Americanization, and The Office
Master Dissertation Course Code: LAX999M20
Introduction ... 1
Chapter 1: Subverting Reality in The Office ... 7
Chapter 2: Subverting Identity in The Office ... 25
Chapter 3: Americanizing The Office... 39
Conclusion ... 57
Introduction
“I made you what you are, and I get nothing back. Give me my Emmy!”1
Ricky Gervais
In a recent Time article, James Poniewozik argued that American sitcoms were experiencing a creative revival.2
This is not to say that the American version could have been different to begin with. Rather, the adaptation of The Office is indicative of the state of postmodernism in both Europe as well as America. It is no surprise that Europe and America have a different approach to postmodernism since the term has become as controversial as it has become fashionable. One of the prime examples was NBC’s The Office. According to Poniewozik, the show has become one of the better sitcoms because it relearned the art from the genres that preceded it. Strangely enough, the British predecessor of the show was never mentioned. This absence was even more noticeable because another article on the same page discussed a new movie by Ricky Gervais, the creator and lead actor of the original series. Going into the sixth season, it seems that the successful American version of The Office has become dissociated from its origins. Besides the physical origins, the critical features of the British show have also been forgotten in America. The British show used critical features of postmodern thought to question prevalent cultural norms. The American version, on the other hand, uses postmodern thought to elaborately engage in self-referentiality.
1 Ricky Gervais made this statement at the 2008 Emmy awards while presenting the category for directing a
variety, music, or comedy program. Prior to announcing the nominees and winner, he had prepared a skit with Steve Carell, the American actor that plays Gervais’ part in the American version of The Office. In 2007, Carell had accepted Gervais’ Emmy in his absence. In the 2008 skit, Gervais demanded his Emmy back. At the end, Gervais receives an Emmy from Carell. To view the clip see:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZp6cR4bxbY>
2 James Poniewozik, “ No Laugh Track Required: The Comeback of the Sitcom,” Time, October 12, 2009:
Indeed, postmodernism encompasses many topics yet it refuses to say anything conclusive about any of them. Truth, reality, and morality, are not necessarily true, real, or moral; an author does not have authority over his or her text; we do not have the identity we think we have. Critics like Terry Eagleton and Raymond Williams assert that postmodernism is nothing more than a belated branch of 19th century late Romanticism.3 Even founding postmodern theorists reject the validity of the term postmodernism.4 The postmodern movement –if one can speak of such a thing– is often dismissed in its entirety or embraced as an innovative approach.5 Criticism is simplistic and rough around the edges to say the least. Sentences like “postmodernism is a theoretical virus which paralyzes progressive thought, politics and practice,” are indicative of the tenor of the debate. 6
3 Terry Eagleton, The Idea of Culture (London: Blackwell, 2006), 9-13; Raymond Williams, Culture and
Society, 1780-1950 (New York: Columbia UP, 1983), 50-61.
What is more, the debate tends to get stuck in theoretical generalities and abstractions, and it offers few practical suggestions. Rather than dismiss or accept the theories of postmodernism wholeheartedly, this study proposes to look at the potential critical uses of radical postmodern theory in practice. To make the distinction clear, I refer to Hal Foster’s and Patricia Lather’s dual definitions of
4 To make it clear what I mean with postmodernism, I would refer to the definition given by Terry Eagleton: “By
postmodernism, I mean, roughly speaking, the contemporary movement of thought which rejects totalities, universal values, grand historical narratives, solid foundations to human existence and the possibility of objective knowledge. Postmodernism is skeptical of truth, unity and progress, opposes what is sees as elitism in culture, tends towards cultural relativism, and celebrates pluralism, discontinuity and heterogeneity.”
(Terry Eagleton, After Theory (London: Penguin, 2004), 13).
Jaques Derrida, one of the ‘founding fathers’ of the postmodern movement stated that he considers himself “to be neither a poststructuralist of a postmodernist. I have often explained why I almost never use these words, except to say that they are inadequate to what I am attempting to do.” (Quoted in: Leslie Hill, The Cambrdge
Introduction to Jaques Derrida (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007), 117.)
5
Alan Sokal, Beyond the Hoax: Science, Philosophy and Culture (New York: Oxford UP, 2008); Douglas Kellner and Steven Best, The Postmodern Turn (New York, London: The Guilford Press, 1997); Alan Sokal, Jean Bricmont, Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals’ Abuse of Science (New York: Picador, 1998); Mike Cole, Dave Hill, and Glen Rikowski, “Between Postmodernism and Nowhere: The Predicament of the Postmodernist” British Journal of Educational Studies 45, no. 2 (June, 1997): 187-200; Fredric Jameson, “Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism,” New Left Review 146 (July, 1984): 53-92; Linda Hutcheon The Politics of Postmodernism (New York, London: Routledge, 1989); Terry Eagleton, The Idea of
Culture (London: Blackwell, 2006).
6 Mike Cole, Dave Hill, and Glen Rikowski, “Between Postmodernism and Nowhere: The Predicament of the
“postmodernism of reaction” and “postmodernism as resistance.”7
To demonstrate these differences in practice, the focal point of this study lies in the Americanization of the The Office. The original British show was created in 2001 by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant and it was produced by the BBC. The mock-documentary comedy is about the daily life at a mid-level office of a paper company called Wernham-Hogg. The main characters are: David Brent; a self-absorbed, egotistical manager who cares more about his image than his performance; Tim Canterbury, a talented employee who feels that his current position does not challenge him enough, leading him to fool around; Dawn Tinsley, the receptionist who aspires to be an artist but, like Tim, feels she is stuck in a dead-end job; and Gareth Keenan, an ex-marine who takes great pride in his job and his strict disciplinary attitude. The central tenet of the show is its depiction of the boring blandness of everyday office life. In this uneventful setting, most of the action is out of place, and consequently, excruciating painful. Other aspects of the show were dictated by inconspicuousness as well. The producing executives of the BBC, for instance, did not have great expectations and they feared that many of Gervais and Merchant’s ideas were “too The former can be said to be the simplistic approach of embracing or denouncing early postmodern theory as a coherent nihilistic entity, thus stifling possibilities of any form of societal progress. This approach denounces modernist discourses that still believe in such progress, hence the prefix “post.” It is also most associated with advanced capitalist societies like the US. Postmodernism as resistance, on the other hand, is a much more positive and humanistic definition that emphasizes the possibilities of postmodern thought. It suggests that certain insights of postmodernism can accomplish progressive and effective political change.
7 Hal Foster, The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture (Port Townsend, WA: Bay Press, 1983),
Patricia Lather, Getting Smart: Feminist Research and Pedagogy with/in the Postmodern (New York: Routledge, 1991).
