The Office is a comedy series depicting the everyday lives of the office employees at a fictional paper company adapted to American audiences by Greg Daniels (Wikipedia.org). One could never imagine that a show that simply exhibited the behaviour and demeanor of workers would end up running for nine seasons, win four Primetime Emmy Awards and at one time be the highest-rated scripted series on NBC (Wikipedia.org). But why is this seemingly mundane concept of a television show raved upon by TV critics and fanatics alike? The Office is a dynamic, compelling and exceptional television series because of the exploration and portrayal of the employees and their relationships; in season three specifically, the captivating relationship of Jim and Pam, the quintessential nature of Michael and the underlying significance of supporting characters such as Oscar and Phyllis.
The relationship between Pam and Jim is one that has enthralled the audience of The Office for the entirety of the series. In the season two finale and season three specifically, numerous plot twists take place and their charming relationship begins to blossom. First, in the season two finale, Jim confesses his feelings for Pam when he says “I’m just in love with you” (Casino Night, Season two). This climatic moment causes Pam call off the wedding with her current love interest Roy, and this action displays the love and affection Pam and Jim have for each other. Next, Pam mentions how while there were numerous reasons why she called off her wedding, she did not care about any of those reasons “until I met [Jim]” (Beach Games, Season Three). This further proves that Jim was the deciding factor in why Pam decided to not get married. Finally, in the finale and climax of ...
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...is emotions towards Pam in her presence. Through the niche personalities of the supporting characters, character and plot development is able to occur unrestrictedly.
As one of the most critically acclaimed television shows of the 21st century, The Office has captivated and engrossed its fan base on a yearly basis. The third season captured the fundamental idealisms regarding the quirky nature of the humour and controlling the fast-paced plot through segmented episode adventures. Through the intriguing relationship of Jim and Pam, the usage of Michael’s vitally erratic behavior and the strong usage of supporting characters, Greg Daniels created a mastermind of a season. The Office teaches us that its emphasis on relationships is not only fundamental to success in the industry, but it is also essential for prosperity in our personal lives.
Works Cited
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Meat head, dumb jock. These are just two of the many derogatory labels given to football players. Is it possible for me, a meat head, to hear the criticisms dealt to the sport of football? Is it possible for me, a dumb football jock, to understand and be objective about the issues raised in the book, Friday Night Lights? Yes, because I'm not the stereotypical football player like those described of Odessa, Texas.
Family comedies have evolved throughout the past century. What was once revered as classic has completely changed forms and turned into the comedic experience we witness today. Family sitcoms in particular have been converted to show a broader picture of how family’s interact in today’s world. This greatly appeals to today’s audiences and is what people want to see. Modern family specifically has tapped into what nontraditional families are all about and even with being so alternative has resonated with every type of family, making it one of the most popular shows on TV at the present moment. The pilot episode of Modern Family uses hyper-irony, allusions and uses references to technology to enforce comedic impact.
The 1986 film “Sixteen Candles” tells a timeless tale of growing up in suburban America. The film’s star, Sam, played by Molly Ringwald, wakes up with big expectations on her sweet sixteenth birthday only to be completely disappointed. Not only does she find that she looks exactly the same as when she was fifteen, but her family is so preoccupied with her older sister’s wedding that they forget her birthday altogether.
For a large part of the history of TV sitcoms women have been portrayed as mothers or as having to fulfill the woman's role in the private sphere. Family based sitcoms were one of the forms of sitcom that keep women in these roles, but what is interesting is that even in other forms of sitcoms women do not truly escape these roles. Sitcoms, like Sex and the City and Murphy Brown showcase women whom have seemingly escaped these roles, by showing liberated women, but that does not mean that both do not fall into the gender role showcased in family sitcoms. It draws the similarities between ensemble sitcoms and family sitcoms when it comes down to the role of women. The starring women in both Sex and the City and Murphy Brown, and even the Mary
American Broadcasting Company's sitcom, Modern Family, debuted in 2009 and is in its sixth season. It was met with critical acclaim and good ratings (Modern Family). The show airs once per week on the ABC network (ABC shows schedule). The show attempts to portray the humor behind three different families of varying composition. However, Modern Family’s attempt at giving an honest portrayal of the titular modern family falls short and instead relies upon tired tropes and clichés to derive its humor. Modern Family does not attempt to depict the state of gender roles in today’s society, sadly falling back on old gender standards found in sitcoms since their start.
