Ivy Leaguers See Selves in Bleak, Makework-Strewn Landscape of “The Office”
"Office"-o-philia seems to be running high these days. It's a Beckett-worthy meditation on modern drudgery. It transcends moldy sitcom formulae. It is the best, ultimate, super-dee-dooperest television program ever forever period.
Fine. But with all this heavy breathing, how come no one has made the (to us at least) blindingly obvious comparison to the Ivy League? Think about it. It's where tired, fleshy folk marinate for years on end. Where the most prized skill is the evasion of work. Where leaders entertain delusions of grandeur, only to be mocked out of earshot. Where desperation mixed with bewilderment breeds ill-fated romance. Sound familiar?
This can't be coincidence -- and it turns out it's not. Producer Greg Daniels? Harvard '85. Boyishly huggable John Krasinski, who plays Jim? Brown '02. Then there's B.J. Novak, half-writer, half-actor, all Harvard ('01). Don't forget Mindy Kaling, Dartmouth '01, and Rashida Jones, Harvard '97, who graced the inaugural cover of 02138. It's like an actual depressing Ivy-littered corporate firm, except, you know, making fun of that.
Thankfully, "The Office" hasn't become the insufferable weekly pummeling of Ivy references that is "The Simpsons." But they do indulge here and there. Andy Bernard, the Ed Helms character who went to Cornell, bragged in one episode that he "never studied, got drunk every night, and still graduated in four years." Maybe we were too hard on the commenters if Cornell-bashing has made it to prime time.
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December 6th, 2006 at 12:08 pm
See also: http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=507088
December 6th, 2006 at 2:26 pm
so when you guys write “how come no one has made the (to us at least) blindingly obvious comparison to the Ivy League?” what you really mean is “how did we miss the giant crimson story about it?”
December 6th, 2006 at 4:38 pm
haha! you used the tidbit i sent you. nice!
December 8th, 2006 at 9:52 am
did ricky gervais go to harvard? methinks not. maybe the story here should have been: harvard grads very good at copying others’ good ideas.