NPR has a thought-provoking article about ‘shippers and true romance in The Office world:
In The Post-Shipper Era, ‘The Office’ Is The Most Romantic Show On Television
Are you familiar with shippers? Or, technically, ‘shippers? A shipper is a person who self-identifies as a fan of a show based on a rooting interest in a particular romantic relationship (‘shipper, get it?).
In most places where television is discussed, the most devoted shippers are, frankly, the bane of everyone else’s existence, because there is not an episode, a scene, a shot, or a camera angle that doesn’t somehow relate to whether or not there will be kissing.
Will there be kissing? When? Where? What music will be playing? What will everyone be wearing? Will this episode contain kissing? How about next week’s? How about in the season finale? Do you think the “dramatic development” in TV Guide is about kissing? Did you see that screenshot that one guy posted from that one episode where there seems to be smudged lipstick on that one actress? I wonder if it’s because she was just busy kissing. KISSING KISSING KISSING, and have I mentioned…kissing?
Truly single-minded shippers are not fans of the show: they are just turning the crank and waiting for Jack to spring out of the box. All around the mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel… You may know them by the twee, mashed-together names they invent for couples. You don’t “ship” Lost’s Sawyer and Kate: you ship “Skate.”
Shows run into trouble when there is so much pressure built up for so long about the kissing or not kissing that it obscures every other dramatic element, so when Jack does pop out of the box, nobody knows what to do next. You get an explosion of excitement, but then what? This is why shows like Grey’s Anatomy are stuck breaking everybody up and putting them back together, again and again. If all you’ve got is Jack in the box, then once he comes out, you’d better…put him back.
And while it seemed to be a comedy, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a show more imperiled by shippers than The Office. And against all odds, it’s defeated them and become far more romantic, as a story, than it was when they were exchanging all those pained, tense stares.
How the kissing enthusiasts were overcome, after the jump…
From the beginning, while Steve Carell was the biggest star and Michael Scott the central figure, The Office pulled enormous emotional heft from the romantic tale of Jim and Pam. Colleagues and dear pals, they pulled pranks together and — most notably in the fantastic second-season episode Office Olympics — kept each other afloat in a very mundane environment. But of course, they were secretly in love.
Their shipper community boomed. Early in the fourth season, the show had Kevin refer to the couple as “PB&J” for “Pam Beesly and Jim,” a not-so-subtle bow to (or dig at, depending on your perspective) the fans who had dubbed them…”Jam.”
And a good number of the “Jam” people did not care about 90 percent of the writing, and did not care about the plausible development of a relationship involving a woman who was, after all, engaged to someone else when the story began. No, the cry went up: “What do we want? Kissing! When do we want it? Now!” And “now”? “Now” was every week.
It happened eventually. They did kiss. And they did agonize. They did miss each other several times in that horrible dance of bad timing that so often happens in real life. But then they got together, and they got engaged, and they’ve been mostly happy now for almost two seasons.
And the show, quite honestly, is not only more romantic than it has ever been; it is the most winningly romantic thing on television, despite the fact that there hasn’t been a crank turning in almost two years.
Last night’s episode, “Blood Drive,” seems to have been bumped forward from Valentine’s Day, around which the story was set. While Jim and Pam went out with Phyllis and her husband Bob Vance (Vance Refrigeration), Michael met a woman donating blood and spent the rest of the day trying to find her again.
Watch how much there is happening here that genuinely respects the idea of romantic love. Jim and Pam are a couple now; they are a team in a way they could not be a team when she was engaged to someone else. Since they got together, they’ve both become visibly happier, more confident, and, particularly with regard to Pam, sharper of wit. The relationship has been a life-alteringly great experience for both characters, which is a lot sexier than staring achingly at each other wondering who’s going to crack first.
Michael’s story was lovely as well. Even though he’s the buffooniest buffoon to ever buffoon, Michael is a good-hearted person, and his brief romance with Holly, brilliantly played by Amy Ryan, whose return the story increasingly aches for, freshened his entire personality. It seemed to take a layer of smarm off of him like a going-over with sandpaper, so that while he’s still socially awkward to a painful degree, he has been given an infusion of hope that has totally changed the way he sees the world.
Even the little C-story of Kevin’s encounter with the redhead was perfectly executed, from awkward meeting to — indeed — that little ray of hope at the end, which Brian Baumgartner played brilliantly.
