The Office Sociological Analysis

1190 Words3 Pages

Many shows and movies depict sociological concepts in today’s society. A great example would be a show called The Office. The Office is an American television comedy, based of a UK show also called The Office. This show portrays the everyday lives of Office employees in the Scranton, Pennsylvania branch of a fictional business called Dunder Mifflin Paper Company. This show was meant to appear as if it is an actual documentary, but in reality, it is just a fictional show. To make the show actually look like a documentary, it is filmed in a single-camera setup, without a studio audience. They even had the characters have interviews with the camera and various points throughout the series, and at the end there was a documentary released as if …show more content…

In season 2, episode 14 a character, named Todd Packer, left a “surprise” on the carpet of Michael Scott’s office. The thing he left was not clearly specified, but it is most likely some sort of bodily waste. This is deviant because people do not normally leave things like that on a friends carpet, especially as a joke. Another example would be in season 6, episode 25 the audience found out that Donna, Michael’s girlfriend, was cheating on her husband with Michael. When Michael found out, he did not break off the relationship. He continued to allow her to cheat on her husband with him. This is clearly deviant because the social norm states that cheating is bad. When Michael found out she was cheating, he decided not to end it, which is the thing most people would have done. And third example of deviance in The Office is in season 9, episode 14 a member of the warehouse vandalized Pam’s mural. This is considered deviant because vandalism is deemed wrong. Pam put a lot of hard work into her mural, and it was ruined by the warehouse worker. There are many more deviant acts in this …show more content…

Not only is The Office based on a workplace, which in itself is a group, but there are various types of groups shown within the series. Michael considers the office a family, which is a primary group. That means they all are close enough to have some sort of emotional connection with each other. In reality, they only work in the same space as each other. Within in office, they have specific groups. One of the groups is called the Party Planning Committee (PPC). The PPC is a group of office employees that gather to make preparations for upcoming events and parties. It is lead by Angela Martin, a relatively stern accountant, for most of the show. She was an authoritarian leader, which is a clear instrumental leader who assigns tasks and issues orders. Another group in the office is The Finer Things Club. This triad club consists of Pam Beasley, Toby Flenderson, and Oscar Martinez, three separate office members. They get together to discuss a specific novel that they read for the club each month. This is an example of a normative organization. This means they each joined voluntarily based on similar interests. Those are only small examples from the 9 seasons of the

Open Document