There are more authors that, more or less, make the same distinction into different strands of postmodernism. See also: Angela McRobbie “Feminism, Postmodernism and the ‘Real Me’,” Postmodernism and Popular
clever and too postmodern” for a general audience.8 Similarly, the show’s reception was disappointing, both in viewer ratings as well as approval ratings by the larger audience. Many genuinely did not understand that it was supposed to be comedy.9 Critics, on the other hand, raved about the show. A review in the The Evening Standard, for instance, categorized the first episodes as “the best on TV” and “near perfect.”10
This study will look at how American TV executives shared the fear of their British peers about the show being “too postmodern” and how they altered the series accordingly. In the highly commercialized American media landscape, it was even more difficult to see how such a highbrow show could ever become profitable. Yet, ironically, in the producers’ efforts to downplay the postmodern criticism, the American version has become even more radically postmodern. To demonstrate this, I will look at early postmodern thinkers like Lyotard, Baudrillard and Derrida and show that certain critical ideas of the original show are influenced by the early humanistic interpretation of postmodernism. The British version could rightfully be considered to be part of “postmodernism as resistance.” The paper will then look at the American adaptation of the show and demonstrate that, despite the commercial need to downplay postmodern criticism, it should be considered to be part of “postmodernism as reaction,” the amoral branch of postmodernism that tends towards cultural relativism. These differences between critical and uncritical postmodernism are closely linked to the material conditions in which they arise. In an advanced capitalist society like the US, the need for
Gradually, the show became a commercial success because of the enduring critical acclaim and word-of-mouth currency. Soon enough, the show was very popular, leading to several awards and an offer to create an American version.
8
Ben Walters, The Office: A Critical Reading of the Series (London: British Film Institute, 2005), 31.
9
Ibid., 40.
profit outweighs the need for social criticism. For this reason, the amoral branch of postmodernism reigns in such a society.
The reason to look at the Americanization of The Office to explain the differences in postmodernism is twofold. Firstly, postmodernism is often said to be most influential in America.11 To look at the Americanization of a postmodern television show could therefore offer some insights in the differences of interpretation of postmodernism in America and Europe. Secondly, the rise of postmodern theory has made it possible for cultural theorists to examine the role of popular culture as a legitimate field of research.12
The bulk of the study is concerned with finding out which postmodern tenets can be found in the original series. The first chapter looks at the medium of television and its inherent tendency to appear realistic. Influenced by postmodern tenets, the show uses this quality to distort the border between reality and fiction by its mock-documentary form. By looking at core principles of Lyotard and Baudrillard, it should become clear that the show does not support postmodern ideas in their entirety. Rather, it uses some postmodern tenets to criticize social reality. The second chapter elaborates on this by demonstrating what social criticism The Office offers. Closely related to the first chapter, this chapter analyses the show’s subversion of previously assumed stable categories of gender and race. Unlike the previous chapter, this chapter is concerned with content rather than form (although the two cannot be said to be independent from each other). It will draw on Derrida’s theory of deconstruction and its effects on racial and sexual issues. The third chapter, then, will try to
After all, eroding the distinction between high art and mass culture is one of postmodernism’s achievements. Thus, the Americanization of The Office is highly suited to understand postmodernism on various levels.
11 Terry Eagleton, The Idea Of Culture (London: Blackwell, 2006), 91.
12 Dominic Strinati, An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture 2nd ed. ( London and New York: Routledge,
uncover what is left of these postmodern tenets in the American version. Looking at the differences of the two shows in engaging with postmodernism, I will argue that the translation of The Office shows that Americanization as a matter of cultural imperialism no longer applies in the contemporary globalized world. The translation demonstrates that fears of a globally enveloping American capitalist ideology are unfounded. In fact, the appropriation of the British show, and the differences in engaging with postmodernism, demonstrates that the process of Americanization is actually a transnational affair.
Chapter 1:
Subverting Reality in The Office
“I’m a friend first, boss second. Probably entertainer third.”13
David Brent
As much as David Brent believes he is an entertainer third, he is of course a fictional character that exists for our entertainment only. However, the realism of The Office makes us take Brent’s words at face value. Indeed, when first viewing the original show, the most remarkable aspect is its success in adopting a fly-on-the-wall docusoap format. The artificiality of the show is only noticeable in the sense that audiences now know that any docusoap is more fictional than factitious. The semblance to ‘real’ docusoaps –that is to say, not entirely fictional and scripted docusoaps– is what confuses most audiences during their first viewing. In fact, some viewers actually thought they were watching the lives of real people: “I sat through most of the first series and thought it was a real docusoap,” one viewer posted on a TV discussion website.14
13 Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, “Downsize” The Office (London: BBC, 2001).
The absence of a laughter-track, the natural lighting, shaky hand-held camera work, and general acknowledgment of the camera crew’s presence all contribute to the authenticity of the show and its distinction from traditional situation comedies. Since the realism of the mock-documentary format dominates much of the characters and their actions, it is essential to look closer at the theoretical background of television realism. Postmodern theory has had a significant impact on notions of reality and fiction. Consequently, postmodernism has transformed the hierarchal relationship between drama and documentary. By confusing the audience about its genre, The Office continues this
14 Posted 7 September 2003 at www.tvforum.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6347&highlight=] (accessed at 29
postmodern venture. In fact, the documentary realism of the original The Office exemplifies the critical potential of postmodern theory by showing the performative nature of real life.
The medium of television has an inherent quality to appear realistic, not because it reproduces reality but because it shares dominant ideological codes with audiences of how reality is experienced. Indeed, television is an interesting phenomenon for semiologists because of the quality of presenting its use of signs as natural. In this, television differs from other semiotic discourses. A bundled stack of paper with written text, that is, a novel, does not have an empirical semblance to its referent, that is, the story. Televisual representation, on the other hand, shares some visual characteristics with its referent. In semiotics, a sign that shares familiarity with the common experience of reality is called an iconic sign.15 However, an iconic sign only differs from other signs because it requires less conventionalization. For instance, a televised car is still represented in two dimensions, while in real life cars have three dimensions. The iconic value of television enables the car to appear familiar and thus it requires less conventionalizing efforts. Despite such inherent naturalness, semiologists emphasize that the semiotic workings of television is no different from other discourses. For example, John Fiske explains that in television, like all discourses, “the signified to which the signifier relates is itself arbitrary, for the way we see it, categorize it and structure it is a result of our culture’s way of seeing.”16
Besides obvious technological limitations, television is mediated by other, more substantial conventions as well. Fiske argues that the produced reality of television is already encoded with codes of the dominant culture. He explains that a televised representation is encoded on at least three levels: reality, representation, and ideology. Reality is already shaped by our cultural conventions such as dress, appearance, and environment.
Thus, television appears unmediated but the medium is always already constrained by its context.