The shipper-oriented vision of romance, in which it’s all nothing-nothing-nothing-BOOM! KISSING! has a tendency to devalue actually being happy in favor of being constantly stimulated by drama. What’s been so satisfying about the way The Office has handled its romances is that you actually see a logical connection between being in love and being happy, which — if you think about it — is weirdly lacking in far too many conventional love stories.
Tipster: LiveJournal Office
Aww, I liked that article a lot. I totally agree with it.
What a WONDERFUL article! And every word of it true. I never really looked at the JAM relationship that way, but it makes total sense. Thanks for posting, Tanster!
Fascinating! Thanks for the link, tanster.
That is pretty cool.
What a lovely article! Now I appreciate the Jim/Pam relationship even more.
Thoughtful…and completely true. Great read.
I LOVED this article. My thoughts exactly.
Am I a ‘shipper? I hate tension or drama with JAM, but I pretty much just focus on them when I watch the show.
While I love almost everything about the show, JAM is definitely my favorite part. So… I guess I’m a ‘shipper.
I love it. :D
I’ve been a proclaimed JAM-shipper since the pilot, but I’ve never lost an appreciation for what it does to the show as a whole. Because not *all* of us shippers are insane….and I openly apologize for them crazy ones. To be honest, they scare us too!
I agree, I really loved this article and forwarded to about six people! I love it when a credible source defends a guilty or not-so-guilty pleasure of mine, like when The Atlantic covered Twilight.
I think she hit the nail on the head with her argument that a smooth, joyous fictional couple can add more to a show than a rocky one can. I’m definitely a JAM shipper, but I’m not sure I was one who just obsessed over them kissing or wanted drama to happen…I’m just really glad that they’re together and happy, and I’m excited to see how their married lives will unfold. As soon as they start planning their wedding…
As much as the Jim/Pam relationship is a good one this article doesn’t take into account the down side to ‘shippers. For instance, how Phyllis’ Wedding is usually regarded as one of the most hated episodes because nothing positive – in terms of JAM – happens.
Yay for couples romances! I don’t think all shippers are single minded but there are those that are and can’t see the forest for the trees.
What a strange article, they got it completely backwards. I’ve rarely seen a show give in to shippers as much as The Office has. The show has had more relationships than Grey’s Anatomy, and instead of stringing the central romance out for many years like most shows do they put them together at the end of the third season and kept them together.
There has even been so much PDA this season that I’ve seen die-hard Jam fans saying things like “I love Jam but I think I’ve seen them kiss enough for this season.”
I think this article is a very good articulation of why I stopped watching Grey’s Anatomy in favor of The Office. I mean, aside from The Office’s clearly superior writers, actors, etc.
Thanks a bunch for posting this, tanster! It was really interesting and I must say that I agree. :D
I 100% agree with this article especially after watching “Blood Drive,” because I loved watching Kevin, Michael, and all the “Lonely Hearts” club at the office. It was a romantic episode! Yes, of course, I loved the lunch double date too. But it was so much more about the others and their romantic quests than about Pam and Jim.
Generalissimo – The lack of Jim/Pam was the last thing I would complain about in Phyllis’ Wedding. Let’s see, there was the passing gas scene and Michael at his absolute worst w/ nothing redeeming to his actions whatsoever. The episode was just not that funny. Even then it was 10x better than anything Grey’s has ever produced.
14. Really? I would love to hear more of an explanation because I just don’t see it… I think the show has done a fantastic job of not giving shippers what they want… Look at Dwight and Angela being apart an entire year, and even now, not really ever being together again… or the amount of time Karen and Jim were together, or Pam and Roy getting back together… Even looking at Michael… As far as JAM, yeah, they put them together at the end of the season, but a) it seemed quite natural to me, and they haven’t glossed over any problems that might have happened, and b) did I miss where the end of season three was three years after the show started? They’ve only been together for a year and a half? I think five years of will they won’t they would have been a little much.
“For instance, how Phyllis’ Wedding is usually regarded as one of the most hated episodes because nothing positive – in terms of JAM – happens.”
I think it’s hated because the cringe factor is dialed up to 11 thanks to Michael’s actions before, during and after the wedding.
The way The Office does the JAM relationship is the best that I’ve ever seen on television.
