Monday, October 5, 2015

The Office Episode 2: "Diversity Day"




It was diversity day at the office, and with Michael Scott as the boss, of course craziness ensued. To give a quick summary, in this episode Michael and the employees of the office are forced to go through a diversity training seminar, which we later find out was required due to a controversial imitation of one of Chris Rock’s comedy routines that Michael has done several times in the past.  Michael, being ignorant and thinking he knows everything about intolerance, decides to do his own diversity training seminar after the corporate mandated one is over and the “diversity trainer,” Mr. Brown, leaves. Michael’s training seminar included an exercise in which his staff randomly picked index cards with different races written on them, put those index cards on their heads, and tried to guess what race they chose by having their co-workers use stereotypes to describe that race. While Michael thinks what he is doing is a powerful way to address the issue of racism, the rest of his staff obviously doesn’t think the same thing (which was indicated by one of the characters, Kelly (who happens to be Indian), slapping Michael in the face after he did a poor, and pretty racist, impression of an Indian man).


With “Diversity Day” only being The Office’s second episode, the show made a very bold move in tackling the issue of racism. In reality, however, the show was very strategically using this issue as a platform to set up the character of Michael Scott for the rest of the series. In a review of this episode, Paul Thomas makes the point that Michael is a character that “we can laugh at but at the same time sympathize with.” Essentially, Paul argues that Michael isn’t the racist that he seems to be at first glance in this episode, but is instead “just a moron who doesn’t understand what racism really is or why it hurts others.” I completely agree with the point Paul tries to make in his article. As most Office fans know (at least those who have seen the whole series), Michael is, for a lack of a better term, a lovable idiot. He doesn’t realize what he is doing may be wrong until it is too late (in this case, it was when Kelly slapped him).
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Monday, September 28, 2015

Live Tweeting The Office



I’ve decided to start re-watching The Office from the very beginning so, of course, live tweeting is a must. As fun as it is for me to re-experience watching the show, it is even more fun to share that experience, my thoughts, and funny quotes from the episode via Twitter. I imagine that live tweeting this show would have been even more fun to do during the actual series premier back in 2005, but back then the concept of “tweeting” did not exist. With so many people discovering or re-watching The Office on Netflix, however, I think that live tweeting an older show like this one can still be worth while and can really help fans to feel as if they are a part of the “fan community.” The only issue I have with live tweeting a show is that it is easy to miss jokes or an important part of the storyline while you are composing a tweet, especially when you are not watching it live when there are commercial breaks (aka “the perfect time to tweet”). Luckily I have already seen The Office in its entirety and know what happens, so I’m not really missing much while I’m tweeting. If you are a new viewer, however, I would suggest that you put the phone down, enjoy the show, and then tweet.

My Tweets and the Categories of Fan Gossip:

House Talk: The only thing that I tweeted that falls under this category had to do with one aspect of the production of the show.

Scandal: The Tweets that fall under this category consist of judgments I made about some of the character's actions and relationships.




Bitching: I didn't really tweet anything that would fall under the "bitching" category, but if I had it probably would have been about how I wish that Michael Scott would have never left The Office because of how funny his character was, and how although the show still remained funny without him, it would have been even funnier with him still in it.

Chatting: There were only a few tweets that I thought might fall under this category.



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Tuesday, September 22, 2015

The Office. One of TVs Greatest Comedies.

The Office was a single camera American comedy series based on a British series of the same name. The show follows the employees of the fictitious Dunder Mifflin Paper Company in Scranton, PA, and focuses not only on the drudgery of everyday office life, but on the dumb situations the characters get themselves into. Although the original version of the show was created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant for BBC, it was adapted by Greg Daniels for American audiences and aired on NBC for nine seasons (from 2005 to 2013). Although its premier had mixed reviews, the show eventually became one of the most popular shows on television, winning multiple Emmy including Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series. Being one of TV’s highest rated programs, it was reported in 2011 that it cost $178,840 for a 30 second commercial to air during The Office, which was the highest for any scripted NBC show at the time. The show may no longer be broadcast on NBC, but since it is now in off-network syndication it can be viewed on multiple channels and through multiple media platforms including TBS and Netflix. If you have yet to watch The Office, I highly recommend it.


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