On Television, Part Three: The Office

ZOELAB DAY 58

After a year in San Francisco, we moved to Oakland, and had inherited Lucas’ grandmother’s tv. We used it only for watching DVD’s because it didn’t receive a signal, and we didn’t want to have to pay for cable. But then, one day, miraculously, cable appeared. We suddenly had cable television and we hadn’t ordered it and didn’t have to pay for it. I was still in graduate school, and still liked having an escape. I didn’t exactly get hooked, I just couldn’t afford to because I always had schoolwork to do, but I developed a watching pattern. As soon as I had finished my work, I would turn on the tv and watch until it was time for bed. This is the year that The Office (American) came out. I just happened to catch the pilot. I was immediately intrigued. I had seen the British version, and had admired it, but I had found it too squirmy and painful to watch. It had a sort of relentless quality, which is what so many love about it. But the American Office felt different. It was uncomfortable, but there was something else to relieve this discomfort—heart. And it was funny. Our cable went on for about six months, and I happily enjoyed watching my prime time slot. And then one day, as mysteriously as it had appeared in our lives, the cable disappeared. And that was the end of watching the office. For a while. It was not until I was pregnant and living in Mexico that I got to watch it again. The Office got me through the last long days of pregnancy and the first painful months of motherhood.

It is hard and strange to write about a show that I have spent so much time watching. (I have watched most of the episodes from season 1-7 dozens of times.) So what is it about The Office? What makes it my favorite sitcom of all time? Mostly it’s the characters—what makes them so lovable or at least watchable? As with the other shows mentioned in this ongoing piece, they are deeply flawed, and unlikable if you knew them in real life. How can it be that this group of people, each with their own brand of unfavorable human trait, working in an ugly office of cubicles under florescent lighting, for a failing paper supply company in a two bit town, be so appealing? I would say it is the same thing that makes all sitcoms appealing. It is precisely that familiarity, that we recognize our shadow selves in them. We have all worked at ugly offices doing jobs that were not particularly enlivening with people who could be terribly annoying or mean, or shallow, or petty, and occasionally charming.

Of the many jobs that I have held in my life, I had one particular job that was not at all glamorous, but, because it was the longest held job of my life (almost 3 years), I have a special fondness for it in my heart. From August 2001 to March 2004, I was the publications coordinator at the headquarters of a children’s social services agency in the Wall Street area of Manhattan. I have referred to this job here before (Eleven Years, Focus, Job List). I developed a real fondness for the people I worked with—each was a unique character, and each had a distinct role in the office. A sitcom could have definitely been made about this office, as one could about any office, if you studied it carefully enough. The experience of being part of something, a borrowed family that is given to you at random, that you have shared experiences with day after day after day--that is the material for sitcoms. Going to this job was a great comfort to me, because it provided a stable place while the rest of my life was in perpetual flux. The three years I was there spanned over different relationships and career choices: I started the job when I still pursuing acting because it was flexible and part time, and then I went into my rock band phase and then, finally there was my applying to grad school phase. I got to experience asking for a raise, and getting it, adding skills (I learned Quark and became the in house graphic designer), new employees, I took on volunteer work (there was a volunteer tutoring program within the office). I grew as the agency grew. At the office, our private lives commingle with our work lives. And as the years pass, we find ourselves interconnected with the people we work with. After all, if we work full time in an office, we spend more time with the people we work with than the people we live with.

Now, this brings me back to The Office. I believe the self conscious, narcissistic, petty, insecure, pathetic, invasive, power hungry, and yet somehow, lovable Michael Scott, who I believe is the greatest television character of all time, would agree with me. As the boss (for the first seven seasons), his raison d'être is to make the office like a home, and the people in it like a family. He will stop at nothing to make this so. He wants to not only know the personal lives of all of his employees, he wants to be the central figure in them--as best friend, father, son, nephew. He abuses his power as Manager not so that he can be above everyone, but so that he can use it as leverage to get closer to everyone. Everyone, that is, except for his nemeses Toby, from Human Resources. Toby’s job is to bring rationality, rules and boundaries to Michael’s exploits, so naturally Michael hates him with a fervor and disgust that I have not witnessed in any other sitcom. Most of his employees, with the exception of Dwight and Andy (who have their own competitive power struggle) resist his efforts for intimacy, but as the seasons go on, there is a loosening of their resistance. Some of the characters, especially Jim and Pam, develop a real caring for Michael. The moments when Jim or Pam make gestures of real kindness to Michael, is if he were their embarrassing yet beloved kid brother, are very subtle and deeply moving.

