Beauty in Ordinary Things
The Office aired its last episode 10 years ago today. What does it tell us about home?
“Even though I’m a guy from Atlanta, who lives in L.A., every time I go to Scranton it feels weirdly like coming home.”
-Brian Baumgartner who played Kevin Malone in The Office
There’s no Chili’s in Scranton, Pennsylvania. No Hooters or Benihana either. But Farley’s, Cugino's, and Poor Richard's actually existed when The Office mentioned them during their nine-season run between 2005 and 2013. The first two closed but Poor Richard’s is still around. Just walk through the South Side Bowl bowling alley and you’ll find a watering hole that’s equal parts sports bar, medieval themed pub, and The Office museum. It has signed photos from cast members on the wall, you can check out their Dundie Award for Best Friend of “The Office” and order a “That’s what She Said” in a 16 ounce plastic souvenir cup that has “Ain’t No Party Like a Scranton Party Cause a Scranton Party Don’t stop!!! -The Office” printed on the side.
The fact that the chain stores are fake but the mom-and-pop shops are real is a good way to think about the American version of An Office which aired its last episode a decade ago today on NBC. There was a sense early on that the show had to accurately reflect a specific nowhere— a place no one aspires to live in because it feels like the nowhere special most people already call home. Or as Greg Daniels, the man who saw the UK office and made it his mission to adapt it for US television and was its long-time producer told Brian Baumgartner in An Oral History of The Office, “It’s like saying that real life matters and real people are interesting. … the society that we live in is often so winner driven and celebrity driven and to say that ‘this slice of ordinariness matters’ is great.” That’s why the props department made sure the menus on the breakroom fridge were real menus from Scranton restaurants. Froggy 101, the local country radio station, has a prominent bumper sticker just passed Dwight’s desk, and Herr’s Chips graces the vending machines. The national chain stores can be fudged though, because while there’s no doubt The Office takes place in Scranton, PA the point of setting it there is because -like a chain restaurant- it could be anywhere.
I’ve read before that it was shows set in big cities like Friends and Will & Grace that helped set millennials desire for leaving the suburbs and returning to the city. Maybe that’s true but to the extent that television can make an impact like that at all, I think something more complicated is going on. I have a theory: The Office famously clicked with millennial audiences because it gave you permission to like where you were and who you were with. This was the generation that was rigorously tested and ranked before being helicopter-parented into a Great Recession where all the meritocratic expectations became frustrated. The more psychological aspects of what I wrote about in The City Authentic –the desire for belonging, authenticity as the union of fragility and eternity, and the known unknowns of what it takes to live a good life– have some origin point in this show. And for the next generation, Generation Z, The Office represents a calmer, tamer version of capitalism where someone could just hold onto a job and stay in a place for that long. This sardonic send up of the drudgery of office life is now something teenagers watch out of a compulsion to feel calm. A strange addiction if there ever was one.
In the first episode of the podcast An Oral History of the Office the producers describe the difficulties of adapting the UK version for American audiences. British viewers were more familiar with what reality TV scholar June Deery calls “edited reality in the observational mode.” These slice of life shows had existed in the US and Canada (An American Family 1973 and Real People aired in 1979) but the BBC had a special fondness for shows about ordinary people overcoming relatable obstacles like passing a drivers’ test or winning best gourd at the county fair. The format had to be imported but the intimacy and relatability of the characters had to feel homegrown. And so into this single camera faux documentary mold went Cheers (Jim Halpert is loosely styled off of George Wendt’s Norm), the alienation endemic to office parks in post-industrial towns, and an embattled sense of Protestant work ethic.
There are many times in the show—when Jim leaves for Stamford, when Pam leaves for art school, and in the final seasons where Jim and Darryl are building a sports advertising company in Philadelphia—where Scranton is directly compared to living in bigger cities. And each time the characters choose Scranton because it is the genuine place where life happens. All these other cities are narrow, prescribed life choices that require you to be selfish and ambitious. Scranton is where things are good enough, familiar, comfortable.
“There’s a lot of beauty in ordinary things.” Pam says as she takes her painting of the office down from the wall. “Isn’t that kinda the point?” That is the last line of The Office, written by Greg Daniels himself, and serves as a coda for the entire show. It feels earnest, especially since the cast and crew decided to have their wrap party in Scranton. It was as much for the city as it was for them and to watch video of the event (held at the only venue that could fit everyone, the minor league baseball field) you can see and hear a remarkable amount of joy. It feels a bit more than celebrity worship to me. I might even say it is more than adulation for shining the limelight on an old Rust Belt town. It is some sort of uniting of the two—a mutual recognition that a normal place and its people could be such an integral part to a show loved by millions. That something so small and precious as small-town pride, could become bigger than anyone could have ever imagined. That’s what she said.
What I’m listening to right now: