Lead Blog Post for 9/14 - The Office

The Office. No one can deny that the show’s success in something not to be taken likely. I’m sure one time in everyone’s life, they have seen another individual wearing a Dunder Mifflin shirt or heard someone quote a line from the top of their head. And don’t forget all the iconic quotes and moments that the show has blessed our daily lives with, and that we ordinary people can fortunately integrate into our lives. For instance, the guy next to you in class makes an ignorant comment or simply is being his dumb self, then look into the imaginary camera and make the iconic “Jim face”. Or, if there is a fake fire caused by one of your coworkers in your workplace, be like Kevin and don’t try to find safely, but instead, go for the vending machine to grab all the snacks you want. Want to save time because life is just too darn short? Be like Kevin and save time by eradicating all of the unnecessary words. For instance, instead of saying, “I am hungry so I want to go to the dining hall to get food”, try, “I hungry DH food”. See how much time you saved? A whole second! Wow. Ever in a room with Bin Laden, Hitler, and Toby and you have a gun with two bullets, shoot Toby twice. Actually, please don’t do that. To sum it up, the possibilities are endless on how to put The Office into our daily lives.

In terms of incorporating the one of the theories into the show to truly understand why the show is such a success, we look towards the incongruity theory. This theory perfectly explains why the humor of the show connects with people and thus making it a hit to the point where even the man star, Michael Scott, left and the show still thrived afterwards. In incongruity theory, we look at the the “inappropriateness”, or the “absurdity”, or just the craziness of the situations which makes the audience laugh. Dwight Schrute is the perfect character to examine to see just how the theory is represented. One of Dwight’s most iconic lines is, “There are too many people on this Earth. We need a new plague”. The fact that Dwight is suggesting that humankind has grown too large and to bring the population down, people should bring a disease that killed off hundreds of millions of people is simply absurd and terrifying to imagine. But I’m not going to lie, I definitely laughed when he first said it. It’s the simple surprising factor and the overall preposterous ideas of Dwight that draws the audience in, which is exactly what the incongruity theory is explaining. Another iconic quote is after Meredith was run over by Michael Scott. Dwight is visiting Meredith in the hospital and he states, “As a farmer I know that when an animal is sick sometimes the right thing to do is put it out of its misery. With the electricity we are using to keep Meredith alive, we could power a small fan for two days. You tell me what’s unethical.”  We see Dwight as examining Meredith's situation to not being as significant as a fan, which is very shocking and innaporitaly funny that he values a fan more than his coworkers life and health. In this quotation, we can see that it is not only the idea of the absurdity of the comment, but the context in which it is because Dwight is quoting this while seeing Meredith lying in the hospital bed. Overall, we can credit the success of The Office to the idea of incongruity theory that many of the unforgettable characters possess.