During my time studying and performing improvisation, there were several rules and guidelines that we played by. One of them was the idea of heightening. It is important to take a joke or an idea to the most extreme place you can, while at the same time, staying true to your character. The reason The Office is so funny is because it does just that. The situations and events that occur on the show are absolutely absurd if you were to write them down: Michael sleeps with Pam’s, his receptionist’s, mother at her wedding; the office members have a funeral for a dead bird in the parking lot; Michael hosts a café disco in the empty office space that was the office space he used when he quit Dunder Mifflin and started up his own paper company. However unreal those scenarios may seem, they are always believable because they all emerge out of the needs of the character.

When I was an actor in NY, I took a class called Mask, where I learned about the first improvisers and comedians—Commedia dell'arte all'improvviso of 16th Century Italy. They were traveling troupes of performers who wore masks, and performed improvised comedy based on sketches. These troupes also featured the first actresses (before then, female characters were played by men). In my mask class we learned that all comic characters from situation comedies emerge from this first group of stock characters. One of the central themes of these stock characters was the two lovers and the elders who got in their way, and the servants (fools) who helped them reconnect. The basic scenario of lovers torn apart, is at the heart of many modern sitcoms. Of course this was one of the central themes of The Office for the first three seasons between Jim and Pam. It is often said a sitcom is ruined once the two main love interests (who love each other from afar) get together. But The Office has gotten around this pitfall by having an exceptional ensemble cast to choose additional love stories from after the union of Jim and Pam.  Angela and Dwight, Ryan and Kelly, Erin and Andy, and then Michael and Holly.

Another important element of acting that I learned from studying and performing improvisation is playing with status. Status, which is either high or low, is an interesting way to convey a character’s relationship to another character. There are certain physical ways to express status. For example, high status people don’t look other people in the eye, but look slightly above, they take up a lot of space and tend to move and talk more slowly. Conversely, low status characters tend to take up little space, look people in the eye, or down, move and talk quickly, and keep their hands close to their body. Status play is a key dynamic of character interaction in The Office. Within the office each character is clearly high or low status, though for many, his or her status changes depending on who he or she is interacting with. For example, Dwight is high status with his cousin Mose, and with at times with some of his co-workers, but with Michael, he is low status. His competitive and contentious relationship with Jim is a constant game of status, with Jim always winning. But then it is so fun to watch when the smug and cool Jim has his status lowered when Charles Minor, the new boss (for a few episodes) does not see his charm or appreciate his low work ethic. And Michael, he has status purely because he is the boss, but his high status is so precarious, so thin, that he is continually finding ways to distract people from seeing how little status he really has. The moment he has the opportunity for a status boost, he gives his low opinion of himself away be becoming overly excited about it.

The other aspect of The Office that makes it so special and satisfying to watch is the wide story arc of the characters. Of course, over eight years (it has just started its ninth and final season) the characters have to develop. And yet, with most long running sitcoms the characters don’t change all that much. Sure the characters’ hairstyles are updated to match the current styles (thank god for Jerry Seinfeld), and their relationships with each other change and grow, but each character usually ends up basically the same as where they started. This is not so in The Office, not at least with its main characters. As the years pass, Michael becomes more sweet and less desperate, Jim becomes less self satisfied, Dwight’s character doesn’t change overall, but, as mentioned earlier, his character can be quite changeable depending on what is happening and who he is relating to. Pam’s story arc is the most compelling and palpable. Pam starts out as a very timid, mousy receptionist with badly permed hair who doesn’t stand up for herself. As the show progresses, not only does her hairstyle become slick and her makeup become thick, but she starts to develop a voice for herself. She blossoms creatively, she speaks up for herself, she sticks up for Michael, to the point of quitting her job so that she can join his new paper company. She goes from receptionist, to sales person, and finally (in an ingenious plan of manipulating her coworkers) to self-appointed Office Manager. It is such fun to watch Pam shed her meek self and become who she really is, which is partly because she allows herself to love who she really loves.

