The Office and Stereotypes

Perhaps one of the most popular primetime sitcoms within recent memory, The Office centered around a group of individuals working for a paper company in Scranton, Pensylvania. Most of the characters on the show are wildly eccentric, and much of the humor in the show is derrived from their nonsensical antics. On the other hand, there are also less eccentric characters who are perhaps more relatable to the common viewer, and in the instances where these individuals are portrayed much of the humor is derrived from poking fun at their personal characteristics. As a result, The Office falls into a the trend of subtly enforcing stereotypes of various different social groups, most prominently of African Americans, homosexuals, and overweight individuals.

A common theme I noticed across several episodes was an implicit fear of African Americans. For example, one of the only non-white workers in the office is Stanley, a man with a very dry, no-nonsense personality who comes off as rather unsocial most of the time. But other characters interactions with Stanley go beyond a casual a casual aversion to his dry personality, often times manifesting in a sense of fear or intimidation of him. Another example of this is the warehouse staff, who is almost entirely African American. The office workers are never on the best of terms with the warehouse workers, and several times throughout the show the office workers express a fear of going down to the warehouse. In doing so, The Office perpetuates a stereotype that African Americans are generally intimidating and imposing figures whom individuals should avoid making angry for fear of immediate consequences.

Another stereotype The Office is often guilty of is of effeminate gay men. Oscar, one of the employees at the office, is the only prominent homosexual featured on the show. And while he is not portrayed as overtly flamboyant, several episodes include comments from him that often elude to a flamboyancy in his personal life and in his relationships, reinforcing a stereotype that all homosexual males essentially lack masculinity.

Lastly, the sitcom often promotes a negative stereotype of overweight people, often devolving into a process of what many would consider "fat-shaming." Two characters that are often made fun of for their weigh are Stanley (mentioned above) and Phyllis. Both characters recieve a certain level of shaming from their coworkers attempting to get them to work out, with one of the most memorable instances being when their coworker Dwight drives Phyllis out into the country and leaves her there, forcing her to walk all the way back to the office, thereby getting her to work out. Through events such as this, the show enforces the stereotype that all overweight individuals lack the motivation to work out on their own and become healthier.

While The Office often implicitly enforces these stereotypes, there are several examples of popular culture resisting these stereotypes, and just as Martin and Nakayama state, "resistance can occur in a variety of ways," (366). One of the most common ways popular media can and has resisted such stereotypes is by offering an alternative version of these social groups. Even The Office did this on several occasions, as they showed Stanley working out unbeknownst to his coworkers. Other shows, such as Community, feature and African American character who, unlike those portrayed in The Office, is very bubbly and outgoing. Finally, the show Brooklyn Nine-Nine features a homosexual character who also maintains his own masculinity, in fact becoming one of the more intimidating characters on the show. Popular culture often enforces stereotypes both implicitly and explicitly through this sort of coding process, however it is just as easy for popular culture to resist such notions, a practice that is becoming more and more common through time.

References

Martin, J.N., & Nakayama, T.K. (2013). Intercultural Communication in Contexts (6th ed.) New York, NY: McGraw Hill.