Popular culture is the artistic and creative expression in entertainment and style that appeals to society as whole. It includes music, film, sports, painting, sculpture, and even photography. It can be diffused in many ways, but one of the most powerful and effective ways to address society is through film and television. Broadcasting, radio and television are the primary means by which information and entertainment are delivered to the public in virtually every nation around the world, and they have become a crucial instrument of modern social and political organization. Most of today’s television programming genres are derived from earlier media such as stage, cinema and radio. In the area of comedy, sitcoms have proven the most durable and popular of American broadcasting genres. The sitcom’s success depends on the audience’s familiarity with the habitual characters and the situations
We've come to a point where television has become so loaded with “vampire-this” and “werewolf-that,” that each show has begun to look like the reruns of another. Luckily, this definitely isn't the case for creator Vince Gilligan's, Breaking Bad. Breaking Bad follows the life of Walter White (played by Bryan Cranston), an ordinary high school chemistry teacher. With a loving wife and teenage son at home, over time, Walter has formed an exceedingly mundane routine for his life. After soon discovering that he had been diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer, Walter decided to take extreme measures in order to secure his family financially. Eventually, he would descend into a world so dark and utterly twisted, that it would eventually consume him. Walter White became Heisenberg; the greatest drug lord the streets had ever seen. As he ascended in status within the drug cartel, the love and trust he had from his family and friends quickly descended. There are thousands of reasons that explain why millions of people tune into Breaking Bad. This series offers a much needed relief from the Dracula descendents, which frankly, are slowly diminishing any scope of variety existing on television. Because of the outstanding acting, seemingly distorted reality, and uniquely relatable storyline and characters, this hit show tops the charts as the best modern-day television series that cable has to offer.
The outrageous events create a contrasting tone. The typical office orientation situation is invaded by shocking situations such as Amanda Pierce’s. Pierce’s husband “subjects her to an escalating array of painful and humiliating sex games.” Describing very personal aspects of an employee’s life creates a very uncomfortable feeling in this situation. This type of information is not supposed to be talked about in an office
This essay will examine my thoughts and those of David Sterrit on the critically acclaimed television show The Honeymooners. First, I will talk about the Honeymooners and it’s setting in postwar America. Secondly, the social and cultural issues the series portrayed. Next, would be the psychological perspective and the aesthetics of the show. Finally, the essay would conclude with my thoughts on how the Honeymooners were impacted by these aspects, but also how the show managed to leave a legacy in television today.
The average America watches more than 150 hours of television every month, or about five hours each day (“Americans,” 2009). Of the 25 top-rated shows for the week of February 8-14, 2010, six were sitcoms, averaging 5.84 million live viewers each (Seidman, 2010), to say nothing for the millions more who watched later on the Internet or their Digital Video Recorders. The modern sitcom is an undeniable force in America, and its influence extends beyond giving viewers new jokes to repeat at the water cooler the next day: whether Americans realize it or not, the media continues to socialize them, even as adults. It may appear at first glance that sitcoms are a relatively benign force in entertainment. However, the modern sitcom is more than just a compilation of one-liners and running gags. It is an agent of gender socialization, reinforcing age-old stereotypes and sending concrete messages about how, and who, to be. While in reality, people of both sexes have myriad personality traits that do not fall neatly along gender lines, the sitcom spurns this diversity in favor of representing the same characters again and again: sex-crazed, domestically incompetent single men enjoying their lives as wild bachelors, and neurotic, lonely, and insecure single women pining desperately to settle down with Prince Charming and have babies. Sitcoms reinforce our ideas about what it is “normal” to be, and perhaps more importantly feed us inaccurate ideas about the opposite sex: that women are marriage-crazed, high-maintenance, and obsessed with the ticking of their biological clocks, while men are hapless sex addicts whose motives can’t be trusted. The way that singles are portrayed in sitcoms is harmful to viewers’ understanding of themselves...