15 John Fiske, Reading Television (London, New York: Routledge, 2003), 23. 16
Representation, then, is encoded by technological codes such as camera, lighting, and editing. These technological choices comply to conventional modes of representation such as narrative, character and dialogue. Most importantly, the conventional modes of representation conform to ideological codes such as patriarchy, capitalism, and racial identities.17
The ideological reproduction of television has given the medium an unenviable place in academic criticism. Many critics, most notably those of the Frankfurt School, claim that because of the ideological homogenization, television seeks to uphold the social status quo as much as possible and that its critical potential is minimal.
Because of its mass production and profit-oriented nature, television appeals to a broad audience that recognizes all or some of these ideological codes. It is this ideological recognition, the shared view of reality, that gives television its claim to authenticity and realism.
18
Walter Benjamin similarly argued that the reproducibility of television makes it lose its artistic aura and therefore “the conventional is uncritically enjoyed, and the truly new is criticized with aversion.”19 The accusations of triteness and superficiality have long been dominant in criticism of television. However, while it is true that much television deserves the scorn it receives, the classic Marxist assumption that the audience is a passive dupe in viewing television has been scrutinized for a couple of decades now.20
17 John Fiske, Television Culture (London, New York: Routledge, 1987).
The popularity of television does not just reinforce hegemonic ideology; it also leads to a democratization of culture and, consequently, the possibility of critical consumption. Accordingly, recent criticism focuses on the critical potential of television consumption.
18 Theodor Adorno, The Culture Industry, ed. Rolf Tiedmann (London: Routledge, 1991).
19 Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” in Meenakashi Gigi Durham and
Douglas M. Kellner, Media and Cultural Studies: Key Works (Malden MA, Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), 29.
20 Stuart Hall, “Encoding/Decoding” in Stuart Hall, Dorothy Hobson, Andrew Love, and Paul Willis, eds.
Culture, Media, Language, 128-38 (London: Hutchinson, 1980), Roderick P. Hart, “Easy Citizenship:
Stuart Hall, for instance, pointed out that the encoding process of production is not sufficient to reproduce hegemonic ideology in and of itself. Against the static communicative model of sender-message-receiver, Hall proposes that communication consists of a structure that has various determining moments (see model 1). These determinate moments are production, circulation, distribution, consumption, and reproduction. At each of these moments there is an active process at work of encoding or decoding. The communicative circle is only effective if it is decoded by its audience into some sort of homologous ideological meaning.21
Within the television format, documentaries have often been viewed as more realistic than fictional programs. Indeed, realism in television drama is considered less real than realism in documentaries. Perceived factuality and realism distinguish documentary from gratuitous fiction. As Bill Nichols argues: “Documentary suggests fullness and completion, Hall’s model is notable because, unlike much other academic criticism, it positions television as an interactive medium, relying as much on its consumption as its production to explain the ideological mechanisms. Because of this flexible attitude towards consumption, the model does not necessarily dismiss any critical potential of television either. For instance, distortions or misinterpretations arise if the two ‘meaning structures’ lack a level of equivalence. When this discrepancy is large enough, the televised product could then be seen as oppositional to the hegemonic culture. On the other hand, when the two meaning structures are perfectly symmetrical, the dominant ideology is reinforced. In other words, television only seems realistic when intentions of producers correspond to consumers’ interpretations to a certain extent. Of course, the model should be viewed as a theoretical position, since the ideological synchronicity of consumption and production is not measurable in any practical sense. Nonetheless, the model conceptualizes television realism in a more useful way than earlier negativist theorists have attempted to do.
21
knowledge and fact, explanations of the social world and its motivating mechanisms.”22 This claim implicitly assumes a neutral relation between the documentary and the social world, without ideological interventions. However, Hall’s model demonstrates that such a neutral appearance is only accomplished by parallel encoding and decoding. Codes for documentary simply differ from fictional codes. Caughie explains documentary codes in that they use “unplanned” or “unpremeditated” camera shots. These shots deny scripting, planning, or rehearsal and therefore leave the impression that they must be true.23 Moreover, documentary conventions such as hand-held cameras, natural lighting and natural sound reinforce the impression that the camera spontaneously stumbled upon a piece of unpremeditated reality. Accordingly, the ideological mechanisms of documentary are less apparent than they are in fictional television.24 For instance, patriarchal values are more recognizable and easily identified in Friends than they are in Frontline. The audience is conditioned to know Friends is fictitious, which makes it easier to deconstruct its ideological messages. Frontline, on the other hand, seems more realistic, unaffected by patriarchal ideology. Nevertheless, both shows are equally inscribed by American conceptions of gender. Documentaries are constructed like fictional texts, using Hall’s ideological codes and conventions to offer stories about the social world. What is more, they reproduce a dominant yet specific view of the social world precisely because of their realistic aesthetic. Since Frontline seems more value neutral than Friends it is actually more effective in reproducing patriarchal values. In this light, documentary’s privileged position of neutrality can be said to be somewhat paradoxical.
22
Bill Nichols, “’Getting to know you…’ Knowledge, Power and the Body” in Theorizing Documentary, ed. M. Renov (Routledge: New York and London, 1993), 174.
23 John Fiske, Television culture, 30.
24 See, Jane Roscoe and Craig Hight, Faking it: Mock-documentary and the Subversion of Factuality
Model 1: Encoding and decoding television programs
Source: Stuart Hall, “Encoding/Decoding” in Stuart Hall, Dorothy Hobson, Andrew Love, and Paul Willis, eds.
Culture, Media, Language (London: Hutchinson, 1980): 128-138.
Highlighting the constructed nature of documentary realism can be said to be part of the broader theoretical enterprise of postmodernism. In the sense of perceived neutrality, documentaries are aligned with discourses like law, history and science that are based on Enlightenment ideals of rationality that were dominant in large parts of the modern era.25
25
Ibid., 9.
statements like “there can be nothing outside the text,” and “the author is dead.”26 The author cannot have authority over the text, since the semiotic order stands between the text and its referent. What is left is the text and the always unstable interpretation of readers. Everything is textual and meaning is only limited by context. These early postmodern assertions subverted the Enlightenment project to uncover the truth. 27 If any attempt at representing the social world is always already barred by language, the aim to discover the truth is problematized. At best, one can speak of several truths, not the truth. Accordingly, the linguistic turn has had an impact on various projects of Enlightenment.28
Postmodern thinkers like Jean Francois Lyotard and Jean Baudrillard were influenced by these notions and took them a step further. Lyotard argued that modern metanarratives like the Enlightenment fail to accomplish their teleological and utopian ideals.
29
26 Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (Baltimore and London: The Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1998); Roland Barthes, “The Death of the Author” in David Finkelstein, Alistair Mcleary, eds. The Book History Reader (New York, London: Routledge, 2002), 221-224.
Lyotard concluded that differences in society can never be adequately framed into a narrative for all of humanity. Thus, individual differences can never fit a universal mold. Therefore, Lyotard proposes a focus on petit narratives to resist repressive homogenization. Accordingly, the
27
Pierre Saint-Amand and Sophie Hawkes, “Contingency and the Enlightenment,” in SubStance, 26, no. 2 (1997): 96-109.
