Finding something to watch has become quite the task in these modern times. For those who choose The Office US as their go to show they have the opportunity to experience a number of different things. The Office is a show full of some of the best humor a person could ever watch, lots of romance, and even some action and adventure. While this show seems to be the best show to ever exist it does have its downfalls. Some of those things are the inappropriate language, offensive comments, and cringy humor which appear in some of the episodes.
The show, The Office, is a mockumentary about the lives of the employees of a regional paper company. The episodes of The Office, show how the regional manager and his employees interact with each other, both in and out of the office. The show depicts its characters falling in love, experiencing heartbreak, and most importantly having fun selling paper. The Office, while a lot of the time produces instances where the characters find themselves in completely ridiculous situations, will often contain extremely relatable events for all of its viewers. According to Rotten tomatoes The Office is a show for those who have, “hated their boss, their job or both” which happens to be most americans (n.d. n.p.). This show is bursting with immensely talented actors like Steve Carell, Jenna Fischer, and Rainn Wilson. Each of these characters add to the story line and bring a new take on life which is why the office has gained such a diverse audience and has been successful.
One of the most appealing aspects of The Office is the many different love connections and romances played out over the course of its nine seasons. The Office may be known for its exceptional humor but is also crawling with romance. Throughout the nine seasons the viewer witnesses romance after romance with Jim and Pam, Dwight and Angela, Michael and Holly, Kelly and Ryan, Erin and Andy, and so many more. The most memorable of The Office romances is the receptionist (Pam) and one of the salesman (Jim). Their romance and many of the other romances played out in the show are special. One of the best episodes is their wedding day which is something many viewers had waited a long time for. These romances aren’t the typical hollywood impossible love stories. The love stories of The Office are obtainable and relatable which is why they are so significant. The storylines in the office are so enticing to viewers because they feel real.
Not only does The Office contain romance, but also some of the best humor to ever exist. Each episode has a unique introduction which contains some of the funniest scenes in cinematic history. The boss of the paper company, Michael Scott, adds humor with some of his quite illogical ideas and methods of managing his branch. The show never has a dull moment with jokes being cracked every ten seconds and some epic pranks between two of the salesman, Dwight and Jim. The pranks pulled can often be over complicated and elaborate but always manage to muster a laugh. One of the greatest opening scenes of the office is when dwight gets a pumpkin stuck on his head and despite multiple theatrical attempts they can not remove it. The scene may be impractical but it is also side splittingly funny. Each character adds their own sense of humor which elevates the comedic genius that is The Office. Even minor characters, like Creed Bratton, head of quality insurance, make the office ten times funnier with their unique sense of humor and witty comments. The Office is able to find humor in everyday situations which is why it is such a sensation. Even with all the humor, the show is also able to incorporate action and adventure.
While The Office first comes off as a comedy series it also has action and adventure. In season seven there is an episode jam packed with action. In this episode Michael Scott has created his own action movie which he is the star of. His film is titled Threat Level Midnight and could arguably be the greatest action film to ever exist. In this episode his character Michael Scarn has to save a professional hockey game from the evil Golden Face who is trying to blow it up. This episode is full of so much humor and action at the same time. Elements like these are what make The Office a phenomenal masterpiece. In the article The Americanization of the Office Griffin mentions, “The Office has forged its own identity and achieved notable success” (2008, n.p.). The buzz The Office receives is not unwarranted and is due to the genius behind each carefully crafted episode.
The humor in The Office is great and can make a person laugh until they cry, but sometimes the humor can be a little much. Examples of the unwarranted and often unwanted humor used in The Office are the sexual or racial jokes. Birthisel comments in the article That’s What She Said, “the lack of repercussions for offending characters and stereotypical portrayals of women in the workplace undercut the The Office’s transgressive potential” (2013, p. 64.). Some of the humor is degrading towards women and portrays them unfairly at times. There are many occasions in the show where common offensive stereotypes of women are mentioned. Some of those being women having weak arms or being bad drivers. These little backhanded comments are demeaning and not needed. Some of the language and topics included in this show are hard to watch and can make a person uncomfortable. There is one episode named Scott’s Tots which is almost unwatchable due to the extreme unpleasantness of the events which transpire. The Office also includes characters like Roy Anderson and Todd Packer who are more of an annoyance than anything else. Most of the time they add no value to the show.
In the first few seasons Michael comes off as obnoxious and often times he can be unbearable to watch. His extreme repulsiveness in the beginning has deterred many people from finishing the series which is unfortunate because it is a quality show. However, he does in the end become an integral part of the show. Which makes it is hard to watch him leave in the seventh season. It is even harder to watch the new bosses, who are even less tolerable than Michael was in the first seasons, take his place in seasons eight and nine. The last two seasons contained maybe two episodes which were even worth watching, but those two episodes were most likely some of the best in the whole series.
The Office is most definitely not a perfect show and is not for everyone, but it is a show everyone should give a chance. The Office is a show full of humor, romance, and even some action. The show is a honorable choice when browsing through netflix and it undoubtedly deserves the hype it receives. The comedy in this show is like no other and although it does have nine long seasons they are episodes worth the watch. The Office may contain some offensive material and inappropriate jokes which are unnecessarily rude, but it also contains special character stories that are intriguing to follow. The Office is a quality show and is worth the watch and rewatch.
Laughter Is The Best Medicine
The feeling that laughter brings is hard to describe. It causes an overwhelming sense of joy that can be felt throughout the entire body. This feeling of joy makes one so happy that people can make careers out of telling jokes. Because of laughter’s ability to influence one’s body, it is often a technique used by doctors in the medical field. While humor cannot be prescribed as an exclusive form of treatment, it is often used as additional treatment is used to help cancer patients, to increase patients pain threshold and to help counselors connect to their patients through humor counseling.
