Mindy Kaling: We couldnt make The Office now, its too fearless & taboo

I’m not obsessed with The Office and I don’t watch the reruns. When the show originally aired, I probably watched the first four seasons or so? But I eventually stopped, especially when Jim and Pam got together and all of the stunt-casting with guest-stars started happening. I don’t remember The Office being particularly controversial or scandalous, and people still enjoy the series now. It’s like Friends – the younger peeps feel like they’ve “discovered” it on streaming and it’s more popular now than it was during its original run. It seems like a historical relic more than anything, the idea that people work in a regular office and there’s no telecommuting and people hang out with their coworkers and get into adventures. I bring all of this up because Mindy Kaling claimed that you couldn’t make The Office today because the characters would be canceled now.

The ensemble cast of “The Office” is always asked when a reunion or reboot series might finally be made, but original star and writer Mindy Kaling recently told “Good Morning America” that “The Office” just couldn’t be made today. Why? “That show is so inappropriate now,” Kaling said.

“The writers who I’m still in touch with now, we always talk about how so much of that show we probably couldn’t make now,” Kaling added. “Tastes have changed, and honestly what offends people has changed so much now. I think that actually is one of the reasons the show is popular, because people feel like there’s something kind of fearless about it or taboo that it talks about on the show.”

When asked what her character, the pop-culture obsessed Kelly Kapoor, would be doing in a 2022 version of “The Office,” Kaling responded, “I think she would have quit Dunder Mifflin to become an influencer, and then probably be canceled, almost immediately. Actually, most of the characters on that show would be canceled by now.”

[From Variety]

Did I miss something in the later episodes or something? While the “Dwight” character would probably launch a thousand thinkpieces if he was introduced as a fictional character today, I think mostly the show would still be accepted and liked today? As in, people still LIKE the show today. Sure, maybe some storylines and characters would be written differently, without a doubt. Same with Friends, same with Sex and the City, same with all of those ‘90s and early-00s water-cooler shows (except maybe Frasier, which weirdly seems timeless). Basically, I have no idea what Mindy is talking about. She seems to think The Office was a lot edgier than it actually was. She’s right about one thing: Kelly absolutely would have become an influencer. She would be obsessed with Instagram and she would be selling her makeup line out of Dunder Mifflin’s parking lot.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.

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