No show on television captures the American workplace's comic, er, idiosyncrasies better than The Office. Last night's episode, "Gay Witch Hunt", took those idiosyncrasies to a new, more diverse place.

Michael, the likeable jerk played brilliantly by Steve Carell (who played a gay man this summer in the film Little Miss Sunshine), is notorious for suffering from chronic foot-in-mouth disease. He displayed that tendency to perfection when he inadvertently outed Oscar (played by Oscar Nuñez), the office accountant, while trying to apologize for earlier referring to Oscar as “faggy”. (Viewers had known since last season that Oscar was gay.)

“Faggy”, Michael tries haplessly to explain, doesn't mean gay. To Michael and millions of Americans like him it just means lame or some variation thereof. Earlier this year Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen called another sports columnist a “f***ing fag”. Later Guillen attempted to explain that he didn't mean it as insult to gay people, but was trying to say the columnist wasn't “courageous” or “brave”.

In much the same way, Michael tries to explain he would never call a retarded person “retard”, or an actual gay person “faggy”. Trying to enlighten Michael (or Ozzie Guillen) as to how that isn't any better is often about as productive as beating one's head against a brick wall. For trying to make that point alone, The Office is to be lauded.

But like those millions of slightly ignorant Americans who bandy the word “fag” around, Michael isn't a bad person and he really did mean no harm. For him, gays are something found in the big city or on television starring in Project Runway. They aren't his co-workers because his co-workers are really, after all, just like him. So how is he supposed to know his words are harmful and bigoted to someone he knows and cares about?

Once that is finally made clear to Michael, he struggles to make amends, going so far as to call a conference where he makes it clear to all that that he accepts and, literally, embraces Oscar.

The only trouble is, Oscar doesn't want to embrace Michael. In fact, he calls Michael ignorant and storms out of the office, only to stop when Michael breaks down in genuine tears.

Page 1 / 2 - Next