I know that I can go on a lot longer, but I will stop here to say that really at the bottom of it all, The Office is full of heart. Not only is it the funniest, most realistic, most absurd sitcom of all time, with incredibly talented actors playing fleshed out characters, it is also the most loving. Even though the episodes are rife with animosity, horrific offensiveness and embarrassment, there are equal amounts of love and heartbreak. In the end (at least at the end of Michel’s reign) Michael gets what he had wanted all along: a family. And as I write this, I realize that essentially that is what all these television shows are about: family.

Addendum: I so far have watched and own most of Seasons 1-7. There are two seasons left to see, the one from last year and the one currently showing on primetime. Even though Michael Scott is not in them, I will definitely be watching the next two seasons. It will be a sad day when it is all over. But not really so much, because I will be continuingmy own personal syndication, by watching the episodes over and over on my computer.

On Television: Part Two

ZOELAB DAY 50

It’s a new day. And now, as I write, Emilio, Georgie (4) and Vinnie (6) (another Friday night sleepover) are getting a special Saturday morning treat: they are watching The Muppets. The new one that came out in 2011. I love this film—as a Muppet fan, I find, in its sincere and hearty goofiness, that it stays true to the original Muppet credo. The music, in particular, is great, because it includes both the original classics from the show: Rainbow Connection, The Muppet Show theme song, and then some new tracks written by the wonderful Brett Mackenzie, (another one of my major crushes) who is one half of Flight of the Conchords, “the fourth most popular folk rock parody band in New Zealand” and the television show of the same name.  (I will write more on FOTC later.) Vinnie just grabbed Emilio’s stuffed Ernie toy and asked me if he was a muppet. I thought about if for a moment, and then said: “Yes, in fact, he is a muppet!” When the movie was over, all the boys asked me to draw a picture of their favorite muppet for them. Of course, I do believe your favorite muppet is really the muppet that you most identify with. This is a question I have asked people many times in my life: “which muppet are you?”. Georgie chose “animal,” which is spot on. Vinnie chose “Kermit,” also spot on. And Emilio chose “Walter” (the new muppet character from the film). An interesting choice, that I don’t quite understand. Walter is sort of a bland character, who doesn’t really know what he wants, but he is, in fact, the world’s biggest muppet fan.

So, yesterday I was describing my period of syndicated sitcom serial monogamy. There is one other show that should be mentioned: Will and Grace. Although I found the princessy normalcy of the two title characters a little annoying at times, I do believe Debra Messing, who played Grace, is a great comedienne and is a dead ringer for Lucille Ball. In my opinion, a great comedienne, even if she is naturally beautiful, has to be willing to be both ugly and foolish. Both Lucille Ball and Debra Messing are able and willing to do that. However, the funniest stuff of the show comes from the fabulousness of the two supporting characters: Karen (played by Megan Mullally) and Jack (played by Sean Hayes). Their dancing, their singing, their dramatic entrances are absolute genius. They help us remember that a sitcom (a classic multi-camera one) is not just a television show. It is a live performance in front of an audience. They were magically able to take the utmost in obnoxiousness and turn it into unmitigated charm. Like many of the funniest sitcom characters, they represent the people we don’t want to be, but fear we secretly are. And the best part is, in all their glorified pettiness, they make no apologies for it. Of course it must be mentioned that the show was groundbreaking in its normalizing of gay men.

This period of sitcom watching came to an end around the same time that I quit acting, and decided to pursue my dream of starting a rock band.  Instead of falling asleep to sitcoms every night, I would take out my guitar and write songs until bedtime. The experience of choosing a creative act over a passive act was a very healthy shift for me. In fact, the period of being in a band was one of the three (along with performing improv and ZOELAB) most fulfilling creative endeavors I have engaged in.

