by being a secretary on the show, but also contradicts those roles by aspiring to be an artist and eventually gaining a higher position within the company.

Similarly, the article “‘That’s What She Said:’ Gender, Satire, and the American Workplace on the Sitcom The Office,” by Jessica Birthisel and Jason Martin, discusses how gender is represented within The Office. What they found was that the show relies on socially constructed ideas of gender norms and stereotypes that are present within our culture. For example, the show situates the characters of The Office “into masculine and feminine hierarchies within the company,” with “female hierarchies being less developed than the men’s hierarchies and few plots revolving around women… reflecting important cultural conceptions about women’s role in the workplace” (Birthisel & Martin, 2013, p. 68). One way this is shown is how “when the women interact within the office, it is in the feminized and domestic space of the party planning committee” (Birthisel & Martin, 2013, p. 68). What this article ultimately argues, though, is that although the show does perpetuate these ideas of gender roles, it also allows for the critique of these ideas. As it states in the article, “through the use of ‘excess as hyperbole,’ the show satirizes and mocks the figures of patriarchal corporate authority with which most American workers interact each day” (Birthisel & Martin, 2013, p. 75).

Lastly, Bore’s article “Negotiating Generic Hybridity: Audience Engagement with The Office” discusses, as the title states, how “viewers engaged with a hybrid sitcom… [one which] embraces a more naturalistic style, using the visual style of a documentary with mobile, fly-on-the-wall camera work” (2009, p. 33). In looking at other research that states that The Office, in its mockumentary format, challenges “the association between documentary and authenticity,” what the article mainly argues is that viewers often ignore the documentary style (and the things that signify this), and instead focus on the “authenticity of its setting and characters” (Bore, 2009, p. 33). For audiences of The Office, the authenticity and the show’s “realness” was judged based on the viewers real life experiences (meaning that the mockumentary style, which can sometimes be used to make things seem more real, really had little to no effect on the show’s authenticity).

Bore, I. K. (2009). Negotiating generic hybridity: Audience engagement with the office. Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, 23(1), 33-42, doi: 10.1080/10304310802570882

Brithisel, J. & Martin, J. A. (2013). “That’s what she said”: Gender, satire, and the American workplace on the sitcom the office. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 37(1), 64-80, doi: 10.1177/0196859912474667

Detweiler, E. (2012). “I was just doing a little joke there”: Irony and the paradoxes of the sitcom in the office. Journal of Popular Culture, 45(4), 727-748. doi: 10.1111/j.1540-5931.2012.00955.x