“We are all trying to be good people, even if all of us are failing”
by zunguzungu
I wrote a series of posts about the American The Office that I am still quite fond of; you can read them, in order, here, here, and here, if you like. I treated the American version of the show as a standalone entity for the simple reason that, as an American, I had nothing to say about the BBC version, having neither seen it nor felt its absence.
I’ve since seen the BBC original and have periodically hacked away at a piece on the show and Freud, but haven’t quite finished it, for several reasons I don’t need to go into now. This comment from Rory Marinich on metafilter (via), however, opened doors and rang bells for me that I was as unaware of as I was of the BBC original when I wrote those posts. In short — and he’s completely right — the BBC office is always, implicitly, about the conditions of its own production in a way the American office simply isn’t: Steve Carell’s character is essentially himself all the time, and the show is essentially a sitcom in an office, but the Gervais version is something darker and more horrible, a show in which his character’s tragic decline is not only charted by the show but actually produced by the fact that he’s being filmed for it. He becomes the person we see only because the cameras are on, in other words, and gives us a show only because we are watching. Which actually turns out to mean, in a weird sort of way, that the BBC show can have a sliver of redemption: the cameras, eventually have to turn off, and David Brent will eventually recover. But the American Office is a whole other beast, No Exit-like shuffling away into eternity forever…
Here’s the comment in its entirety, though the discussion following it are well worth reading as well:
The difference is that Michael Scott is an idiot who’s trying to be a good boss. David Brent is a camwhore, in a sense. He’s not just a narcissist, he’s a celebrity hound.
Gervais talks about his in an interview I couldn’t find online. The Office isn’t just about the workplace, it’s about the idea of celebrity and how it’s affected society. That’s its genius, which I think is looked over by most people that see it. If you watch Extras, Gervais’s next show, and then go back to The Office, it’s a little more noticeable.
The horrible thing about David Brent is that there are subtle indicators that he is a good boss before the show begins. People seem to like him, until he fucks things over, shiftily staring at the camera all the while. Jennifer thinks he’s competent. The board thinks he’s a good man. He goes out drinking with the people he works with and they’re affectionate for him. But he’s so determined to become somebody famous that he’s willing to lose everything, and he does.
That’s why the original Office is leagues beyond the American Office, which is really not a mockumentary anymore. It’s a sitcom. The camera crew shouldn’t still be there, people shouldn’t still be forgiving Michael. In the original, David is not forgiven. As soon as he starts pulling these stunts, he’s reprimanded, he loses power, but he keeps going. He wants to make this false celebrity David, that the world will remember.
And there’re still hints of the good boss throughout. David is funny, fleetingly, until he crushes everything with his camera panderings. He’s got a good rapport with people when he’s not trying to be this false persona. We don’t hate him because he tells racist jokes. We hate him because after he tells the jokes, he tries to justify to BBC that he’s not actually being racist. Remove all those justifications and he’s a pretty cool guy.
That’s what crushed me when I saw the series. Tim and Dawn were tragic, and the scene where Tim unplugs his microphone is one of the greatest moments in television history, but what kills me is the slow, slow decline of Brent. In the American Office, people let Michael get away with everything. In the original, Brent is fired, loses his consulting job — which was yet another indicator that he was truly held in high regards — and, in the climax to the second series, has to drop his character and beg for his job back. Which is denied.
The Christmas finale sees the conclusion to his character arc. After being fired, he blows all his money trying to become a famous singer, and then to appear on microcelebrity shows. He’s trying to milk the fame he doesn’t have. The only person who recognizes him realizes what a fool he was. His redemption, at the very end, comes when he realizes he cares more about this terrific new woman he’s met, tells Chris and Neil to fuck off, and goes on his way. That’s the final scene in the entire show, as the final credits roll: David asking if the crew needs anything more, saying “Cheers,” standing up, and finally leaving the camera.
With all respect to people who love the American Office, which is a moderately good sitcom, the original is a masterpiece, both in its writing, its acting, and its direction. The writing is what grabs me, though. The way the show manages to be about these two things at once, about office life and about celebrity culture, and how it tucks the one so subtly into the other, blows my mind. It leads to some brilliant sight gags, too: The janitor who, when he’s on camera, can do nothing but stare at the screen, is the one I’m fondest of. Comparing the one to the other is like comparing Cheaper By The Dozen to The Royal Tenenbaums. There’re vague similarities in concept and plot, but the one is infinitely warmer, funnier, and fonder.
