"In any other age she would be the source of Swiftian satire, a firm proof that the human race has failed in allowing this creature to rise to prominence, but there can be no satire where there is no standard."
Excellent, thank you.
The one character Parks and Rec was happy to drop punch lines on was Ron, the fundamentally unprincipled libertarian.
And yet, Ron became a huge hit with the people he was supposed to mock. It wasn’t because they didn’t get that the show was mocking them, but because they saw what the writers couldn’t - that someone who likes to work with his hands and enjoys simple pleasures is much more admirable than an unlikable latte liberal who thinks she’s much smarter than she really is. (The same thing happened two generations earlier with Archie Bunker on “All In the Family.”)
I would also add the same thing happened with Alec Baldwin’s character Jack Donaghy in 30 Rock. Although the character was more of a Con Inc. figure and Tina Fey had a bit more self-awareness (the Liz Lemon character is regularly mocked by Jack), Jack still served the same purpose. Of course, as the show went on Jack and Ron had to be watered down, because we can’t have someone too right leaning on TV. The masses might get ideas.
In retrospect, powerful people elevating a doofus like Knope into higher and higher office while her competent husband fixes her messes in kind of on the nose.
The British Office was great but I found it nearly unwatchable due to how bleak it was. All the actors are unattractive, everything is grey, the corporate speak is something out of hell. It is rare to see something that is genuinely misanthropic and nasty. The American Office occasionally had jokes that were so awkward that I'd want to turn it off, but most of the show just replaces jokes with staring at the camera.
Parks and Rec is something I'll be able to show my kids, along with TED Talks, The Newsroom, and The Big Short, if they ever ask what the Obama years were like (they were fake and ghey).
This is outstanding. Leslie Knope was obviously female wish-fulfillment, but the real horror became manifest when one realizes that she is supposed to be male wish-fulfillment as well. Can you imagine being married to that smirking gargoyle? Adam Scott actually did it.
And then we have Aziz Ansari as an exemplar of the minority worker who does no work and only preens and congratulates himself on his putative awesomeness. In any half-assed simulacrum of the real world, he would be beaten on a regular basis (just as Michael Scott and Andy Bernard would be), but instead he's lovable because he's "family."
I can half believe that a Kamala administration would take up Tom Haverford's idiotic idea of "less than" people being able to rent cool threads and make it a government program.
Agree and well written, outside the critiques of Parks and Rec. I think it’s much smarter than you give it credit for. Making fun of bureaucracy is a major motif, for example. And Leslie’s girlbossing, while ultimately affirmed (unfortunately) is mocked pretty much the entire show
I don’t watch either show, because they are too close to my everyday truth - The Office for Corp jobs and Parks and Rec for gov’t contract jobs that I’ve worked.
It seems like if the effects of the Civil Rights Act were as harmful as you suggest, we would have seen a major dropoff in work productivity during the period you’re talking about. Did we? It seems like the US economy did great during this time relative to others.
This just feels tacked-on in your post. Like even the cultural products you’re discussing aren’t a good fit: in both Office Space and the British Office, casual sexism and racial insensitivity are part of what make the workplaces hellish places. (“That’s racist…that’s a shame.” -David Brent)
American real wages stagnated starting in 1973 or 1979, depending on who you talk to. That alone is enough to question whether the "economy" was doing well, and suggests labor has less of a role in productivity gains, given its lower price.
Left out a paragraph on the UK Office's racial jokes, which was always artificial. Slough, at the time, I'm guessing had the demographics of Bismarck, ND, meaing there was no real racial conflict that gives American racial humor its edge. Contrast that, eg, with the dynamics between the office drones and the loading workers. In fact, in the American version the dynamic was racialized.
I think there are all kinds of signs that American companies are outperforming foreign companies, in any event. Remember when everyone was panicking that Japan was going to eat our lunch? Now, the point about how all those riches are distributed is an interesting and important one, but I have trouble seeing how it links back to the civil rights act.
Slough is not North Dakota! It’s 20 miles from London. According to Wikipedia, the population is 30% Muslim. Do you suppose it was vastly whiter 20 years ago, when the show was first made?
"I think there are all kinds of signs that American companies are outperforming foreign companies"
If so, they won't be DEI – which is a product of the civil rights act. Yellen attempted to enact a global corporate tax rate at the start of Biden's admin. She even admitted that this was to stop the flight from mandatory race and sex quotas.
If there were no racial differences why do so many non-Europeans leave their own lands (and communities within the US) in order to find "opportunities" only white men seem to provide?
If there were no sexual differences why can't women compete against men by starting their own companies instead of employing a strategy of entitled parasitism, i.e., quotas?