28 For example, in trying to demonstrate the inevitability of narrativity in historiography, Hayden White has used
poststructuralist critique to unveil the narrative nature of Darwin’s Origin of Species, one of the prodigious hallmarks of scientific rationality. Somewhat paradoxically, White has thus shown that evolution theory in and by itself is not a natural phenomenon but a contingent one. This should not be misconstrued, however, to dismiss evolutionism altogether. Rather, it demonstrates that, like anyone else, Charles Darwin was restricted to existing linguistic tropes. Separating the sign from the referent has major implications indeed.
Hayden White, Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), 131-133.
29 According to Lyotard, the scientific quest to explore the natural world through empiricism was symptomatic of
all humankind’s metanarratives. Other such metanarratives are the Christian narrative of using love to attain redemption of sin, the Marxist narrative of removing exploitation by socializing labor, and the capitalist narrative of freedom from poverty. Lyotard sees similarities in these narratives because “in all of them, the givens arising from events are situated in the course of a history whose end, even if it remains beyond reach, is called universal freedom, the fulfillment of humanity.” (Jean Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Explained to
Children (London: Turnaround, 1992), 24-25). In the twentieth century, however, it became clear that the
postmodernist is more interested in showing the differences in personal and individual narratives than he or she is in affirming homogeneous metanarratives. As Keith Jenkins asserts, postmodernism is “marked by a different kind of thought; by an ever-increasing number of incommensurable, irreducible and performative games (parologies) each with its own players, rules and ends, which keep, under their different names, difference and radical alterity alive.”30 Meanwhile, Baudrillard proposed a subsequent step in semiotic theory. In his view, a relation between the image and its referent no longer exists. The problems of representation are not its limitations to accurately portray the real world; rather, representations have become more real than their referent. Reality is being taken over by simulations of reality and people can no longer distinguish between the original event and its representation. In Baudrillard’s words: “Today abstraction is no longer that of the map, the double, the mirror, or the concept. Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being, or a substance. It is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal.”31 In effect, this radical departure means that reality is only acted out as it is seen in representations. In a hyperreal world, the question of authenticity is futile because authenticity necessarily implies the existence of a reality that can be authenticated. Simulations constitute reality and simulation can neither be called true or false.32 Therefore, postmodern TV shows cannot be discerned from each other on the basis of their authenticity since “it is TV that is true, it is TV that renders true.”33
The postmodern theories of Lyotard and Baudrillard have had a subversive effect on the foundations of traditional documentaries. Since documentaries heavily rely on scientific discourses to prove their authoritative position, criticizing the position of scientific discourse
30 Keith Jenkins. Why History? Ethics and Postmodernity (London and New York: Routledge, 1999), 83. 31
Jean Baudrillard, Simulations and Simulacra, trans. Sheila Faria Glaser (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994), 1.
32 Jean Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, trans. Hazel E. Burns (New York: Washington Square Press, 1992),
87-91; Jean Baudrillard, Simulations, 3.
33
undermines the position of documentaries as well. Documentaries, like other scientific discourses, seek to unravel the social world in its purest form in order to pursue an ideological metanarrative that can change the social world. However, as Roscoe and Hight point out: “Postmodernism argues against a blind faith in this progressive imperative, effectively undermining the project of documentary.”34
However, postmodern theory also offers documentary makers different tools to expand the genre. Lyotard’s case for small narratives, for example, has given rise to more personalized content. Jon Dovey argues that this can be seen in two ways: the filmmaker’s individual identity is more prominent or; documentaries have a “concentration on individuals viewed without reference to a broader social, political or economic context.”
Lyotard’s insistence on personal narratives problematizes the claim of portraying the world and, consequently, the possibility to engage in meaningful social criticism. Equally, Baudrillard’s theory of hyperreality diminishes the supposed authority of documentaries since authenticity is no longer relevant in a hyperreal world. The genre’s reliance on truth and reality is lost in Baudrillard’s hyperreality. Unlike Hall’s assumption, hyperreal documentaries need not be encoded and decoded to achieve realism. Instead, the dialectic relation between reality and representation is effaced by codes themselves. In hyperreality, codes only acquire meaning in relation to other codes. The ability of documentaries to reflect upon and respond to a supposed reality is thus under heavy scrutiny. In other words, documentary makers can no longer credibly appeal to a cloak of neutrality to engage in social criticism and improve material conditions.
35
34 Roscoe, Faking it, 28.
In the first case, one can think of documentary makers like Louis Theroux or Michael Moore who very clearly acknowledge their own agency. In the latter case, the rise of docusoaps like PBS’ An
American Family and MTV’s The Real World are good examples of shows focusing on
35
individual lives.36 The notion of hyperreality has offered interesting possibilities as well. The self-reflexivity of textual representations allows documentary makers to give the camera a much more prominent position, treating the audience as if ‘they were really there.’ This is a break from traditional observational documentaries in which the camera functions as an invisible fourth wall.37 Despite many criticisms of moral indifference, Baudrillard’s theory raises awareness of the mediation of representations and, in that way, can actually have a positive effect on the critical merit of representations. Linda Hutcheon agrees with this positive potential of postmodernity: “The postmodern, as I have been defining it, is not a degeneration into ‘hyperreality’ but a questioning of what reality can mean and how we can come to know it.”38 And so, by destabilizing the notions of the real and the imaginary, postmodernism offers critical potential without denying the existence of reality. Hutcheon explains that the effect of postmodernism “is not really a blurring of boundaries between fact and fiction, but more a hybridizing mix, where the borders are kept clear, even if they are frequently crossed.”39
And so, the influence of postmodernism on documentaries led to more personalized TV with an emphasis on individuality. In this way, the audience could empathize with the individuals that were the subjects of docusoaps. As Ben Walters puts it: “It was a shift from By crossing these borders, postmodern documentaries are provided with new versions of old instruments, like parody and irony, to criticize society and its constructed nature. Ironically, by subverting documentary’s conventional view on reality, docusoaps and reality-TV actually can come close to the documentary’s intentions of social commentary.
36
Alan Raymond, Susan Raymond, An American Family (Arlington, VA: PBS, 1973); Mary-Ellis Bunim, Jonathan Murray The Real World (New York: MTV, 1992).
37 Roscoe and Hight, Faking it, 38.
38 Linda Hutcheon, Politics of Postmodernism, (London, New York: Routledge, 1989), 37. 39
argument engaging the brain to entertainment engaging the emotions.”40 Focusing on individuals also had the added effect that the characters could be asked to express themselves emotionally. A good example of this is the new technique of “talking heads.” 41 Individuals are taken aside to have a “private” conversation with the camera which increases the audience’s empathy since the participants are “real” people and not just fictional characters. This indicates both the personalization of content as well as the “major formal shift of a wholesale embrace of the camera.”42 Whereas the camera used to be an innocuous window to reality, it now became a new friend to confess to. Indeed, the camera transformed from being a distant observing object to becoming an equal subject of experience. As such, it becomes clear that docusoaps do not record the relationship between their subjects any more than they explore the relationship between the filmmakers and their subjects. As Walters points out, docusoaps began to resemble traditional narrative entertainment with a casting of participants and a stress on characters and plot.43
In 2001, The Office stepped into this documentary landscape and made a reverse move. In essence, the show was proceeding with the postmodern project by blurring the fact/fiction dichotomy. Instead of narrativizing the natural world, it began to naturalize the narrative world. The show’s drab and grayish setting of an ordinary open office in Slough was important in achieving such a natural aesthetic. There is nothing glamorous about the Slough branch of Wernham Hogg. The emphasis on the banality of every day office life reinforced the docusoap effect. The codes of documentary realism also required characters to appear as ordinary as the mundane office setting. The characters conform to that sense of authentic By the late nineties, the differences between docusoap and traditional drama were heavily diminished and the position of documentary as a window to the natural world had been undermined.
40 Ben Walters, The Office, 64. 41 Roscoe and Hight, Faking It, 20. 42 Ben Walters, The Office, 64. 43
blandness which increases audience’s empathy. To attain this empathy, the characters could not border on caricatures. Similarly, the actors could not be famous actors since this would have defied the entire project. In fact, before The Office, co-creator, director, and leading actor Ricky Gervais had no acting experience whatsoever.
Another important aspect that blurred the distinction between reality and fiction was the dominant presence of the camera. Unlike traditional sit-coms, The Office does not separate its audience with an invisible fourth wall. It fully embraces the camera as an extra observer in the room. Consequently, the characters are constantly aware of being watched by the audience. The reactions of the characters to this alien presence varies. Tim often uses the lens to express his amazement or embarrassment about the situations he encounters in the office. In an interview, Martin Freeman, the actor who plays Tim, said he wanted the look to convey something along the lines of “are you seeing this? Are you seeing this the way I’m seeing this?”44 Often, characters also use the camera to gain approval or sympathy. For example, in episode five of the first season, Gareth is filmed after he has been harassing a female colleague during a training seminar. After she leaves the room angrily, an awkward silence follows after which he says to the camera: “excellent student. I gave her an A.” He then turns his clipboard to prove he has given her an A.45
44 Martin Freeman, video: “Why Making The Office as a Mock Documentary was a Hard Thing to Do.” Ricky
Gervais website.< http://www.rickygervais.com/office.php >
With this gesture, he is trying to convince the audience that he was only concerned with the training and that he had no other interests in mind. In episode one, Gareth also acknowledges the camera verbally. In one of his pranks on Gareth, Tim builds a wall from files between their desks. This gets on Gareth’s nerves and Tim decides to leave so that Gareth is talking to himself. Gareth keeps talking until he realizes Tim has left. He then says: “Right, I know you’re not there and obviously you can’t
45
hear that but I’m not talking to myself because… they’re filming.”46
The character most obsessed with the camera, however, is undoubtedly David Brent. He sees the presence of the camera as an opportunity to demonstrate his entertaining abilities. Much like many reality TV celebrities of late, —Paris Hilton in The Simple Life and various
Big Brother participants spring to mind— Brent sees his role in a documentary as an actual
achievement. In the Christmas specials, we see Brent’s new career of touring Britain to appear at parties, effectively exploiting his “celebrity status.”
Another major effect of the lens on the characters’ lives is the obstruction of the love story between Dawn and Tim. Throughout the show, the two co-workers subtly flirt with each other. Since Dawn is engaged, their situation is already complicated as it is. And so, whenever they become aware of the camera during flirtations, they immediately return to their work. The camera is constantly acknowledged, even when it is out of sight.
47
When he comes on stage, however, people often do not recognize him judging by the less than enthusiastic response. He often gets booed off the stage since most people, including the audience of The Office, conclude that he is a very bad entertainer. In his mind he may have accomplished a charming performance in the documentary, in “real life” he is selfish, rude, smug, and not funny at all. In the beginning of the Christmas episode, it is clear that David cannot understand why people do not recognize him, or if they do, it is for the wrong reasons. After David basically forces his autograph on a bystander who does not recognize him, the interviewer asks if David gets recognized often:
David Getting recognized? Yeah… I mean, usually, they don’t specifically know who
I am. But he recognized me. He’ll be kicking himself later.
Interviewer Is it ever a problem?
46 Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, “Downsize” The Office (London: BBC, 2001). 47
David Uhm… I mean you always get the odd person who doesn’t appreciate what
you’re doing, shouts anything.
Interviewer What sort of things?
David You beardy twat, pugnosed gimp, lardboy. And I go, yeah what have you ever
done on telly? Nothing, so don’t- [looking disappointed and misunderstood into the camera] [temporary silence]…Absolutely Flabulous.
Brent is obsessed with the way he appears to other people. If people recognize him it has to correspond with the image he has of himself of being funny, charming and handsome. This is obviously not the case because in this particular scene Brent looks like he can go on forever naming insults at his expense. Most importantly, his only reply to the insults is his achievement of being on television. David apparently assumes that a successful life depends on having a successful screen life. Indeed, David Brent figures that his appearance on TV is more meaningful than his social behavior.
David: What you doing? Gareth: You looked a bit tense David: I am, with him
Gareth: Doesn’t that feel nice?
David: Yeah, but – [points at the camera points at the camera as if to say “what about
them?”]
In all of the characters’ responses to the presence of the camera, but particularly those of David, we can see the social pressure of the Other on individuals.
Such social pressures have been explored by many critics long before the rise of Baudrillardian postmodernism. Sociologists like George Herbert Mead and Erving Goffman already affirmed that subjects have a ready-made social Self to which they need only conform.48 Individuals are likely to do just that because of the implicit social control of the social Other. Similarly, in their essay on The Office, Matthew P. Meyer and Gregory Schneider found the influence of the camera on the characters’ behavior to exemplify Jean Paul Sartre’s view on the Look and the Foucauldian Panopticon.49 In Sartre’s view, we are aware of ourselves because of our awareness of the Look of other people. He explains: “I see
myself because somebody sees me.”50
48 Erving Goffman, Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates
(Harmoundsworth: 1961, Penguin); George Herbert Mead, The Self: Works of George Herbert Mead. ed. W. Morris (Chicago: 1962, Chicago UP).
Such a realization often makes people act in what Sartre calls bad faith because they only conform to expectations of the Other. Sartre argues that “it is in shame or pride which reveals to me the Other’s look and myself at the end of that
49 Matthew P. Meyer and Gregory Schneider, “Being-in-The Office: Sartre, the Look, and the Viewer,” in J.
Jeremy Wisnewski, ed. The Office and Philosophy (Malden MA, Oxford: Blackwell, 2008), 130-140.