I spent a lot of time considering what movie I would watch to write this essay. I listed off the movies that I would like to watch again, and then I decided on The Notebook. I didn’t really think I could write about adolescence or children, so I thought that, maybe, I could write about the elderly. The love story that The Notebook tells is truly amazing. I love watching this movie, although I cry every time I watch it. The Notebook is about an elderly man that tells the story of his life with the one he loves the most, his wife. He is telling the story to his wife, who has Alzheimer’s Disease, which is a degenerative disease that affects a person’s memory. She has no recollection of him or their life together, or even her own children. She wrote the story of their love herself, so that when he read the story to her, she would come back to him. There are three things that I would like to discuss about this movie. First, I would like to discuss their stage of life and the theory that I believe describes their stage of life the best. Second, I would like to discuss Alzheimer’s DIsease and its affect on the main character who has it and her family. Third, I would like to discuss how at the end of the movie, they died together. I know it is a movie, but I do know that it is known that elderly people who have been together for a long time, usually die not to far apart from one another.
The American version of The Office debuted in 2005 with the start of its six-episode first season. After the airing of the “Pilot” episode, a reviewer from the Deseret Morning News commented, “Maybe […] after The Office dies a quick death on NBC, the network will decide that trying to Americanize British TV comedies isn’t such a great idea” (quoted in Pilot (The Office)). Despite its original negative reception, The Office went on to run nine successful seasons and has become a television favorite of individuals across America. The show focuses on the misadventures of the lost souls employed at Dunder-Mifflin Scranton, a branch of a paper-selling company located in Pennsylvania. Under the management of clueless Michael Scott, characters such as Dwight Schrute, Jim Halpert, and Pam Beesly must hold their jobs in the corporate world while facing company failures, romantic encounters, and lost dreams. Despite their seemingly superficial appearance, the characters of The Office reflect complex ideas about morals, existence, and free will through their comical fallacies. The popular television show The Office demonstrates existential ideas such as Sartre’s “bad faith,” Kierkegaard’s stages of life, and the theater of the absurd.
The characters of the book reside in present day Indiana. The main characters Hazel and Augustus are two teenagers who both live in Indianapolis in average homes with their families. Hazel spends a lot of time in the hospital and her house due to her cancer. She meets Augustus at a support group in her church and they start spending a lot of time together. Hazel shared her favorite book with Augustus and this book stops mid-sentence with no ending. They both love the book and contacted the author who lives in Amsterdam for answers about how the story ends. The author of this book, Peter Van Houten denies giving them any information because he does not trust that Hazel and Augustus wouldn’t just share it on the internet or record the telephone call. Peter Van Houten says he would only tell them in person. It becomes Hazel’s dream to go Amsterdam which is where Van Houten lives. Augustus uses his one “wish”, from the Genie foundation (which grants wishes to kids with cancer) for him and Hazel to go to Amsterdam. On the plane to Amsterdam, Augustus tells Hazel that he is in love with her. Amsterdam is described as being picture perfect and the opposite of their hometown. I think that the characters felt confined and limited in Indiana but were set free in Amsterdam. In Amsterdam they finally speak to Van Houten, who was an extreme disappointment to them, visit tourist sites and have dinner by the canal. The major climax occurs in Amsterdam when Augustus reveals to Hazel that his cancer has returned and is going to kill him.
“Year after year, twenty-something women come to New York City in search of the two L's: labels and love” is the very catchy line that opens the film with Fergie’s ‘Labels or Love’ as the soundtrack and The Big Apple as its introductory shot. The scaling deduced from the bird’s eye-view-point of New York City, showing its Metropolitan atmosphere with skyscrapers and the famous Brooklyn Bridge; to the urbanites of the City; then to the lead actors of the film. A fifteen year-old girl watches the film, mesmerizing the ecstatic city while admiring the skinny white bodies of the ladies. And last but never forgotten, she gets carried away with the funky upbeat rhythm of the song emphasizing “Gucci, Fendi, [and] Prada . . .” That is the introduction of Sex and the City and the focus of its cinematography. With its elements, the movie can honestly influence teenage girls. Yet as much as critics such as Maya Gordon of Psychology of Women Quarterly say how media contributes to the sexual objectification and values women “based on their appearance,” this film should be an exemption.