When a patient finds out that they have cancer, the patient and his or her family members experience a bunch of negative emotions: sadness, depression, emptiness, and feeling as though they are reaching the end of their life. In addition to these emotions, patients are faced with a tough road to recovery that often times requires chemotherapy or radiation which are both notoriously painful both physically and emotionally. In order to ease the pain of cancer patients, humor has been used to facilitate a more enjoyable recovery process. For example, in Bangkok Thailand, a study between Rx Laughter™ and the Mahavajiralongkorn Cancer Center was conducted to determine if laughter made a difference in a patient’s experience with cancer treatments.
There study included 50 men and women. The people were then randomly assigned to one of two different groups: the humor therapy group and the control group. The humor therapy group was required to watch 20 hours of funny videos over a 10-day span while the control group received normal treatment. After conducting the study, the researchers surveyed the patients and found that, compared to the control group, those who had watched the funny videos reported less pain and anxiety throughout their treatment process and an overall increase in comfort level, satisfaction with their treatment and satisfaction with their care.
By implementing humor in cancer treatment, doctors can help their patients who visit frequently feel more comfortable at the doctor’s office, increase their satisfaction with treatment and lower their pain and anxiety about treatment. Moreover, they give their patient something to look forward to when coming to the doctor’s office. Instead of focusing on the treatment a patient is about to receive, providing the funny videos can relieve a patient’s stress by giving them something else to think about before their appointment. Humor is also used in medicine to increase a patient’s pain threshold. The theory is that laughter is used to distract the patient from pain. Moreover, laughter causes relaxation that could also contribute to the increase in pain tolerance. In a study done by United Kingdom Wisenberg, participants were assigned to one of three groups. The first group watched a video about the Holocaust. The second group watched a comedy. The third group watched a nuetral video. While watching the video, the participants put their arms in a bucket of cold water and were asked to rate their pain. After watching the video for half an hour, the group that watched the funny video reported a higher pain tolerance or lower overall pain. A version of this test was also conducted by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and Rx Laughter™ with children. They tested pain tolerance by having all of the participants watch funny videos, but one group watched the video before putting their arm in the cold water.
One group watched the video while their arm was in the cold water, and the last group watched the video after putting their arm in the cold water. They found that children who watched the video while their arm was in the cold water had the greatest pain tolerance. Just by watching a funny video, patients were able to increase the amount of pain that they can withstand. This is important because doctors can use humor therapy in combination with procedures that are notoriously painful to ease patients pain. One could argue that putting one’s arm in cold water does not compare to painful treatments that many patients undergo, and even though it raises pain tolerance, it may not raise it enough to be effective in cases where it is actually needed; however, this is not true. Many hosptials use a form of humor therapy known as clowning.
Clowning is where people dress up as clowns and wander around the hospitals trying to make people laugh. The hope is that they will ease the stress and anxiety associated with doctor’s offices and help ease the pain of patients going through tough procedures. Clowning is especially effective for children because it distracts them from the pain associated with the procedure that the doctor is performing on them. Peter Spitzer is one of these clowns and shares one of his experiences.
The Early Use Of Memes
Internet memes before were more of images and focused on the humor and parody of said images that were available for replication and modifications with the sole purpose of exhibiting humor. According to a study by Börzsei, one of the earliest and possibly the first internet meme was the “sideways smiley face” composed using punctuation marks created by Scott F. Fahlman on September 19, 1982 (Börzsei, p.5). It spread quickly to other communities thus it soon became a “meme”. When it comes to the rise of internet memes however, one of the most significant internet phenomena (and is possibly the first internet meme) according to Börzsei is the “All Your Base Are Belong To Us” meme. This spawned from the badly translated opening sequence of the 1989 arcade shooter game Zero Wing (Börzsei, p.9). This study has also stated that one of the key components why this error (which became a meme) was such a hit was because of its humor as stated by Börzsei:
Apart from their generativity, an important reason for the success of All Your Base Are Belong to Us is its humor, which is a key component of the meme. It was the desire to continue this joke that sparked the “remixing epidemic” (Knobel & Lankshear), to spread this particular example of “geek kitsch humor” (Taylor qtd. in Knobel & Lankshear). Enjoying the ridiculous outcome of bad translation between languages (here from Japanese to English) is not a peculiarity of “geek culture”, however. This type of humor had been popular for many years by then; it is no surprise that All Your Base Are Belong to Us has struck a chord with people on a scale wider than just subcultures (Börzsei, p.12).
During the mid 2000s, advances in the technology of digital photography, as well as its accessibility to a wider public, resulted in an increasing number of private images appearing online, right at the meme community’s disposal (Börzsei, p.15). Aside from domestic photographs of people, large amount of pet photos were uploaded which played a part in formulating new trends in internet memes (Börzsei, p.15). Börzsei stated two examples of memes which used photos of pets such as Advice Dog and LOLCats, these series of internet memes were all based on the same format: a cut-out of an animal or the head of an animal, plasted over a generic colorful background, with text added above and/or below the face (Börzsei, p.15-26). The text found in these memes were usually funny advices and/or relatable experiences with a splash of humor. Therefore, it can be seen how early use of memes were usually just for laughs, good times, and for the purpose of making it viral. Though there have been no mentions of how internet memes were like during tese times as well in the Philippines, it can be assumed that it was just the same seeing how most of these memes were used and adapted in the country as well during this time and just varied in the text for Filipino language was used in these types of memes as well.