Curious

I have to bite my tongue whenever someone argues that fiction is inherently harmful. Often, he or she employs a sprinkling of anecdotes to argue that literature, television, and movies weaken humanity’s collective “grasp” on reality or that readers rely on these forms of fiction for escape from reality. That isn’t to say that discussing fiction’s merit (or demerit) is a vain way to spend an hour, yet I’d contend most of these conversations introduce more heat than light. Powerful fiction, I’d argue, matures its audience.

When art poses a threat to viewers, it is often because they recognize that some part of their worldview is being challenged or undermined. Ironically, in most cases, discomfort is essential for further maturation. Nowhere is this discomfort more acute than within a text, when one character’s presuppositions clash with another’s. The writers of NBC’s The Office thrive on characterization and conflict, but in season five, episode 18, they really outdid themselves.

If you aren’t already familiar with the show, let me warn you: this episode loses all impact if you haven’t been immersed in the narrative all along (don’t watch it!). NBC’s The Office is a Thursday night television comedy formatted as a mock-umentary of Dunder-Mifflin Paper Company’s Scranton office, and the show is now in the throes of its fifth season. (The BBC TV original, also entitled The Office, premiered in 2002 and starred the talented writer/comedian Ricky Gervais.)

I am, at best, an on-again/off-again follower. To be honest, I can’t bear to watch The Office’s unmitigated portrayal of humanity in all its shame more than about once a month. (My gut’s just too weak and my pride’s too strong.) But if you are an avid follower, I will also warn you: you won’t like this episode. It will be the most discomforting one yet, but for all the right reasons.

A few months ago P. and I discussed the normative characterization in The Office. Last week’s episode blew the top off our hypnotically-sustained conclusions. And I want to tip my hat to the writers’ brilliant–if likely soon-to-be-eradicated–insertion of literary savoir faire. Up until episode 18, our sympathies primarily fell where Jim Halpert’s did. For better or for worse, Jim (John Krasinski) proved our normative character, the standard and guide for how we would morally perceive and emotionally respond to others’ actions and the circumstances they face. Occasionally, we hated Jim for doing those things we ourselves might have done, for saying those things similar to those things we hate ourselves for saying. Yet for months we continued, with few exceptions, to measure the entire office experience through the eyes of this character, imagining ourselves in his place, working in an unbelievably afflicted office environment and fighting to survive without succumbing to the insanity of it all.

This week, Michael Scott (Steve Carell) got a new boss, Charles Minor, played by the infamous Wire actor Idris Elba. And in the span of two minutes, the normative character dramatically shifted from Jim to Minor. And our entire world shifted upside down. (And we hated ourselves for ever wishing Michael would receive his dues, Jim would have a joke turned on himself, and Dwight would be the one to play his cards right for once.) Suddenly, as Charles Minor walks into the office, the stunning weight of indisputable reality falls down on our heads. We, as viewers, end up squirming in our seats as we recognize our own complicity in this childlike game. These characters that we’ve come to tolerate should have never been tolerated. This infantile drama with which we’ve amused ourselves for months is headed straight for a painful, inevitable horizon we’ve been all too content to ignore. But it’s a horizon that is overdue (and boy, do we seem juvenile for regretting that fact). We find ourselves, like Jim, feeling quite foolish for not seeing the need to truly rise above it all much sooner.

And that is the reason, if the producers want to continue to a sixth season (duh!), this literary savoir faire will be scrubbed away next week. Such reality points in only one direction: the end. If it were a novel, we’d have only three chapters left and a bittersweet smile on our faces.