The Office: An Image, Content, and Textual Analysis

Stanley, aka Michael's "secret weapon," attempting to play basketball

In episode five of The Office, appropriately titled “Basketball,” a “friendly” game of basketball takes place between the employees of the office and the employees in the warehouse. Michael and Darryl (one of the warehouse workers) decide to make a bet where the loser of the game has to work on Saturday. Whether it was intentional or not, this episode actually touches on several issues pertaining to race. When doing an image analysis of this episode, we can see that the depiction of race is not just accurate or inaccurate and positive or negative, but is in fact all of these things. It is accurate and positive in the way that it challenges stereotypes by showing that not all African Americans can play basketball well, and poking fun at how people (like Michael Scott – who is ultimately made to look like a fool in this episode) assume that someone may have a particular quality based on their race. A perfect example of this is how Michael assumed Stanley, who is African American, is good at basketball (resulting in Michael picking Stanley for his team), but in reality Stanley is terrible and is actually a bit offended that Michael assumed that he could play well just because of his race. The images in this episode, however, are also in some ways inaccurate and negative. This can best be demonstrated by how Darryl and Lonny (the only two African Americans who work in the warehouse) are portrayed as tough guys and manual workers. Although this episode may have been challenging some stereotypes, it very much was relying on and perpetuating others.

In terms of content analysis, those of a non-white race were heavily under represented. In total, there were three African Americans (two of which worked in the warehouse), one person of Asian descent (who also worked in the warehouse), and one person of Mexican descent, while the rest of the cast (which totals to about 15 or more people) were white. When looking at this through a textual analysis lens, it implies that those of a minority race usually work in manual labor positions, and rarely work higher paid positions, which in some ways reflects some inaccurate cultural assumptions that many people in our society make. This idea of minority races working these lower positions can be considered a social construction, one which is inaccurate and stereotypical.