The Office turns 15: Why the show's cringe comedy survived a massive shift in taste

Polygon

Greg Daniels' NBC adaptation of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's critically acclaimed BBC comedy is still as buzzworthy as ever 15 years after it premiered on March 24, 2005. "One would think that a series so steeped in offensive cringe humor might not age well (and actor Steve Carell says it hasn’t)," says Siddhant Adlakha. "In the context of its workplace setting, many of the things said by Carell’s wannabe comedian Michael Scott would be classified as racist or as sexual harassment, while certain instances of ableism, fatphobia, John Krasinski’s Jim being kind of a dick, and Rainn Wilson’s Dwight don’t play quite as well. Comedy sours fairly quickly as society evolves — ’90s global megahit Friends, for instance, can be a pretty difficult watch — but creator Greg Daniels set The Office apart by contextualizing its lead character through the eyes of the people he impacts, with his moronic (albeit well-meaning) misgivings. The original U.K. series created tension by having white characters skirt around the specter of race; general manager David Brent (Ricky Gervais) would often sweep the topic under the rug. However, Daniels’ adaptation decided to subvert that instinct, and was much more successful than its U.S. contemporaries. The result was a show where the liberal workplace avoidance of race wasn’t just a backdrop, but a primary target, as Michael Scott would try (and usually, fail) to force the subject out into the open." Adlakha says being a long-running show allowed The Office to have a "nuanced approach to what might otherwise be a one-and-done racist gag. Rather than having queer and/or people-of-color extras merely roll their eyes before disappearing off-screen, the series gives its diverse supporting cast a good chunk of the narrative point of view, allowing them far more agency than straight, white American-focused sitcoms had up to that point. t’s practically baked into the show’s mockumentary format — a departure from the era’s multicamera, canned-laughter norms. As Michael says or does something untoward in the name of inclusivity, the single-camera, vérité approach captures his employees’ intimate, suppressed reactions in the moment. These reactions are then further explored in one-on-one asides, which act as confessionals and emotional release valves in response to Michael’s gaudy antics. The formula isn’t hard to predict, but the result is a show not only about one man’s well-meaning idiocy, but about the ripple effects of his behavior. However, to simply call the style of The Office 'mockumentary' fails to capture how it navigates each supporting character, in an environment that requires them to constantly hide their true feelings from Michael and their corporate overlords."

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• The Office is unique in its seamless transition from one TV epoch to the next: "The show never retreated far enough from the mainstream to benefit from a full-bore nostalgia push," says Alison Herman. "Instead, it preserved its increasingly high-wattage cast in amber even as they continued to scale the Hollywood ladder, giving us the uncanny yet reassuring sense it never left. Carell is a socially challenged middle manager and a silver fox regularly hitting the awards circuit. John Krasinski is a fourth-wall-breaking straight man and a horror auteur, and also Jack Ryan. Mindy Kaling is a bratty drama queen and a rom-com star who hangs out with Reese Witherspoon. The upward trajectory of the cast is something of a chicken-and-egg scenario: Does their celebrity help keep The Office in the limelight, or does The Office’s continued popularity help their careers? Inevitably, it’s both. The Office is a throwback, but a deceptive one."
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