Steve Carrel's Portrayal Of The American Dream In The Office

Many people believe by working hard one can achieve their highest goals; obtaining wealth, property, living a healthy lifestyle. Most dream of driving fancy cars, living in mansions, or partying with beautiful women on their own yacht; this concept of materialistic values by working hard is known as the American Dream. The Office is a television show that often discusses this concept in their television series, while one episode in particular represents this ideology more than any other. Michael Scott, played by the hilarious and notoriously good actor, Steve Carrel, visits a third grade class of kids living in a poor socioeconomic area filled with many working class citizens, makes a legendary charitable promise to pay for their college education

if they graduate from high school. Unfortunately for these kids, Michael Scott never achieves his American Dream, and their futures lie on the balance because of it.
Michael Scott is a local businessman that merely co-manages a branch of a small paper company known as Dunder Mifflin, by no surprise this job does not constitute a healthy enough pay check to support buying a sports car let alone the promise he made to these children. These third graders who in the episode are now high school seniors, plan a formal thank you to Mr. Scott for the promise he made them many years before. The promise; was for each of those kids who graduated they must not need to worry about paying for their college education because the big dreamer Michael Scott would pay for it, “I fell in love with the kids I didn’t want them to fall victim to the system” (The Office). Although his American Dream was that of getting rich and then donating to a charitable effort for these underprivileged kids, Michael never told these kids until their senior years of high school that he would not be able to pay for their education. Of course to the audience this is just another Michael shenanigan that he constantly gets himself into, and even though it’s a terrible thing he has done, it gives the vibe of pure comedy. Michael goes on to say regarding his past shenanigans and the current, “I’ve made a lot of empty promises in my life but this is by far the most generous” (The Office). For the viewers, they are all well aware of his conceited ideas and his embarrassing actions, this is another one but it hides a deeper purpose than just the American Dream, because this episode focuses not just on Michael’s dream, but also on the group of fifteen kids that rely on Michael’s success to achieve their own dreams.
As the episode continues it is easy to understand Michael cares for all these kids, he remembers all their names and has kept in contact with some of them as they have grown up. These kids depended on his American Dream to come true, and although his heart was in the right place; fate, work ethic, and other factors were not on his side in achieving a high materialistic value. Michael is given a warm gentle welcome as he enters a room full of school officials and his students accompanied by their parents. All of the students are bearing a shirt that reads “Scotts Tots” as they were classified in the paper when this story first hit headlines in the local newspaper while they were in the third grade. As he is sitting there painfully awkward to the full enjoyment of the viewer, every student gets up and starts singing a song and dance to the tune of, “Hey, Mr. Scott. Whatcha’ going to do? Make are dreams come true” (The Office). Michael sits there laughing but to the viewer he is in obvious pain as he knows he has to deliver the terrible news at some point. As they continue to sing, “We can have it all. Because you made it possible for us to achieve the improbable”, the education they were promised to receive would bring them many opportunities for them to achieve their own American Dreams. The unfortunate truth is for those who attend low socioeconomic schools there is less opportunities from the beginning and the odds are against them to achieve high materialistic success in their future careers. Just as Michael sympathized for these kids, so does the viewer, but the comedic nature of this show depicts a touchy subject in a fashion that makes it more comfortable for the viewer to watch. The viewer still sympathizes for these kids because it is a very real world fact that millions of these students exist in the United States that do not have the same opportunities as people that grow up in a wealthier area. This episode gives the viewer an insight of the reality for students in a low socioeconomic area school, and how they struggle to find opportunities to better themselves and approve their education just as discussed in lecture by Pam Walters. The episode discusses de jure segregation when the school principal states, “Politicians are always coming around telling they’re going to fix our schools, promising this and that…but you Mr. Scott are actually doing it” (The Office). Just as Pam Walters discussed one of the ways to fix their schools would be to make bussing laws and update school zones to balance out socioeconomic areas. Overall there needs to be a greater amount of integration between public schools in order to improve the standings of the schools in working class areas.
Throughout the episode the viewer is left laughing at Michael Scott’s pain, and most cannot help but feel embarrassed for him as the show often has the audience do. He is constantly putting himself in situations where the viewer cringes at the awkwardness of the current dilemma of his life. The use of comedy makes it much easier to discuss the issues that are involved in these schools as well as poking fun at the flaws in the concept of the American Dream. Michael is not the only one with an overinflated dream, one of the Scotts Tots stated in a speech, “There was many times I was tempted to get into the drug game but I thought about my guardian angel and the promise you (Michael) gave me, and the opportunity to go to college and become the next President Obama” (The Office). Evidently, his American Dream is exasperated but he is right about having a greater amount of opportunities will make it easier for him to succeed. Michael who at this point is crying and cannot tolerate to listen to anymore of these speeches. Because he has realized he is just like the politicians, who promise to do something for the improvement of the community, but fail nonetheless to ever help their case. Alas it was Michael’s turn to be in the spotlight, a feeling he usually embraces more than any other except for when he has to deliver bad news, which is when he cowards away. In a Michael Scott fashion, he attempts to deliver bad news in a poorly executed joke to the amusement of the audience. As he goes up and down the rows of students he only does not recognize and know the name of one kid for who of which is one of his students younger brother, and he says, “Well, I won’t be paying your tuition”, which receives a gracious uproar, “Which brings me to my main point, I will not be able to pay for anybody’s tuition” (The Office). Michael says this with an exasperated smile on his face, which disappears when after a slight pause overtakes the crowd due to shock, he says he was sorry but there was no remorse coming from the crowd of students, parents, and school officials. With just one bad joke, these kids saw their major opportunity slip away from their grasps, which if it were not portrayed in a comedic light, many would have a bitter taste in their mouths following the episode. Michael still holds on to his American Dream, believes he not only lied to them but he lied to himself about how rich he was going to be, but he says maybe by the time he is 50 he will be a millionaire finally (The Office). Unfortunately, his American Dream seems as likely as most people’s materialistic views of this so called dream, and the adolescents in this episode are just a small representation of the millions out there in our country. Less opportunities than what they deserve and less people to support their future careers, which has lead to a dire situation of some laws to support the low socioeconomic schools.
The Office has a very comedic way of discussing subjects that are often avoided on popular television shows.

Michael’s portrayal of the American Dream is hilarious as he believed he would a million are by 30 but even though he has less money than he did at 30, he has not given it up. The Office pokes fun at those who still strongly believe in this conceited concept of a materialistic vision, not that if one works hard they will not achieve their dreams, but many are often too far fetched to be plausible unless the right opportunities reveal themselves. Which brings the viewer to the more sensitive subject of unfair school districting, and many working class families suffer from not being able to send their kids to get a proper education and create more opportunities. The students and parents in the episode had every right to be fed up with the way politicians treat their education, but by using Michael as a representation of somebody who fails to fulfill a promise of his own, and this creates an entertaining setting for the audience to laugh at his awkward pain. The focus is purposely on Michael, this is to shed light on the kids but to keep the laughter and comedic attention on his embarrassing shenanigan’s that viewers constantly see him in, and expect nothing less from

him.