50
look.”51 Similarly, David is ashamed or proud because of the Other’s look and it dominates his life. He is subsumed by the Look and accordingly he often acts in bad faith. And so, The
Office gives a physical substance to the concept of the Look by embracing the camera’s
presence. Another explanation is Foucault’s panopticon, which explains that people can be conditioned to internalize specific ways of behavior by the possibility of being watched. Foucault discusses Jeremy Bentham’s design of a prison tower that has a 360° degree view on prisoners but the prisoners cannot look back. Foucault makes an analogy with the panopticon and other hierarchial structures like the army or school.52
Indeed, they offer a better view on the show than postmodern theories might do. The show relies on postmodern notions of reality only to be critical of traditional reality. For example, the show uses the personalized documentary form as a response to the deconstruction of metanarratives, and it wholeheartedly acknowledges the camera, thereby using postmodern notions of self-reflexivity. However, the show uses these techniques to question notions of authenticity and relationships between the Self and the Other, not to affirm any postmodern theory. In hyperreality, or example, questions of authenticity are irrelevant. The real is effaced by simulations of the real so there is no way of telling if something is authentic because reality no longer functions as a truthful referent.
People need not be under constant physical supervision to achieve discipline. It is more effective to leave people uncertain whether they are being watched or not. This is seen in The Office when Dawn looks yearningly at Tim and the camera is supposedly placed somewhere hidden. She could express her feelings directly since the camera is not in her sight, yet the possibility of being filmed keeps her restrained from doing so. Sartre and Foucault’s theories offer many insights to understand the dynamics between the camera and the characters in The Office.
51 Ibid, 350.
52 Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: vintage
Consequently, Satrtre’s notions of bad faith, of being inauthentic, can no longer exist in the hyperreal.53 How could we say David Brent is not acting as he really is if a notion of reality no longer exists? Equally, Foucault’s panoptic tower no longer applies in Baudrillard’s view of the world. In fact, Baudrillard literally announced the “end of the panoptic system” since “there is no longer any imperative of submission to the model, or to the gaze ‘YOU are the model!’ ‘YOU are the majority’”54
By demonstrating that drama performances can feel as real as docusoaps, the show does not intend a postmodern takeover of the real. It does, however, raise awareness about the unstable boundaries between fiction and reality. Ben Walters agrees that “it would be inaccurate to view the show as an echoing exercise in postmodern referentiality simply making play with the acknowledged fact of recording”
The Office, on the other hand, tries to show the tensions that still exist between individuals and conventional cultural models. While Baudrillard is suggesting that YOU are totally free from social and cultural restrictions, The Office shows that people are still burdened by the existence of THEM.
55
53
Baudrillard has pointed out himself that Sartre’s notions of bad faith no longer apply in hyperreality. In a passage in America, Baudrillard juxtaposes an American waiter to a waiter that Sartre had described in Being
and Nothingness. Sartre’s waiter acted in bad faith. Baudrillard’s American waiter, on the other hand, lives in
hyperreality: “Unlike Sartre’s waiter, the American waitress who serves you does so in total freedom, with a smile, without prejudice or pretentiousness, as though she were sitting opposite you. The situation is not an equal one, but she does not pretend equality. Equality is part of the way of life here.” (Jean Baudrillard, America trans. Chris Turner (London, New York: Verso, 1988), 114).
By naturalizing its form, the show denaturalizes our view on reality. In effect, the show creates what Hall has termed a lack of equivalence between the two meaning structures of consumption and production. The Office opposes dominant cultural codes of both documentary and drama. If a performance can seem so real, what, then, is the difference with reality? By raising this question, The Office manages to reveal the constructed nature of the social world and use postmodernism in a critical way. Linda Hutcheon recognizes this critical potential: “While the postmodern has no effective theory of agency that enables a move into political action, it does work to turn its inevitable
54 Baudrillard, Simulations, 29. 55
ideological grounding into a site of denaturalizing critique.”56
56
Hutcheon, Politics of Postmodernism, 3.
Chapter 2: Subverting Identity in The Office
“I haven’t got a sign on the door that says ‘white people only,’ you know? I don’t care if you’re black, brown, yellow. Orientals make great workers for example.”
David Brent
Despite this blatantly racist remark about Asians, David Brent believes he is an enlightened individual on issues regarding race and gender. More importantly, he wants others to recognize his political correctness as well. In the first episode of The Office, we get to understand David Brent’s need to appear politically correct as he gives an introductory tour of the office to a temporary worker—and the audience. First, they pass a cartoon that is pinned to a notice board. David gloats as he can show the new employee what sort of fun-loving work environment he runs: “This is the sort of work we’re doing: cartoons. ‘Does my bum look big in these?’ That’s not sexist, that’s the bloke saying it. At last. So, all for that… all for that in the workplace.”57 The tour continues and Brent introduces the temporary worker to a Pakistani employee. Again, his sensitivities to other people’s views of him get him in an awkward position
David This guy does the best Ali G impersonation… Aight! [snaps fingers] I can’t do
it. You do it. Go on.
Saj I don’t… I think you-
David Oh, no sorry it’s not you. It’s the other one. Saj The other what?
David uhm…
Saj Paki? [laughs timidly]
David Ah, that’s racist [walks away disappointed]58
Clearly, Brent wants to distance himself from any possible accusation of sexism or racism. He wants to impress the new employee as well as the camera with his supposed political correctness.
Yet, more often than not, Brent unknowingly displays stereotypical thinking about women and minorities. This contradiction is clear to both the employees as well as the audience. Brent is simply putting up a charade when he is publicly addressing issues of race and gender. He is performing what he believes is the popular thing to do. Acting popular makes popular, seems to be Brent’s creed, and sincerity is not an issue in that view. In reality, David Brent has a particularly patriarchal and xenophobic worldview. The disparity between how David ‘really’ is and what he believes to be politically correct behavior is indicative of the current confusion that exists around the notion of racial or sexual identity. Such confusion has occurred, in part, because of the rise of deconstructive theory. The erosion of secure identities based on sexual orientation, race, and/or sex has generated an emphasis on political correctness. In societies today, identities are not supposed to be defined by biological factors. For the white heterosexual male, previous securities have been lost and confusion on how to act accordingly has emerged.59
58
Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, “Downsize” The Office (London: BBC, 2001).
And so, to fully understand Brent’s behavior, a brief exploration of deconstruction and the ‘identity crisis’ is in order.
