I Find it Hilarious That White Women “Can’t Watch The Office Now”
Those of you recognizing white supremacy and toxic masculinity in Dwight Schrute and Michael Scott are about 400 years late to the cringe party. Also, have you all not met Todd Packer and Ryan Howard?!
Disclaimer: This article will make no sense to you if you are not an avid watcher of The Office.
The American version of The Office is in my top 3 favorite TV shows. I was a teenager when it came out so I didn’t fall in love with it until I had to work in a few offices. The show became much more relatable when I had to sit in meetings that could’ve been e-mails and had my boss tell me to ‘stop being the angry Black woman’.
So, I find it the comparisons of 2005’s Dwight Schrute to 2021’s Proud Boy personally insulting. Yes, this means I’m way too invested in a fictional show, but so are you if you’re reading this article.
In one of my first jobs out of college, my office had a Dwight. The company didn’t provide adequate training but my Dwight, along with other coworkers had put together an immaculate training folder to make up for management’s short comings. He also delegated our workload and made our daily process much easier. He was also like Dwight in the fact that he hunted and killed all the bugs that found their way into the building and gave me an extensive lesson on how not to get sexually harassed while assuring me that he had my back should that happen.
I would not have crossed paths with him or been his friend outside of work, but when it comes to productivity inside the office, I’d rather work with a Dwight Schrute than with a Jim Halpert, Andy Bernard or Ryan Howard.
My Dwight and Dwight Schrute were a bit… different and lacked some social skills, but every weird white man is not a Proud Boy. I would argue that there are too many moments where Dwight is far from the Proud Boy we’ve all come to fear in the age of Trump. One, Dwight is not an “incel”. He has multiple sexual relationships throughout the show and gets married. Two, though not very often, Dwight showed compassion toward his co-workers; whether it was Phyllis’ back injury, testing Jan’s stroller or putting CC Halpert to sleep. In his own unusual way, Dwight showed a certain level of humanity that Proud Boys don’t seem to be mature enough to display.
But, I’ll humor you. Let’s say Dwight is a member of the “Make America Great Again” club.
As white women, surely you know a few white men. You can’t possibly have white men for fathers, uncles, and brothers and not have ever known a Dwight Schrute, Michael Scott or Todd Packer. As a Black woman, I don’t even have to leave my family to find toxic masculinity in my male counterparts so why weren’t you all cringing about Michael and Dwight’s behavior towards women and gay people in 2005?
Are you all really so surprised at the danger of toxic masculinity and white supremacy housed in one body? Just now?! In 2021?! Or did you see it in back in 2005 and turn a blind eye to it because it didn’t affect you and calling out harmful behavior would have inconvenienced and harmed you socially?
Personally, I find Dwight, Michael, Kevin, Roy, Andy and Todd so hilarious because they are as relatable as they are unreasonable. I live in Kentucky. I run into one of them every day. Outside of their insecurity and lack of self-awareness, what makes them so ridiculous is society’s tolerance of them. If white men weren’t a threat or cringe-y to you sometime before the age of Trump, you have as much blind privilege as those storming their nations Capitol in protest of an election they had the freedom to participate in. The result of this tolerance is exactly why our own Todd Packer lived in the White House for the past 4 years.
In conclusion, you all will not ruin The Office for me (or any other show before we all got “woke”). I doubt I would’ve made it through 2020 without it. I mourned when Netflix dropped it and subscribed to Peacock without hesitation. Don’t give a decades old TV show enough power to upset you. There is plenty to be upset about presently and plenty of work to do because of it. If you can’t handle the show anymore, don’t watch it. But, giving up The Office doesn’t make you any more “woke” than the rest of us.
Acquiescing to insecure white men has been a matter of survival for half of the country for the past 400+ years. Welcome to the club.
