Rainn Wilson: You Couldn’t Make ‘The Office’ Today
The actor behind Dwight Schrute blames woke mob for cultural changes
Clickbait sites love producing a variation of this story:
10 Classic Sitcoms That Have Aged Poorly And Are Hard to Rewatch
So-and-so film or TV show is now offensive because it didn’t follow the future’s woke playbook. New stories. Classic tales. No matter. We can’t enjoy them anymore.
That woke mind virus is starting to fade.
- Raw comedy is on the rise
- Hostage-style apologies are fading fast
- Disney is aggressively backpedaling on progressive lectures in its films
Still, the culture remains wary of stories that don’t abide by its draconian rules.
Which brings us to Rainn Wilson.
From ‘The Office’ to Hollywood Soothsayer
The comedic actor brought up his iconic show “The Office” earlier this month during an installment of “The Burnouts with Phoebe and Sophia” podcast. The actor, who played unctuous office drone Dwight Schrute on the NBC sitcom, worries that the beloved show couldn’t be its true self today.
“I don’t think we could do ‘The Office’ in this day and age. The reason the show works is because Michael Scott is a total buffoon who says the most outrageous things without realizing it. So you forgive him because you also love him at the same time. But if we’re in a kind of a culture where Sydney Sweeney is doing a jeans ad and makes a pun about jeans and genes and is pilloried for White Supremacy. Nowadays, I don’t think [‘The Office’] would fly.”
Michael Scott himself, AKA actor Steve Carell, essentially agrees with his co-star. Carell admitted during a 2018 interview that creating a show like “The Office” again, “might be impossible.”
“The climate’s different…I mean, the whole idea of that character, Michael Scott, so much of it was predicated on inappropriate behavior. I mean, he’s certainly not a model boss. A lot of what is depicted on that show is completely wrong-minded. That’s the point, you know?
“But I just don’t know how that would fly now. There’s a very high awareness of offensive things today – which is good, for sure. But at the same time, when you take a character like that too literally, it doesn’t really work.”
That was during the rise of the woke mind virus, but not at its 2020 peak when “offensive” sitcom episodes were banished from the public.
We Love Flawed Characters … Even Stone-Cold Killers
Some of TV’s best characters were less than kind or cordial. Archie Bunker rushes to mind, part of the beloved “All in the Family” ensemble. Tony Soprano could kill you with kindness or just leave your body in a shallow grave.
Other lovable scoundrels? Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) from “How I Met Your Mother” and Larry David from “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
Now, try thinking of a modern sitcom/comedy character as memorable as Archie, Larry or Michael Scott. Good luck…
I recall Wilson going on Joe Rogan prepared to edumacate Joe on politics and came off the idiot because everything Wilson knew was courtesy of the MSM. Bill Murray also cratered, in my eyes, by going on Rogan and opening by saying he was scared that Rogan was going to trick him into changing his mind about some issue. If you’re a Lefty you can’t go on Rogan. You’re just going to look foolish and desperate.
“The Office” would not work, but “The Woke Office” where everyone piles on the most ridiculous triggering would be quite funny if we can laugh at ourselves, but likely not. Imagine “The Woke Office” watching President Trump giving a speech on television. Show everyone in the office going berserk. Then a few characters confessing they believe in Trump, just don’t tell his office mates. Honesty doesn’t fly in a Woke Office. The buffoon is a blue haired transgender woman (a man) doing outrageous things, but that doesn’t happen because he’s a Mary Sue and he is perfect. So he attempts to be perfect and fails. Hilarious but the Woke audience can’t laugh at it.
To go further, I do not think we should throw out whole shows because a main actor turned out to be a bad person. For example, The Cosby Show is a great show and had a lot of great themes. Does that all get undone because Bill Cosby did really bad things?