59 Daniel Wickberg, “Heterosexual White Male: Some Recent Inversions in American Cultural History,” The
Journal of American History 92, no. 1 (June 2005): 136-158; Emma Tinker, “Talking Cookie Jars and Tong
As mentioned before, much of Jacques Derrida’s work responds to theoretical notions of structuralism and the linguistic turn. For Derrida, the notion that textual representations always fail to reflect a center of truth needs amending. By trying to find structures in texts of representation, we are always using the structure of language. By reconstructing supposed linguistic structures we are inevitably using the same linguistic structures. Claiming that there is nothing natural about a representation, claiming that a representation is a denaturalized image of an always ungraspable referent, is itself dependent on language. Such a claim is itself a denaturalized statement about the process of naturalization.60 This view in effect means that we can never escape the structures of language and we are thrown into a linguistic abyss.61 This seems like a logical conclusion yet it weakens the critical thrust of all cultural theory. If all structures are always constituted by a particular ideology, we can never claim to neutrally reconstruct a text. For instance, take this previous sentence. The definition of “neutrally” always depends on an ideological choice. If something is said to be neutral, another term must be defined which constitutes bias. But in establishing this difference, we are always making a normative statement before an analysis is uttered. There is no way of escaping these differences and there is no way of escaping their normative reciprocal relationship. The world only makes sense to us in terms of these sorts of binary oppositions. As Leslie Hill explains, Derrida in essence believes that “nothing is ever one, but always at least two.”62
60 Penelope Deutscher, Yielding Gender: Feminism, Deconstruction and the History of Philosophy (London:
Routledge, 1997), 56.
Traditionally, presence is superior to absence, writing is favored over speech, subject is better than object, masculinity is favored over femininity, whiteness is better than blackness, and nature is preferred over culture. This hierarchal relationship, however, is never revealed as such; ideology smoothes out a text’s heterogeneity so it appears as a congruent whole. Thus, favoring one binary over another is always inscribed and at the same time
61 Frank Lentricchia, After the New Criticism (London: Menthuen, 1983), 160-186. 62
hidden by ideology. Deconstruction, then, is an analytic strategy to show texts’ ideological assumptions in claiming a center of truth, yet at the same time, it does not and cannot claim to reach this truth itself.63 Deconstruction merely reveals the endless unstable interpretations of a so-called stable text and the ubiquity of context. Gayatri Spivak explains that “As Derrida says…‘Logocentrism is not a pathology,’ it is the thing that enables us – except, if because it enables us we say that it is correct, it would be a mistake.”64 However, the notion that Logocentrism is not inherently right can be interpreted to say that Logocentrism is always inherently wrong. In short, it can easily degenerate into the nihilistic idea that truth, reality, and morality are all relative and only dependent on context.65
Although deconstruction has been criticized as promoting cultural relativism, it has been embraced by culturally marginalized groups to attain equality.66
63 Joanne Martin, “Deconstructing Organizational Taboos: The Suppression of Gender Conflict in
Organizations,” Organization Science 1, no. 4 (1990): 339-359.
This may seem contradictory since emancipation carries a strong conviction of a very particular moral truth. However, whether or not deconstruction justifies immorality, it at least demonstrates the contingency of the hierarchy of binary oppositions. Poststructuralists do not propose an alternative realm that denies any validity of binary oppositions, rather, they emphasize that the relationship between binaries could always have been different, depending on cultural contexts. Poststructuralists point to this dialectic relationship and, subsequently, try to deconstruct it, in order to renew the relationship between the binaries. This renewal can never be neutral but it is not indifferent either. Consequently, deconstruction need not be relativist only; it can provide instruments to change our views of social and cultural relationships. Penelope Deutscher agrees in her interpretation of deconstruction: “If we simply see
64 Quoted in Deutscher, Yielding Gender, 54.
65 J. Hillis Miller, “The Critic as Host,” Deconstruction and Criticism ed. Geoffrey Hartman (London, New
York: Continuum, 2004) 185-188.
66 Leonard Lieberman, “Gender and the Deconstruction of the Race Concept,” American Anthropologist 99, no.
[deconstruction] as analyzing, then the critical aspect of the deconstructive project is entirely lost.”67
In gender issues, for instance, Judith Butler used the tenets of deconstruction in the service of queer theory. In Butler’s view, the best way to raise awareness about the construction of binary oppositions is to demonstrate the performative nature of those constructions. In its essence, queer theory seeks to destabilize binary categories of gender. To do this, Butler points out that the performative nature of an essential identity also reproduces it. She argues that “gender is a kind of persistent impersonation that passes as the real.”
It is precisely this critical aspect that has been used by cultural minorities.
68
These gender categories can be subverted by demonstrating that “passing as real” is not a natural phenomenon. An example of this subversion, according to Butler, can be seen in drag.69
In issues regarding racial and ethnic identities, deconstruction has had a similar influence. For instance, in postcolonialism, the binary opposition between the colonizer and the colonized was revealed to be historically variable and socially constructed. Although the colonizers present their world as complete and represent their social cultural and economic discourses as superior, the colonizer’s identity is actually incomplete without the colonized. A man that appropriates an entire identity linked to femininity destabilizes the notion that feminine values belong to women. Drag is both a denaturalization of gender as well as a subversion of it. Destabilization is even more acute when feminine values are exaggerated and effectively parodicized. In this way, the construction of gender is revealed and the idea that an essential feminine identity exists is deconstructed. Parodicist representations gain political force since representations of gender construct rather than reflect our experience of identity. Thus, parody is an effective subversive strategy to question and destabilize so-called stable gender categories.
67 Penelope Deutscher, Yielding Gender, 54.
68 Judith Butler, Gender Trouble (London: Routledge, 2000), viii. 69
Without the otherness of the colonized, the colonizer’s identity would have no frame of reference to feel superior to.70 The colonizer’s identity is not a stable essential category, and it relies on the constant construction of its relation to the colonized subjugates. The colonizer’s identity, in short, is built upon the dialectic between themselves and the colonized. By reevaluating the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized, theorists like Gayatri Spivak and Homi K. Bhabha aimed to find alternative relationships between the two binaries. Bhabha argued for hybrid identities and claimed that the malleability of identity could open up a third space in which the two binaries would form a mixed identity.71 In contemporary multicultural societies, hybrid identities are much more prominent. Immigrants and people of mixed race often feel torn between the different social identities they ought to belong to. In Bhabha’s view, these subjects are examples of the need to reevaluate traditional binary oppositions, since the identities prescribed by the colonizer/colonized dialectic no longer apply to them. Spivak, on the other hand, claims that the binary logic is inescapable. By asserting itself as a coherent and stable entity, the colonized is re-essentializing existing categories, giving them different meanings. By uniting as the subaltern, the colonized are just rebranding themselves. They are still in a subordinate position. Categories of race and ethnicity are always, and will always be white, Western categories of race and ethnicity. On the other hand, no discourse can ever account for the heterogeneity of a given society. Spivak uses Derridean logic in that emancipation is always dependent on the parameters of dominant ideology. Consequently, Spivak concludes that the subaltern can never truly speak for itself.72
70 Martin Macquillan, “Introduction: Five Strategies for Deconstruction,” in Deconstruction: A Reader, ed.
Martin Macquillan (Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2000), 7-10; Diana Fuss, Essentially Speaking: Feminism,
Nature and Difference (New York: Routledge, 1989).