The Office managed to celebrate the small glimpses of compassion and humanity we get out of these people in an infinitely shitty situation. Tim’s passing up on the job offer to Gareth, who never realizes who he’s in debt to; Lee’s buying Tim a beer as apology for shoving him against the wall; Tim’s hands in Dawn’s hair; Neil and Rachel’s dance. One moral I drew from the show was never to work in an officeplace, yes; but the more important thing I took from it was this: We are all trying to be good people, even if all of us are failing
That’s good stuff. Whenever I watch new episodes of the American version lately, I always remark on the camera placement, pretending that the show still thinks it’s a documentary… almost makes it funnier.
As an American, I watched the BBC series before the American one was even announced, and thus dreaded the production of the American series. But which turned out to be better than expected, for that brief period after it got away from the story arc of the BBC series and before it, well, jumped the shark… Michael’s always been a giant dickhead.
Of course, the pressure to continuously create new episodes for a concept that has run its course has been the creative downfall of countless American tv shows. I much prefer the HBO or BBC model of limited run television.
Thanks so much for posting this…it is such a good read, and nails something I hadn’t quite seen before. I have seen the Brit office about 50 times, and have always wondered how Brent got to his position (why did they let this joker in?). When everything else seems so well organized, I assumed it was a large leap of faith and formula. A comment on the idiocy of management, and a quick device for a decent show idea. But, Marinich’s thesis of celebrity is spot on–especially with Extras as supporting evidence. Feel like a dolt, but am happy to have a new read on this one sticking spot of the show. My question…what happens when Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and The Royal Tenenbaums exist in the same reality? Brent is going to appear on the American Office…am hoping they use new cinematic magic so that only his character appears in 3D.
Apaicerption for this information is over 9000-thank you!
Having worked with several David Brents, I fear the commenter overstates the power of the documentary crew (and the coolness of Brent’s racist jokes). Brent plays to the camera, of course, but all evidence suggests that without it he’d play just as desperately and destructively to his employees and peers. Such personalities produce, direct, edit, star in, and watch reality shows without need of equipment, and any recovery in the Christmas afterthought seems linked to lowered feverishness in general.
(I can’t resist adding that for one of “my” David Brents a tenured lectureship played the same role that sales did for Gervais’s David Brent: the lead-in job which tolerated and sometimes encouraged behavior that turned pathological in a managerial position.)
Thanks so much for capturing these aianmzg moments! I guess it was easy to see through my ulterior motives for wanting to fix Kel’s violin April was just to irresistible! Can’t wait for the wedding glad you’ll be a big part of the day!
Son of a gun, this is so helpful!
Richard, yeah, exactly. The American version is almost necessarily an argument for the very corporate model it apparently but toothlessly criticizes: “we must continue producing! Because we must continue producing!” Whereas the BBC version — if we buy Marinich’s thesis — is much more interested in imagining how such spaces and logics are produced as a way of imagining their ending; turning off the cameras is to reject the logic of mindless production in the same gesture as choosing good storytelling over being a mere content-producer.
Which then raises the stakes for David Brent showing up in Scranton, right, Carla Fran? My hope is that he does something really disruptive to the logic of that show. It needs to stop; I liked it a lot at first, but watching the new ones now is a little painful.
Ray, there’s definitely parts of the comment I think are overstated; “Remove all those justifications and he’s a pretty cool guy” seems to miss the mark, for instance; but he is at least human when the cameras are off, which is something I hadn’t really considered. In a general sense, I think it’s partially a description of a show they only partly made. But your read makes me wonder if the cycle might not even more recursive about the feedback loop of authority and power: just as being on camera makes him perform, being the boss is the same kind of urge to perform that makes him a sociopath.
I agree with Ray; another thing is that the meta ‘aspiring ‘creative person’ who doesn’t realise how awful they are’ (like Brent’s poetry – ‘Excalibur’!) is very common in British sitcom because it is a kind of in joke between peers, so this to UK perception (although I think Gervais played up this much more in the 2nd series too) was probably less innovative. The first series also had a strong strand of class antagonism (the pub quiz episode is my favourite) which was dropped in the second series.
“Recursive about the feedback loop of authority and power”: Yes, that’s how I experienced the series — despite the more forced gags, it’s a remarkably clear picture of how nightmarish the personal-professional ambiguities of “job performance” can become, for Tim as well as David.
Lest this become too smug, I should confess that my own venture into managerial responsibility revealed more of a Gareth type.