The Office is a fantastic, ridiculously hilarious show that, despite not aging as well as it could have, can still be on a viewer’s recurring watchlist. We don’t always need characters who are perfect—they can be flawed, complex, and messy. No one in HBO’s Succession changed their ways, and ten years from now, that show will still be relatively great.
The series is also full of intriguing characters and romances that still work depending on the kind of tropes the viewers prefer. But the lack of female friendships ultimately keeps The Office from becoming a comfort show like Parks and Recreation, The Good Place, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. While actresses Angela Kinsey and Jenna Fischer are best friends in real life and co-host a podcast about the series, the lack of on-screen friendships made the show less than great.
The Office Was Meant to Be About Flawed People
We get it. The Office was never meant to be like Parks and Recreation or even F.R.I.E.N.D.S. Sure, there’s beauty in the ordinary things, the life lessons, and the way the characters went out of their way for each other, but the show was never meant to be about great people doing great things. They’re selling paper, for crying out. They aren’t saving lives or doing something worthy of the greater good of humanity where their character traits matter.
So, in a sense, it’s not a show problem as much as it’s probably a me problem. I want my sitcoms to be a little more wholesome—a lot more comforting. In many ways, The Office still has various wholesome moments that make the show lovely, like Michael being the only one to show up at Pam’s art exhibit and later framing her drawing. The friends-to-lovers relationship between Jim and Pam is another excellent addition to the series. However, the lack of female friendships is an obvious, big loss.
The majority of sitcoms feature solid friendships, which is often a delightful way of presenting female characters who are loving. I personally want to be surrounded by girl’s girls. And not a single woman at Dunder Mifflin thought that way because, at some point, everyone bullied each other. While Erin was one of the most positive female characters to come into the series, she didn’t have any strong friendships that’d last.
Again, it’s entirely understandable why this is absent in the series, but it’s perhaps a flaw even more significant than the crude jokes that didn’t age well. It implies that women have to compete with one another instead of being each other’s cheerleaders, and it also shows that bullying often leads to more bullying. Is it any wonder why Parks and Recreation hits a thousand times harder? Ann Perkins and Leslie Knope are examples of how women should be with each other and why it makes their lives exponentially better in the long run.
It’s hard not to compare the two series when mockumentaries are such a big deal right now, with shows like Abbott Elementary added into the max. (Yet another series with at least one solid female friendship, if not more, in the long run.) Basically, writers should’ve just allowed the real-life BFFs to have been besties on the series, too, and it’d be something I’d often go back to. We have a brief moment at the end, but it’s not enough.
What are your thoughts on the friendships in The Office? Do you feel the show works without them? Let us know in the comments below.
First Featured Image Credit: ©NBC