In the past month we have welcomed many new TV shows of this year’s fall season. Meanwhile, we’re also saying goodbye to others, such as The Office. The ninth season of the NBC comedy series, which premiered on Sept 20, will be its last. Regardless of how you’ve treated the series after its leading actor Steve Carell left the show, The Office will always hold a special place in our TV-loving hearts. It seamlessly and hilariously wrapped us around the daily lives of the office employees in Pennsylvania, and provided us with a vivid and memorable embodiment of today’s office culture. There are several TV series like The Office, which tell of the happenings in an office environment. From casual sexism to office boors, let’s take a look at the unique insights they offer into how the world of work in the US and the UK has changed over the past 50 years. 1960s: Mad Men (US, 2007-present) In the offices of the Sterling Cooper ad agency in New York, wandering hands of working men frequently emerge from the smoky fog for a lucky strike, usually at the nearby secretaries wearing tight dresses. Women organize the men’s diaries and provide a nice view, but few have any opinions of their own. Peggy Olson is the exception. She is only accepted as one of the boys after those men figure out that they don’t want to date her. And then there is alcohol. At any hour of the day you can find a high-flying executive indulging in a drink, puffing cigars and staring at his personal assistant’s chest. Nobody even bats an eyelid. 1970s: Life on Mars (UK, 2006-2007) Detective Gene Hunt not only has a wildly sexist disregard for the emerging feminist movement, but is a bully to boot. The character is the typical boss figure of the 1970s: working-class, with a bottle of cheap scotch in his filing cabinet and a bad attitude. Women are referred to as “skirts” and lower-ranking officers are there to be kicked and browbeaten. 1980s: Terry and June (UK, 1979-1987) Driven by greed, the 1980s office is a place of crazy aspiration in which junior managers constantly compare their wealth to that of their bosses. Terry and June’s stifling urban setting is filled with toady underlings who enjoy sucking up to their arrogant bosses. Membership in the golf club is highly coveted back then and employees invite their chief executives over for joyless, tense dinners, cigars and brandy in a desperate attempt to impress them. 1990s: This Life (UK, 1996-1997) Women begin to show their power in the 1990s–as far as TV is concerned anyway. Anna Forbes, the hardheaded barrister in This Life typifies the successful 1990s working woman. She not only has to behave like a man to get on, but has to do it all wearing high heels and short skirts. Furthermore, Forbes cannot aspire to a happy relationship or motherhood because she is too busy getting drunk and losing all self-respect in a series of one-night stands. The message for women in the 1990s is very much clear: choose, because you can’t have it all. 2000s: The Office (US, 2005-present) Inspired by the British sitcom TV series The Office (2001-2003), the character Michael Scott came dancing on to US screens. He spouts his meaningless management-speak and tries hard to appear as if he is promoting equality and fair treatment for all. Scott isn’t so much the boss of Dunder Mifflin Paper Company, but a “chilled-out entertainer” falling over himself to be friends with his employees. The Office shines a light on everything that stinks about the modern workplace: the overzealous enforcement of health and safety rules, and the torturing team-building courses favored by some employers to motivate their badly dressed and uninspired employees. |
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