It was not until graduate school in San Francisco that I became addicted to television again. Graduate school was an incredibly enriching, but emotionally difficult experience, and I really needed to have an escape in the evenings. I had nicknamed grad school emotional boot camp. We had to be in therapy, talk personally about ourselves in class, and write essays and make art about our personal histories, fears, traumas, while at the same integrating a lot of theory. My escape from having to think about myself became a project that I embarked on with Lucas—watching the entire 5 seasons of Six Feet Under. I had already seen some of the show and knew that I loved it, but we wanted to get through the whole thing. We would receive 3 DVD’s at a time from Netflix. We didn’t want to watch them all at the same time, so we would scatter them through out the year with other shows and movies. We would often not put a DVD on until 11 at night. (That same syndicated time slot). I always had reading to do and papers to write first. Each DVD had 2 or 3 episodes, and even though, when we first put the show on, we would say we are only watching one tonight, we knew were fooling ourselves, because we really knew that there was no way we could resist watching every episode on the disc. Six Feet Under is the only series I am writing about that is not a comedy. It is my favorite dramatic television series of all time. First of all, I love that is about death. And not in a glorified or inhumane way as are so many other popular dramatic series. I think our denial of death (and of aging) is one of the most destructive things about American culture. The process of facing my own mortality has been one of the most enlivening things I have ever done (and am still doing). I love Six Feet Under because it feels real and human. All the characters are so deeply flawed, and all, each in their own way, are trying to find happiness. They are stumbling through the mess of their lives, as we all do. The acting, also, is incredible. Every single actor on the show acts his and her heart out—each is peculiar and funny and sad and selfish all at once. I agree with the critics that the show fell apart a little in the later seasons, and became melodramatic. And I was not a fan of the last episode. But, still, the show deserves much credit for its courageous writing, and its incredible characters.

The Six Feet Under project was actually a painful experience for me. I cared so deeply about the characters that I felt like they were part of my family. I even dreamed about them. If something bad happened to one of the Fishers (and something bad was always happening to one of the Fishers) I was devastated. If something good happened to one of them, I was elated. And I would become enraged at the show for its unbelievably dramatic cliffhangers. But the most painful moment was when the last episode of the DVD ended, and the knowing that I would have to wait a few days before I could watch it again. There was a dark pit of emptiness that followed.

Another show that I must also mention here is Freaks and Geeks. Sadly, Freaks and Geeks did not get the many seasons it deserved. The plug was pulled only after two. I suppose Freaks and Geeks would be most aptly called a dramedy. It had the format of a dramatic series--one hour, one camera, with a filmic production value and serious themes, but it was also incredibly funny. As with all my favorite things in life, this show had major heart. It centered on two groups of high schoolers--the freaks (who were in the upper grades) and the geeks (who were in the lower grades)—and their families. Another example of a show with great characters because of their realness, and their flaws. In this case, the flaws centered around the group you belonged to. I also deeply related to this show, and recognized myself, and people I knew growing up. The cast, was also incredible. The geeks really looked like geeks and the freaks really looked like freaks.

On Television: Part One

ZOELAB DAY 49

I have a confession to make:

The main, if not totally conscious, reason I chose to do this project of blogging 365 days for a year, was to knock myself out of the indelible, lifelong habit of whiling away the evening (the most precious free time of the day, especially for a parent) watching television. We don’t actually have a television in this phase of our lives, but we do have computers where we watch shows that were once on television. This is the habit of western culture at large. Watching TV (in whatever form of screen) before you go to bed. How many of us have spent a lifetime doing this? TV watching is the most addicting habit I know—or at least within the context of the time after dinner, before bed. There have been a few periods of life that I  was able to break this habit, which involved either a creative project that I was really excited about, or lack of access. Please understand, I love television. Well, I love some television. It has provided such pleasure to me for much of my life. At its best, it provides a unique balm to the troubled soul living in an uncertain world.  A kind of home that doesn’t quite belong to you, but gives you the illusion that it does. At different times in my life, I have fallen in love with: The Mary Tyler Moore Show, I Love Lucy, Freaks and Geeks, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Arrested Development, 30 Rock, Flight of the Conchords, The Magic Garden, The Muppet Show, Saturday Night Live, Six Feet Under, Kids in the Hall, Taxi, The Office (yes, the American version), and most recently, Girls.

When I was living in Brooklyn and pursuing my acting/ screenwriting/filmmaking career, I had the habit (as many urbanites do) of going home late after a full and tiring day pursuing my dreams or at least trying to survive in an expensive and energetic city, picking up take out on the way home, and then watching syndicated sitcoms until it was time to go to sleep. This was the period of my life when I was a syndicated sitcom serial monogamist. I went from favorite sitcom to favorite sitcom, based on what was syndicated at the right time: 10:00, 10:30, 11:00, and 11:30 at night. Two hours of time (equivalent to a feature length film.) There were some sitcoms that I thought I’d never watch, because I hated them at first, most especially: Seinfeld and Friends. Friends was extremely popular when I was in college. I didn’t watch any TV while I was in college, except during visits home, and when I lived in China for a semester. I lived in a foreign student dorm (which was really a hotel) and each room had its own television. American syndicated sitcoms were a welcome friend. Anyway, back to Friends. I had a deep disdain for it. Maybe my disdain was on principal because it was so popular. But somehow, when I moved back to New York, and started watching it in its syndicated time slot, its charm warmed its way into my heart.  And then it became one of my ten, and ten thirty favorites. I particularly loved Lisa Kudrow’s portrayal of Phoebe. I suppose I most related to her character. Lisa Kudrow was brilliant and funny in the roll. I loved how her character was almost dumb, but not quite. It was a subtly different take on the ditzy blonde. Phoebe had edge and she was always a little bit surprising. Which reminds me of my personal definition of comedy: the truth delivered in surprising package. Seinfeld I also hated at the beginning. I found Jerry so whiney and his hair so terrible, that I had to turn away. But, the show’s undeniable funniness lured me back in, and I became an ardent fan. I remember watching it on Thursdays during its Prime Time slot and then again, later, and every night, during its syndicated slot. I even tearfully watched the last episode.

There were two other sitcoms I had love affairs with during this phase that were both because the show was great, but also because I had developed an awful crush on the male star of each of them. Those sitcoms were: That 70’s Show, the crush being on: Topher Grace (Eric). Were you thinking it was Ashton Kutcher? I know you weren’t thinking that. Maybe you were thinking it was Danny Masterson? Who definitely was crushable. But no, it was Topher Grace. His boyish charm with just a hint of cockiness, which, somehow, always got teased out of him. It was also his laugh, because when he laughed he seemed like he was breaking character--it felt so real. It is said in the acting world, and I agree with this, that laughing (far more than tears), is the hardest thing to “act”. And the other sitcom? Newsradio. And the crush? Dave Foley. Dave Foley’s character Dave, had a very similar appeal to Topher Grace’s Eric. Actually, now that I think about it, they were very, very similar. In looks, in the boyish charm, with that touch of cockiness that got teased out of him. And in the very sincere laugh where you feel like you are seeing just the person. Hmmm.

This essay will have to be continued over the next day or two. I have a lot more to say on this subject, and I can’t stay up all night writing. After all, I still want to watch a little something before bed.

One more thing. A behind the scene irony:

Just today a video projector and screen came into our possession (how it came into our possession is a story in itself that I will tell at another time). As I write this, Lucas, who has hooked up the projector and screen, is watching Boardwalk Empire. The screen is set up just a few feet away from where I sit, at the painted ivory table (which I use as a background to many ZOELAB images). I can see only the back of the screen. Only just yesterday we received a bunch of shows and movies that we had ordered. Perhaps this is not at all ironic, but rather, writing this is helping me to resist the temptation to melt back into the couch with him to be blissfully entertained by new content in a new form.

On Television: Part One

ZOELAB DAY 49

I have a confession to make:

The main, if not totally conscious, reason I chose to do this project of blogging 365 days for a year, was to knock myself out of the indelible, lifelong habit of whiling away the evening (the most precious free time of the day, especially for a parent) watching television. We don’t actually have a television in this phase of our lives, but we do have computers where we watch shows that were once on television. This is the habit of western culture at large. Watching TV (in whatever form of screen) before you go to bed. How many of us have spent a lifetime doing this? TV watching is the most addicting habit I know—or at least within the context of the time after dinner, before bed. There have been a few periods of life that I  was able to break this habit, which involved either a creative project that I was really excited about, or lack of access. Please understand, I love television. Well, I love some television. It has provided such pleasure to me for much of my life. At its best, it provides a unique balm to the troubled soul living in an uncertain world.  A kind of home that doesn’t quite belong to you, but gives you the illusion that it does. At different times in my life, I have fallen in love with: The Mary Tyler Moore Show, I Love Lucy, Freaks and Geeks, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Arrested Development, 30 Rock, Flight of the Conchords, The Magic Garden, The Muppet Show, Saturday Night Live, Six Feet Under, Kids in the Hall, Taxi, The Office (yes, the American version), and most recently, Girls.