"If there were no racial differences why do so many non-Europeans leave their own lands (and communities within the US) in order to find "opportunities" only white men seem to provide?"
You're putting a racial slant on simple economics. People leave poorer economies to go to richer economies. That includes people leaving less-white places to travel to richer, whiter places; it also includes people leaving whiter places to travel to richer, less-white places. Examples of the latter: people leaving Eastern Europe to work or live in the UK; people leaving economically depressed towns in the Rust Belt to live in coastal cities; the fact that immigrants in general (white or otherwise) come to the US rather than to less-white places. If opportunities are solely provided by white men, why isn't Russia the biggest draw of immigrant talent?
I'm not putting a racial slant on economics. The anti-white-male slants have been in business for decades established by elites such as Kneeling Nancy.
Russia destroyed itself – along with East Germany and eastern Europe as you admit – with communism for 70 years.
The Rust Belt was created because of much, much cheaper labor in China. If you don't make a profit you go out of business. Ergo, companies had to compete by moving operations to China. Tariffs might help bring jobs back but goods are still going to be more expensive because other countries like China have no worker's compensation, social security, insurance, race and sex quotas, welfare, etc.
People move to formerly white male dominated non-communist lands because the institutions and products the white guys created and maintained actually worked at a more efficient level. The exceptions are Japan and Korea.
I think for us to have a conversation you are going to have to learn to stay on topic. Paragraph structure is key, but so is having a clear sense of what you're trying to express overall. In the meantime, have a good rest of your week.
British Office: very funny, very dry. U.S.Office: boring and unfunny. I've found it a fairly accurate litmus test of people. "Oh, I LOOVE The Office!!" "The British one, right?" "What do you mean, The British One?" OK, you're an idiot if you think that dumbass show is funny. David Brent, however, very, very funny. The domestic "version" was a bad non-joke. Nice the way you compare and connect these phenomena to our current political morass. "As if Ralph Kramden actually paid NASA to send his wife to the moon." Great writing. Thank you.
You make me very glad I gave up watching TV a long time ago.
"In any other age she would be the source of Swiftian satire, a firm proof that the human race has failed in allowing this creature to rise to prominence, but there can be no satire where there is no standard."
Excellent, thank you.
The one character Parks and Rec was happy to drop punch lines on was Ron, the fundamentally unprincipled libertarian.
And yet, Ron became a huge hit with the people he was supposed to mock. It wasn’t because they didn’t get that the show was mocking them, but because they saw what the writers couldn’t - that someone who likes to work with his hands and enjoys simple pleasures is much more admirable than an unlikable latte liberal who thinks she’s much smarter than she really is. (The same thing happened two generations earlier with Archie Bunker on “All In the Family.”)
I would also add the same thing happened with Alec Baldwin’s character Jack Donaghy in 30 Rock. Although the character was more of a Con Inc. figure and Tina Fey had a bit more self-awareness (the Liz Lemon character is regularly mocked by Jack), Jack still served the same purpose. Of course, as the show went on Jack and Ron had to be watered down, because we can’t have someone too right leaning on TV. The masses might get ideas.
In retrospect, powerful people elevating a doofus like Knope into higher and higher office while her competent husband fixes her messes in kind of on the nose.
Very interesting analysis. And yes, Donald Trump is genuinely funny.
The British Office was great but I found it nearly unwatchable due to how bleak it was. All the actors are unattractive, everything is grey, the corporate speak is something out of hell. It is rare to see something that is genuinely misanthropic and nasty. The American Office occasionally had jokes that were so awkward that I'd want to turn it off, but most of the show just replaces jokes with staring at the camera.
Parks and Rec is something I'll be able to show my kids, along with TED Talks, The Newsroom, and The Big Short, if they ever ask what the Obama years were like (they were fake and ghey).
This is outstanding. Leslie Knope was obviously female wish-fulfillment, but the real horror became manifest when one realizes that she is supposed to be male wish-fulfillment as well. Can you imagine being married to that smirking gargoyle? Adam Scott actually did it.
And then we have Aziz Ansari as an exemplar of the minority worker who does no work and only preens and congratulates himself on his putative awesomeness. In any half-assed simulacrum of the real world, he would be beaten on a regular basis (just as Michael Scott and Andy Bernard would be), but instead he's lovable because he's "family."
I can half believe that a Kamala administration would take up Tom Haverford's idiotic idea of "less than" people being able to rent cool threads and make it a government program.
But what if hell ... were good?
That's comedy right thar.
Agree and well written, outside the critiques of Parks and Rec. I think it’s much smarter than you give it credit for. Making fun of bureaucracy is a major motif, for example. And Leslie’s girlbossing, while ultimately affirmed (unfortunately) is mocked pretty much the entire show
I don’t watch either show, because they are too close to my everyday truth - The Office for Corp jobs and Parks and Rec for gov’t contract jobs that I’ve worked.
Will there still be Presidents? Will the office continue to exist? Or do you just mean it will be occupied by actors?
It seems like if the effects of the Civil Rights Act were as harmful as you suggest, we would have seen a major dropoff in work productivity during the period you’re talking about. Did we? It seems like the US economy did great during this time relative to others.
This just feels tacked-on in your post. Like even the cultural products you’re discussing aren’t a good fit: in both Office Space and the British Office, casual sexism and racial insensitivity are part of what make the workplaces hellish places. (“That’s racist…that’s a shame.” -David Brent)
American real wages stagnated starting in 1973 or 1979, depending on who you talk to. That alone is enough to question whether the "economy" was doing well, and suggests labor has less of a role in productivity gains, given its lower price.
Left out a paragraph on the UK Office's racial jokes, which was always artificial. Slough, at the time, I'm guessing had the demographics of Bismarck, ND, meaing there was no real racial conflict that gives American racial humor its edge. Contrast that, eg, with the dynamics between the office drones and the loading workers. In fact, in the American version the dynamic was racialized.
I think there are all kinds of signs that American companies are outperforming foreign companies, in any event. Remember when everyone was panicking that Japan was going to eat our lunch? Now, the point about how all those riches are distributed is an interesting and important one, but I have trouble seeing how it links back to the civil rights act.
Slough is not North Dakota! It’s 20 miles from London. According to Wikipedia, the population is 30% Muslim. Do you suppose it was vastly whiter 20 years ago, when the show was first made?
"I think there are all kinds of signs that American companies are outperforming foreign companies"
If so, they won't be DEI – which is a product of the civil rights act. Yellen attempted to enact a global corporate tax rate at the start of Biden's admin. She even admitted that this was to stop the flight from mandatory race and sex quotas.
If there were no racial differences why do so many non-Europeans leave their own lands (and communities within the US) in order to find "opportunities" only white men seem to provide?
If there were no sexual differences why can't women compete against men by starting their own companies instead of employing a strategy of entitled parasitism, i.e., quotas?
"If there were no racial differences why do so many non-Europeans leave their own lands (and communities within the US) in order to find "opportunities" only white men seem to provide?"
You're putting a racial slant on simple economics. People leave poorer economies to go to richer economies. That includes people leaving less-white places to travel to richer, whiter places; it also includes people leaving whiter places to travel to richer, less-white places. Examples of the latter: people leaving Eastern Europe to work or live in the UK; people leaving economically depressed towns in the Rust Belt to live in coastal cities; the fact that immigrants in general (white or otherwise) come to the US rather than to less-white places. If opportunities are solely provided by white men, why isn't Russia the biggest draw of immigrant talent?
I'm not putting a racial slant on economics. The anti-white-male slants have been in business for decades established by elites such as Kneeling Nancy.
Russia destroyed itself – along with East Germany and eastern Europe as you admit – with communism for 70 years.
The Rust Belt was created because of much, much cheaper labor in China. If you don't make a profit you go out of business. Ergo, companies had to compete by moving operations to China. Tariffs might help bring jobs back but goods are still going to be more expensive because other countries like China have no worker's compensation, social security, insurance, race and sex quotas, welfare, etc.
People move to formerly white male dominated non-communist lands because the institutions and products the white guys created and maintained actually worked at a more efficient level. The exceptions are Japan and Korea.
I think for us to have a conversation you are going to have to learn to stay on topic. Paragraph structure is key, but so is having a clear sense of what you're trying to express overall. In the meantime, have a good rest of your week.
No, it’s accusing people of racism and other bullshit is the bane of all our lives
In this bit, is the humor at the expense of David, or the guy he's talking to? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKKJIlg0-sw
Wow, brilliant critique. Highly insightful.
British Office: very funny, very dry. U.S.Office: boring and unfunny. I've found it a fairly accurate litmus test of people. "Oh, I LOOVE The Office!!" "The British one, right?" "What do you mean, The British One?" OK, you're an idiot if you think that dumbass show is funny. David Brent, however, very, very funny. The domestic "version" was a bad non-joke. Nice the way you compare and connect these phenomena to our current political morass. "As if Ralph Kramden actually paid NASA to send his wife to the moon." Great writing. Thank you.
This one is being saved for the archives. Excellent!
That’s cheerful.
Can we kill social media now?
Freedumb of speech notwithstanding?
It really violates the Mann Act anyway.
Edgy take, bud!