71 Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture ( London: Routledge,1994).
72 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, "Can the Subaltern Speak?" in Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, eds.
Instead, Spivak proposes strategic essentialism; the notion that marginalized groups only
temporarily unite, after which heterogeneity should be restored.73
And so, far from being politically indifferent and relativist, postmodernist thought can be effective in achieving political progress. A negativist critique of postmodernism claims that it has no conception of a coherent center of truth.74
Indeed, in their reading of The Office, Melissa Tyler and Laurie Cohen suggest that the central theme in The Office is “shaped in large part by the hegemonic performance of gender.”
This may be true to a certain extent, but the emphasis is not particularly relevant. The center is not so much absent as it is called into question. In criticizing patriarchal and colonial attitudes, feminist theory and postcolonialist theory do exactly that. This can be said for Butler’s queer theory, Bhabha’s notion of hybridity, and Spivak’s concept of strategic essentialism. These theorists question the habitualities of social life, or what used to be considered as the traditional center. In doing so, they aim to achieve emancipation for the culturally oppressed. It is strange, then, to accuse someone of being apolitical and relativist when he or she is questioning social and political conventions. Such destabilization is constantly at play in The Office. By blurring the distinction between fiction and reality, thereby parodying our conception of reality, the show sets up the stage to deconstruct hegemonic views of stable sexual and racial identities.
75
73
Ibid.
Central to their reading, they succinctly describe how Brent is essentially a character that parodicizes hegemonic masculinity and heterosexuality. By doing this, Brent’s character is an embodiment of Butler’s parody as politics. For example, in the fifth episode of the first season, Brent, despite looming redundancies, decides to hire a personal assistant. Two applicants show up for the interview, one male, the other female. When they are introduced to
74 Pnina Werbner, “The Limits of Cultural Hybridity: On Ritual Monsters, Poetic Licence and Contested
Postcolonial Purifications,” in The Journal of the Anthropological Institute, 7 no. 1 (March, 2001), 147.
75 Melissa Tyler and Laurie Cohen, “Management in/as Comic Relief: Queer Theory and Gender Performativity
Brent, he only has eyes for the female candidate, even to the extent that he is temporarily unaware of the TV camera. He then takes Polaroid pictures of both candidates. He carefully takes a Polaroid of the female candidate. While ogling the result, he haphazardly takes a picture of the male applicant, without even checking if he is in focus. They proceed with the interviews and Brent decides to start with the male applicant. He explains this decision by saying: “let’s get him out of the way.”76
Hypermasculine behavior is also seen at the end of season one. David gets offered a promotion which forces him to leave the Slough branch of Wernham-Hogg. When Gareth hears that he is leaving, clearly disappointed by the prospect, he steps in Brent’s office to demand an explanation.
Indeed, one cannot help but wonder how Brent is going to make an informed decision about the best candidate since he is clearly preoccupied with unabashed flirtation. This particular scene is emblatic of Butler’s theories. Because of the show’s realism, Brent’s behavior makes most audience members cringe. His preference of heterosexual and masculine normativity over professionally adequate behavior is obviously a social faux-pas. In making the audience realize this, Brent effectively raises awareness of male heterosexual normativity in general.
Gareth: So you’re definitely leaving then? David: Yeah, it would appear so.
Gareth: What about us?
David [to camera]: There’s nothing going on between us! Gareth [to camera]: Not like that.
David: Not like that, no.
Gareth: You know, but we’re a team. I’m assistant regional manager.
David: Assistant to the regional manager.
Gareth: So I can still be your assistant, can I? You know, if you’re going off, then? David: No, I’ll be getting a proper assistant. God bless her.
Gareth: What. A lady?
David: Hopefully yeah. Well, not ‘cause of that, just –77
This scene reveals the patriarchal and heterosexual views of both men. Firstly, they both strongly reject the connotation that there is something going on between them. Though this is never said, both feel the suggested homoeroticism of the conversation and they both immediately refute it. They are apparently insecure about their heterosexuality and therefore forcefully perform masculinity to assert their sexual orientation. This is an instance in which we see that gender “passes as real.” Secondly, Brent envisions his future assistant to be a woman, since he assumes that the assisting and caring role must be taken up by a woman. He wants to save face for the camera by stating that he does not intend anything sexual with his future assistant, yet one cannot help thinking he is lying. What is more, David very clearly reveals his gender expectations in this scene. Apparently, the dominant male manager has to be aided by the passive nurturing female assistant. His expectations of gender roles are very rigid and he cannot imagine them being troubled like Butler proposes.
Similarly, Gayatri Spivak’s questioning of the possibility for ethnic minorities to escape identities based on their ethnicity is apparent in the show. Divisions based on race have been questioned in emancipation movements of the 1960s, yet Brent does not seem to understand what this has meant for contemporary social practices. When the conversation with Gareth proceeds, Gareth starts crying and David shows his definition of racism:
David: Gareth, come on. [visibly feeling awkward] You’re a soldier. Aren’t you?
Hey, yeah? Stiff upper lip, and all that, hey? Spirit of The Dam Busters yeah? The squadron never dies does it? Have you seen that film?
Gareth: Yeah I’ve got it on video.
David: Well then, yeah? Before he goes into battle he’s playing with his dog and
everything.
Gareth: [confirming ] Nigger.
David: [to the camera] That’s not offensive, that’s the dog’s name. It was the forties
as well, before racism was bad innit? So...
Gareth: Yeah the dog’s name was nigger. David: Don’t keep saying it.
identity. Indeed, when he finds out another employee complained, David apologizes and “assumed it was the [makes gesture to indicate a darker skin color]… new guy.”78
Accordingly, David’s anxiety arising from the destabilization of identity is apparent in the show. Brent and Gareth are fixated on essential notions of identity. For them, it is crucial to understand the world in terms of stable categories. For instance, when Brent has to fire Alex in episode six, Alex believes he is treated unfairly because he gets fired instead of a colleague who is a midget. The conversation quickly derails into something entirely irrelevant and ridiculous.
It is clear that no matter how people respond, escaping the logic of binary oppositions is impossible, especially for Brent. When he defends himself, Brent quickly points out that the joke is not racist since it is a compliment to black people (the joke is about the size of black people’s penises). Again, David does not recognize that racism is about both negative and positive stereotyping on the basis of race and ethnicity. For this reason too, Brent is proud that he recognizes that “Orientals make great workers.” It should be clear, then, that Brent cannot escape viewing the world from a masculine, heterosexual and white perspective.
David: Look. Whether or not Anton is indeed a midget or a dwarf… Alex: No he’s a midget.
David: What’s the difference?
Alex: Well, a dwarf is someone who has disproportionately short arms and legs. David: Oh, I know the ones [does a crass impression of a dwarf].
Alex: It’s caused by a hormone deficiency. David: Bloody hormones.
Alex: A midget is still a dwarf but their arms and legs are in proportion.
