Alex Pieper CAPS #5 Blog Post

Popular culture has an extremely large impact on people’s understanding of other cultures.  In fact, the authors of our textbook, Martin & Nakayama, admit their “knowledge about other places…is largely influence by popular culture.” (Martin & Nakayama, 2010, p. 363)  People need something to base their opinions about other places and people off, and since we are constantly exposed to popular culture it makes sense that they would use popular culture as their “learning” tool. 

Popular culture is truly all around us. 

It is the TV shows we watch

The music we listen to

The things we read

                          

                                     The things we talk about

Unfortunately, much of popular culture is controlled and produced by culture industries.  These cultural industries’ only interest is to exploit the people of a capitalist society.  They feed us products that we might see as “popular,” and in turn, hope we purchase these products for their own economical benefit. (Martin & Nakayama, 2010)  Since these industries are solely interested in making money, they do not care if they wrongfully portray people in a negative light.  They are not worried about creating and endorsing false stereotypes. 

The Office has been one of the most watched TV shows over the past 9 years, drawing up to 22 million viewers for one episode. (Gorman, 2009)  The show, which originally aired on the British Broadcasting Network, is littered with stereotypes and satire.  All of these stereotypes are enforced and cultivated by the conductor of the show, the boss Michael Scott.  However, it is up to the viewer and the way they decode the show, or interpret the text’s meaning, whether or not the viewer will see the show as a satire or as a show reinforcing popular stereotypes.   (Martin & Nakayama, 2010)  For this blog post, I am going to be writing from the stance that the viewer does not understand the satirical connotation behind the show.

In one episode, Michael attempts to educate his office mates of the different racial stereotypes.  He has everyone place a notecard on their forehead.  Each card has a different nationality written on it.    Michael tells everyone in the office to interact with each other according to the stereotype of the other person’s appointed race.  Rather than educate everyone about how hurtful and wrong stereotyping is, Michael declares that people should use racial stereotyping to label people. This episode is not the only case of racial stereotyping, though.  Michael is constantly picking fun of Oscar for being Mexican and Stanley for being black.  

 

Michael also often exemplifies sexual stereotyping throughout the show.  Once he finds out one of his workers, Oscar, is a homosexual, he constantly makes attempts to treat Oscar differently.  During an episode where Michael discovers that Oscar is gay, not only does he call him “faggy,” but he also decides that it is in Oscar’s best interest if Michael announces to the rest of the office Oscar’s sexual orientation.  Now, not only does Michael treat Oscar differently but so too do the rest of his co-workers.  So, this episode reinforces the stereotype that homosexuals are vastly different from heterosexuals, and they should be identified and treated differently because of that. 

Again, Oscar’s coming out episode is not the only episode where The Office uses the homosexual stereotype for humor.  Here a clip from another episode.  The precursor to the clip is that Jim, the office funny guy, sends Dwight a package in the mail.  Jim tells Dwight the device is a “gaydar.”   The man in the pink shirt is Oscar, the guy I previously talked about who is known to be gay throughout the office.

 

                  One over lying theme of almost every Office episode is that men are better than women.  The authors constantly portray this stereotype.  The men in the show are shown to be good workers, smart, and productive.  The women, on the other hand, are depicted as passive, worthless, and even drunks.  Even Michael’s boss, who is a woman, is not respected or listened to.  Michael often disregards her orders and acts off his own intuitions.  The show obviously goes along with the stereotype that women are a step below men.    

                    The Office is such a great show because not only can a person watch the show and interpret it as supporting stereotypes, but another viewer can watch the show and use it as a way to resist normal stereotypes.  People might watch the show and realize how stupid these stereotypes really are.  The writers of The Office make being afraid of a homosexual seem comical and stupid.  They make racial stereotypes seem worthless and without merit.  For this reason, The Office is a very interesting show, depending on how the viewer decodes the writers' messages will dictate whether the show is seen to support or to resist normal stereotypes. 

Gorman, B. (2009, February 02). Updated: The office draws 22.0 22.905 million viewers following the super bowl. Retrieved from http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2009/02

Martin, J.N., & Nakayama, T.K. (2010). Intercultural communication in contexts (5th ed.). Boston, MA: McGraw Hill.