Comments on: The white man on the silver screen

By: Brian Hamilton

Brian Hamilton — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 22:00:08 +0000

I like it–the Office as a kind of training in revolutionary subordination. Leaving the world to be the world (leaving Michael to be Michael) because it (he) has no real power. Which is certainly true in that context. Nobody in the Office bothers with Michael because, at the end of the day, he’s a powerless baboon.

Still, it’s one thing to see Michael from the perspective of Jim–whom the baboon loves–and another to see him from Phyllis’s perspective, or Stanley’s, or Oscar’s, or Toby’s, or even Pam’s. Because all those people genuinely suffer for Michael’s antics. Toby’s all but drowning in his own depression because Michael is so cruel to him. The others usually endure, but there’s no question that Michael’s derisiveness sometimes hits its mark and pulls them a little lower. In such situations, they don’t laugh. Laughter is robbed of them. My fear would be that laughing at the show would leave us thinking of Michael as basically harmless. Which from the perspective of Jim, he is; that’s the perspective the show encourages us to adopt. From anyone else’s perspective (except for maybe Dwight, but only because he’s too dense to take an insult), Michael’s not harmless at all.

By: andrea

andrea — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 18:11:43 +0000

I write as a The Office addict who probably would have been seriously offended by the show if I'd seen it a few years ago. About House, I know nothing.

Isn't there something to be said for being able to laugh at someone who would offend us if we took him seriously? The Office asks us to identify with other characters in the show, to put up with Michael, and even to laugh at him. Sometimes it is painful, but I wonder if laughing that the screen couldn't cultivate both long-suffering and a certain self-presence; I can take the Michaels of the world lightly because they do not threaten me. Isn't that why everyone loves Jim and Pam? They are normal characters, with the exception that they are willing to go-with-the-flow in the Office. Yet, they are never absorbed into Michael's offensive ignorance.

By: Brian Hamilton

Brian Hamilton — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 13:49:18 +0000

Yeah, you're exactly right. One can't look to House himself, because so much of what he does is questionable at best. But neither can one simply look to everyone else's criticisms of House (Wilson's, for example, or Cameron's), because of the sneaking suspicion that House is really right about them. Are Cameron's attempts to "stay human" or "stay ethical" really just expressions of cowardice, of a refusal to take the risks a doctor has to take for fear of hurting someone? Does Wilson project need and misery onto House, refusing to see the real joy House takes in his work, because he himself needs neediness? Etc. Refreshingly infuriating at its best, yes. Though sometimes it's just infuriating, because you end up being angry with all the characters for not doing what you would have done.

By: Spencer

Spencer — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 22:52:58 +0000

One of the interesting things that I think House does is problematize the viewer-protagonist relationship.

I very often find myself looking to the protagonist of a show as the one to tell me how to evaluate what's going on. "Who are the good guys and who are the bad guys?" Usually the main character provides an answer to it by embodying the good guys (in the Office, it's Jim).

But House is a despicable person who sometimes does good things. Watching him be completely horrible and degrading always makes me wonder, "Should I be laughing at that?" In that show, I can't simply look to the main character to tell me what the show wants me to think - I have to keep my evaluative wits about me through the whole thing. It's refreshingly infuriating at its best.