Episode Examples
Bring Your Daughter to Work Day: Season 2, Episode 18
Michael is a very tragic character and in the episode "Bring Your Daughter to Work Day," we see a clear example of this shown in a video Michael presents to his co-workers, from when he was on a childrens show during his sad adolescent past. A more specific example is a quote we already covered, but is important to portray Mr. Scott's tragic character. When Michael is asked by the puppet what he wants most he responds with: "I want to be married and have 100 kids so I can have 100 friends, and no one can say no to being my friend." This quote is a clear representation of Michael's tragic character
Scott's Tots:
Season 6, Episode 12
The idealistic element of tragic characters plays a role in the portrayal of Michael Scot. This idealistic nature shows itself when he promises 3rd grade children free education and then denies them that promise when they are about to graduate high school in the episode "Scott's Tot's." In this episode Mr. Scott thought in his idealist mindset that if he promised people with commodities such as free education then the good fortune and wealth would come to him. He realized this was false and when prompted to to tell the near high school graduates that they would not receive free college tuition, he instead tried to head their frustration with the offer of free "Lithium batteries" for that was supposedly to be used for laptops.
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Michael was trying to compensate for not providing the free education to the students by providing them with lithium batteries meant for laptops. The kids were outraged by this and it was obvious why. Michael Scott thought his actions portrayed his ideal self and clearly his idea of idealism is skewed, fitting to his tragic/comedic character.
Diversity Day:
Season 1, Episode 2
In this episode, Michael is not pleased with the diversity training mandated by Dunder Mifflin's corporate office, so he decides to create his own Diversity Training seminar, called Diversity Tomorrow. His training seminar starts off by bringing Kelly Kapoor up to the front of the room. He then starts talking to her in an Indian accent. Kelly actually ends up smacking Michael across the face While Michael means well with this training, he is actually pushing everyone at Dunder Mifflin to voice a number of harmful and untrue stereotypes.
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In this Diversity Tomorrow seminar, Michael passes out cards with races and ethnicities on them to everyone in the room and has them put them on their heads (so they don't know what race/ethnicity they are). They then have to walk around the room and talk to people about their card. In the end, they are supposed to guess what their card says based on these conversations.
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At one point, Pam (Jewish card) is talking to Stanley (Black card), and Michael comes over to listen in to the conversation. As he is standing there, he says "Olympics of slavery right here it's Slavery versus The Holocaust, c'mon." The quote from Michael just shows his clear ignorance for other cultures. He takes two very serious time periods that are very emotional for a number of people, and turns it into a kind of competition. He means it as a joke, but this is the type of ignorance that perpetuates itself into society and makes it seem like it is okay to make jokes about The Holocaust or Slavery.
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Multiple other stereotypes were also addressed in this episode. When Pam was talking to Dwight (Asian card) during the exercise, she tells Dwight that he is not a good driver and his immediate reaction is "Oh man! Am I a woman?!" While he is not a woman, simply stating that continues the long standing stereotype of woman being bad drivers.
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This episode is just one example of how ethnocentric messages are spread through The Office. A number of these messages come directly from Michael Scott, who is a beloved character on the show. Michael's character is very influential to those in our society, and his offensive messages are pushed onto the viewers constantly.
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Michael's Diversity Tomorrow seminar had good intentions at the core of it, but it was not executed correctly. Michael starts the conversation about stereotypes, but instead of talking about how harmful they are, he just spreads them even further.
Gay Witch Hunt:
Season 3, Episode 1
The Gay Witch Hunt episode shows a different type of culture-centric beliefs being spread through Michael. As our definition of ethnocentrism outlines, a person is being ethnocentric when they judge another culture through a lens of their own. In the case of Gay Witch Hunt, Michael views gay culture through a lens of his own culture. He uses language that is offensive to the gay community, but is normalized throughout American Society.
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In the beginning of the episode, Michael gets yelled at for using the term "faggy" in the office. Toby is telling Michael that when he uses that term, it offends Oscar because Oscar is really gay.
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Michael's ignorance for a culture other than his own ultimately ends up outing Oscar before he is ready to come out to his coworkers. This is a very harmful scene to be perpetuated in society because it essentially tells viewers that it is okay to out someone before they are ready to come out. It tells these viewers that it is okay to use terms like "faggy" in everyday conversation, even though it is offensive.
"Like Oscar, he's gay...
that is his choice"
The quote and video above are another example of how Michael's clear ignorance for other cultures. In Michael's eyes, it is a choice to be gay, which really shows his lack of understanding about being gay and gay culture. These types of messages, once again, are spread throughout society and leave room for people to start interpreting real life events in a similar fashion.