When I was living in Brooklyn and pursuing my acting/ screenwriting/filmmaking career, I had the habit (as many urbanites do) of going home late after a full and tiring day pursuing my dreams or at least trying to survive in an expensive and energetic city, picking up take out on the way home, and then watching syndicated sitcoms until it was time to go to sleep. This was the period of my life when I was a syndicated sitcom serial monogamist. I went from favorite sitcom to favorite sitcom, based on what was syndicated at the right time: 10:00, 10:30, 11:00, and 11:30 at night. Two hours of time (equivalent to a feature length film.) There were some sitcoms that I thought I’d never watch, because I hated them at first, most especially: Seinfeld and Friends. Friends was extremely popular when I was in college. I didn’t watch any TV while I was in college, except during visits home, and when I lived in China for a semester. I lived in a foreign student dorm (which was really a hotel) and each room had its own television. American syndicated sitcoms were a welcome friend. Anyway, back to Friends. I had a deep disdain for it. Maybe my disdain was on principal because it was so popular. But somehow, when I moved back to New York, and started watching it in its syndicated time slot, its charm warmed its way into my heart.  And then it became one of my ten, and ten thirty favorites. I particularly loved Lisa Kudrow’s portrayal of Phoebe. I suppose I most related to her character. Lisa Kudrow was brilliant and funny in the roll. I loved how her character was almost dumb, but not quite. It was a subtly different take on the ditzy blonde. Phoebe had edge and she was always a little bit surprising. Which reminds me of my personal definition of comedy: the truth delivered in surprising package. Seinfeld I also hated at the beginning. I found Jerry so whiney and his hair so terrible, that I had to turn away. But, the show’s undeniable funniness lured me back in, and I became an ardent fan. I remember watching it on Thursdays during its Prime Time slot and then again, later, and every night, during its syndicated slot. I even tearfully watched the last episode.

There were two other sitcoms I had love affairs with during this phase that were both because the show was great, but also because I had developed an awful crush on the male star of each of them. Those sitcoms were: That 70’s Show, the crush being on: Topher Grace (Eric). Were you thinking it was Ashton Kutcher? I know you weren’t thinking that. Maybe you were thinking it was Danny Masterson? Who definitely was crushable. But no, it was Topher Grace. His boyish charm with just a hint of cockiness, which, somehow, always got teased out of him. It was also his laugh, because when he laughed he seemed like he was breaking character--it felt so real. It is said in the acting world, and I agree with this, that laughing (far more than tears), is the hardest thing to “act”. And the other sitcom? Newsradio. And the crush? Dave Foley. Dave Foley’s character Dave, had a very similar appeal to Topher Grace’s Eric. Actually, now that I think about it, they were very, very similar. In looks, in the boyish charm, with that touch of cockiness that got teased out of him. And in the very sincere laugh where you feel like you are seeing just the person. Hmmm.

This essay will have to be continued over the next day or two. I have a lot more to say on this subject, and I can’t stay up all night writing. After all, I still want to watch a little something before bed.

One more thing. A behind the scene irony:

Just today a video projector and screen came into our possession (how it came into our possession is a story in itself that I will tell at another time). As I write this, Lucas, who has hooked up the projector and screen, is watching Boardwalk Empire. The screen is set up just a few feet away from where I sit, at the painted ivory table (which I use as a background to many ZOELAB images). I can see only the back of the screen. Only just yesterday we received a bunch of shows and movies that we had ordered. Perhaps this is not at all ironic, but rather, writing this is helping me to resist the temptation to melt back into the couch with him to be blissfully entertained by new content in a new form.