Saw the American version of The Office last night. While it's impossible to say what I would have thought if I hadn't seen the original British version first, it seemed pretty obvious to me that even the talents of Steve Carrell couldn't save this strangely literal translation from its probable fate in the pale-shadow-of category.
It got me thinking about the film Office Space, though, and how (while entirely distinct in tone and approach from The Office), it can be lined up with Ricky Jervais's series as examples of what looks like a relatively recent subgenre -- call it "cubicle comedy." While it's antecedents are perhaps as old as some of the scenes in Billy Wilder's The Apartment, cubicle comedy looks to be a fairly recent development. I can think of a few problematic examples -- the films 9 to 5 and Working Girl come to mind. In comics, the glories of My New Filing Technique is Unstoppable has helped cement the genre's cultural standing, as of course has influential (if generally regrettable) Dilbert. In non-pictoral literature, it's a genre harder to track, although Nicholson Baker's The Mezzanine is a touchstone if not a precise example.
Are there others we can think of? Or have I announced the birth of this genre prematurely?
Please note that this is distinct from comedies which involve a business setting but which aren't about, so to speak, life in the office.
This also got me thinking about dying genres and subgenres of literature and film. Or those which are almost-but-not-quite-dying. Does Deadwood give life to the almost-dead wood of the Western? Was the real espionage thriller a creature of the 20th century, now superseded by what is essentially an action or superhero film dressed up in its old clothes? Are there genres that have died within our lifetimes?
I haven't really had the cerebro-room today to formulate my thoughts on this. It seems like pretty thin grounds for sustaining a genre, though if you're simply looking at enough similar items that are distinct from the other piles, well, then I guess you have a genre.
As far as the "thin grounds," the offictren is aiming at a certain class of people, and has generally as its goal a certain painful recognition, which gives you less margin for error than in escapist genres. Similarly, you don't have dentists' offices as a big setting for comedy or drama.
Though perhaps we could argue that Westerns were indeed proto-officterns, if we accept that everything west of the Mississip and north of the Rio Grande was Rooster Cogburn's office. (Cubicles, in the form of the advent of barbed wire, pretty much end the romantic era of the west on which the Westerns are based.) (Which you may well argue is neither here nor there, but that's never stopped me in this space before.)
Wasn't there a movie about secretary spanking with James Spader in it a couple of years ago?
Anyhow, I wonder if you can't group some of these things in with, say, Roseanne or Good Times, those rare examples of US class comedies, in terms of shows that are presenting their core audiences with a version of their own lives that isn't significantly embellished. (As compared to the many sitcoms where people are just way prettier and have way more stuff than the average American.)
This is all pretty much typed in a hurry in a couple of bursts without enough thought to talk myself out of whatever parts of it are patent nonsense. Consider yourselves disclaimered.
Posted by: Scott on March 25, 2005 02:41 PMI got so excited when I noticed recently that some of the questions on this site might be easy enough for me to answer (e.g.: scariest animal? answer: ice weasel) and now no one is posting!
As far as office comedies go, I think it's common in the comics. For example, On the Fastrack, as well as Sally Forth and Cathy. On those latter two, you're going to think I don't get the distinction between your proposed genre and stories that are set in offices, but they've had story lines that focus on office life. Fastrack definitely counts, though.
Wasn't there a movie a few years ago called The Temp? Maybe it was a horror movie.
Posted by: sharon on March 25, 2005 02:56 PM"While it's antecedents"? I know the Wombat well enough to know there's no spelling error here - he must mean "While it is antecedents...."
So I can't post an answer until I parse that sentence. I hope the rest of the entry isn't this hard to understand.
Posted by: boxjam on March 25, 2005 03:40 PMActually, I make that particular head-slapper forty to sixty times per day. More later in the week. The apostrophe-less possessive, of course, was intended.
Posted by: BT on March 25, 2005 04:08 PMSongs? Cube songs are probably rarer than truck driving anthems or general "takethisjobandshoveit" blue collar tunes. In fact, I can only come up with a few numbers, and you might find some of them stretches:
King Missle: Take Stuff From Work
Superchunk: Slack Motherfucker
Beastie Boys: Funky Boss
Beastie Boys: Ride on the Bus
Dolly Parton: 9 to 5
Boomtown Rats: I Don't Like Mondays (kidding!)
Ah, King Missle. Those lovable rapscallions!
What about "Takin' Care of Business?" That one counts, doesn't it?
Posted by: BT on March 26, 2005 12:19 AMFountains of Wayne's "Hey Julie":
Working all day for a mean little guy
With a bad toupee and a soup-stained tie
He's got me running 'round the office
Like a gerbil on a wheel
He can tell me what to do
But he can't tell me what to feel
You gotta like that.
Posted by: KF on March 26, 2005 01:14 AMfor TV-office comedies: how about the Drew Carey Show? Quite office-culture-y, even when they got away from the office.
Posted by: uberdeb on March 27, 2005 08:50 AMWhat would the limits on this genre be? Like for instance Wall Street or Broadcast News were very much about workplaces, but certainly not "everyoffice." Which would pretty much exclude "WKRP," too.
Posted by: Scott on March 28, 2005 10:29 AMThere's been lots of "dysfunctional workplace" movies over the years but I think the key in these later ones is that the work being none has absolutely no intrinsic value and so there's no victory to be had - the characters are trapped. At least in "9 to 5" and "Network" there was some goal to strive for or evil to overcome - in these new movies it's like watching 2 people fight for the best seat on a sinking liferaft.
1998's "Clockwatchers" seems like a good candidate for your new genre, Bill. And yum, Parker Posey.