Dwight From 'The Office' Has A Very Michael Scott Take To Share With Us All
Once upon a time, Rainn Wilson was on the biggest show in America. For nine whole years, he played Dwight Schrute in The Office on NBC. Now he is playing Dwight Schrute from The Office in an interview on Fox News. The more things change!
Actually, “change” is what seems to be the problem for Wilson, because this week he joined the legions of no-longer-that-funny-I-guess people before him to tell Fox that he doesn’t think that The Office could be made today, because — dun dun duuuuuuun — “political correctness!”
At least he didn’t say “woke”?
Is this an original take? It is not. Jerry Seinfeld said it about Seinfeld, though honestly I feel like the main thing that would be an issue from that show today would have been the famed lack of Black people in that version of New York City. People who don’t get Blazing Saddles think they’re very clever saying it about Blazing Saddles.
Ironically, the very first episode of The Office features Michael Scott doing the “Waazzzuuuuuup!” thing to everyone and Jim pointing out that his reference was nearly seven years old at that point. Part of the whole “joke” of Michael Scott is that the jokes and bits he likes are weirdly outdated, that he is behind the times and unaware that when you do the same joke over and over again (“that’s what she said”), it ceases to be funny.
And now we have Rainn Wilson more or less complaining that the world is not more like Michael Scott.
"I do feel like you couldn't make The Office today. I think that would be too hard to be as politically incorrect as the show was," the actor told Fox News on Sunday. "I think there has been a bias in the media, towards more, what we call, liberal policies."
“I do kind of miss that,” Wilson told the conservative news network. For an example of what about the original series run of The Office might not fly today, the actor behind the uber-geeky Dwight Schrute pointed to the comically inept Michael Scott, his character’s boss, played by Steve Carell.
“We milked that for a lot of great, really inappropriate stuff,” he explained. “But even with the fact that painting that character as just an idiot, I don’t think you could get away with it today.”
There are lots of “idiots” in television comedies today — for instance, probably everyone on Animal Control and Abbott Elementary (my current faves) to some degree or another. But much like Michael Scott (and even Dwight Schrute, on rare occasions), actually, they still have redeeming qualities. Because no one wants to watch someone just be terrible all of the time for no reason.
I am just so deeply tired of this take. It’s just so fucking rigid. Like, what? Everything is supposed to remain stagnant forever so people can continue making comedy that seemed edgy 20 years ago? No one is supposed to grow or learn or change?
Interestingly there are a whole lot of shows that, I would argue, probably could not be made today, specifically because of The Office. It is now hard to watch multi-camera sitcoms with laugh tracks, even when they are legitimately hilarious, because it just seems weird now. But I would say that this represents a maturation of taste, more than anything else. We don’t want to be told when to laugh anymore.
So it is with things like The Office’s “Diversity Day” episode, widely considered the cringiest episode of the series, along with the time Michael outed and kissed Oscar. I mean, those episodes made me uncomfortable at the time, but they feel especially gross now. They’re not funny. They’re uncomfortable to watch in a world where we all know better. Or we’re supposed to.
This applies to lots of things that have nothing to do with political correctness. When I was a kid, it seemed entirely plausible that the 90210 gang would need to bring an egg to a convenience store in order to get directions to an “underground rave” or that one could develop a serious addiction to caffeine pills.
A lack of ignorance just changes how you view things, what you think is realistic, and what you think is funny. With comedy, I think that once you have a greater understanding of what might hurt people who are already hurting enough, it’s harder to find certain things funny. For instance, the one bit that Jerry Seinfeld was able to cite as something they wouldn’t have been able to do on his show now was the time Kramer recruited unhoused people for his rickshaw business, as people today might not feel as comfortable with making fun of people in that position.
Of course, he made those comments pre-Spencer Pratt, so …
I remember when I was a kid, watching I Love Lucy on TV Land, and as funny as much of it was, it was hard to watch the way Desi spoke to Lucy. It wasn’t funny to me that he’d spank her like a child. Is that bad? Is that too politically correct of me? Or is it just actually bad to hit women? I’m going to go with the latter. As much as I appreciate the genius of Lucille Ball, I’m pretty fucking glad that we “couldn’t make I Love Lucy today.”
Thankfully, we don’t see too many “Why does no one see the humor in spousal abuse anymore?” takes these days.
Dorothy Parker once said, “There’s a hell of a distance between wise-cracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is simply calisthenics with words.” The fact is, in order to resonate, comedy has to have an element of truth in it. Sometimes it’s a universal truth, and other times it’s a reflection of or commentary on the society one is living in at the time. So a show or movie that is a reflection of the era in which it was made is probably going to end up being a little dated at one point or another. Because it just doesn’t feel “true” anymore. It’s not the world we’re living in.
To go back to the Blazing Saddles example, the very fact that it is a parody of Westerns is probably the biggest reason it couldn’t be made now. We don’t really watch Westerns anymore, or at least not the kind of Western that the movie was a send-up of. Not a lot of people are going to get jokes about Hedy Lamarr or Marlene Dietrich impressions. And yes, it would be hard to do other parts of it, because race relations are in a different place today then they were in the 1970s — like basically everything else. So it would be weird for that to be someone’s commentary on the world in which we are currently living.
As far as the infamous “Diversity Day” episode of The Office goes, it was made at a time when that was a relatively newfangled concept to a lot of people. I mean, I think my father started the diversity initiatives at his office in the mid-’90s, and he was ahead of the curve (in an office with pretty much all white men). It was plausible that someone like Michael Scott might not have been aware of certain things. People might have known a “that guy.” Now? That would be super weird. The “that guy” has either evolved or is sitting around stewing in his anger over the fact that he can’t get away with being that ignorant anymore.
And let’s not forget — Michael Scott was supposed to be ignorant. Today, that ignorant character might look different, because society is different.
They might be someone who, you know, whines that television shows and movies from 20 years ago couldn’t be made today.
Want to donate to us but not to Substack? Click here or join our Patreon!
If anything, I would actually argue that a very large segment of the population is worse, less empathetic and less “politically correct” than people in 2005. Or hell, even 1995. I wouldn’t say they’re more ignorant so much as they pine for the days when they were that ignorant and no one would judge them for it.
There were times when there were some people who didn’t know it was shitty or hurtful to use certain words or to make fun of certain people in certain ways. But now we have a lot more people who are aware of that, but now want to use those words and make fun of those people specifically because they know how hurtful they are being. And that’s the vibe I always get with this take. This “we did this back then because we were ignorant, but now that we’re not so ignorant, we want to do it even more, and it’s unfair that everyone won’t just pretend we are all still that ignorant so we can get away with it!” kind of vibe.
There is still a lot that is good from The Office. Hell, I know I still like to rewatch it from time to time. Blazing Saddles is still hilarious. We can enjoy media from other eras, while recognizing what was maybe problematic about it and why. But we don’t have to keep making the same shit over and over again, and if that’s all you can do, maybe you need to find another line of work.
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
My favorite reply seen elsewhere to this idiocy:
"You couldn't make The Office today. This is because television is a dead medium. If they tried to make The Office today it would be named like, "The Paper" and it would have been running since 2025 on Peacock but you wouldn't have even heard of it because who has any idea what's running on "Peacock"."
Thank you Robyn for this really thoughtful (and true) piece. Just as an aside, the mention of Blazing Saddles, one of my all-time faves led to 'Mel's still with us, isn't he?......' 100 years old on the 26th. Another legendary centenarian for this otherwise benighted year.