It should also be noted that this is the exact reason that some of us do not care for the direction of the Office of late…there’s now so much focus on the relationships, that they’ve lost what initially drew us in. It never ceases to amaze me that my least favorite episodes are the episodes generally the highest rated on this site.
I really enjoyed this article!
I completely disagreed with the author of this article. When Jim and Pam weren’t together, there was sexual tension. Which is, obviously, SEXY.
While they’re together, they’re just boring. I literally went from being a PB&J person to wanting them to just break up already, because there’s nothing worth watching about their relationship any more. There’s not really anything left to the imagination any more, there’s no curiosity about what will happen between them.
Generalissimo is absolutely right, unfortunately.
Time and time again I have seen an episode not given a fair chance purely because either there was an insignificant amount of JAM, they were shown as being unlikeable, going through some sort of embarrassment, there was a threat to their romance, etc…
“The relationship has been a life-alteringly great experience for both characters, which is a lot sexier than staring achingly at each other wondering who’s going to crack first.”
I have to wholeheartedly agree with this statement from the article. Scenes such as Pam deciding to come back home, Jim buying his parent’s house, Jim’s conversation with Pam’s dad, and this past weeks “present company excluded”, just make me smile. They’re two great people who are great together, how can you not like that?
Ugh. I hate Jim & Pam. That being said, I think they show fairly little of their relationship in comparison to some shows, such as Greys who revolve the entire show around whatever couple they have going at the time.
Great article. Thanks for the link, tanster. It’s interesting how the author purports the writers’ respect for romantic love. I totally agree, but I also see gist being that the writers actually respect the shippers, and vice versa. The Office writers choose not to placate us and instead tried to show us the best work they can possibly create. Whereas, I think on lesser shows, the writing staff sees how flippant the shippers appear and draws conclusions about how to impress them based on this surface analysis. The Office writers know that the shippers are about ‘more than that’ (kissing), so we respect the realistic path they’ve set the characters on.
While I don’t exactly agree with the portrayal of shippers in this article, I do like the main argument here: the writers are keeping it real. Jim and Pam have a mature, real relationship, and are in love and happy. Kevin and Michael want to be in love and happy as well. And that normalcy still lends itself for funny situations and good plots, without the overly contrived drama or the constant breaking up & making up of any other TV show. Kudos to the writers.
Great article, and I completely agree! I’ve never been a big TV romance fan, except when it comes to Pam and Jim, and I’m always surprised by it. The approach to their story is refreshing and is a reflection of many real life romances (at least in my case), which is seldom seen in a sitcom. I didn’t find Jim’s pining and Pam’s unavailability in Season 2 and vice versa in Season 3 anywhere near as romantic as I find them as a happy couple.
Good article excpet for this bit:
“And a good number of the ‘Jam’ people did not care about 90 percent of the writing, and did not care about the plausible development of a relationship involving a woman who was, after all, engaged to someone else when the story began.”
I’d say most Office fans (or at least most here, which is my main Office hub) care about all aspects of the show, and want to see each represented equally. One of the highest rated episodes throughout all of Officedom is The Injury which features exactly ZERO Jamness. And this was coming after Booze Cruise when we all desperately wanted more from them.
Phillis’ Wedding was hated because of the BROOOOOOOAAAAAADDD humor, not the lack of Jam. In fact, there was great characterization there in Pam’s loneliness and return to Roy, and Jim’s blatant “I’m in love with Karen. Really. I am. Honest. Scout’s honor.”
It was an interesting article, and I’m glad to see The Office writers get kudos for their handling of Jim and Pam’s relationship. However, I really disagree with the characterization of shippers as only caring about the kissing, and not about any other part of the story. I definitely consider myself a Jam shipper, because their story is what drew me in to this show, and it’s still an exciting part of the show for me, but I care about their relationship story as a whole, not just whether or not they’re kissing. I also care about the stories being told for all of the characters, and just because a particular episode may not contain much or any Jam doesn’t make it a lesser episode to me.
I loved the article, but was slightly offended by the generalization of ‘shippers in regards to The Office. After learning the meaning of ” ‘Shipper” I can gladly pop myself in that group, but I could care less about kissing. I love The Office, in all aspects and characters, but the true love we see blossoming between Jim and Pam is sometimes the heart of the show, even when the most PDA you see between them is a goofy glance and a coy smile.
Great article. I love their storyline so I guess that qualifies me as a “shipper”, but I agree with other previous posts…I don’t care about kissing. I mean, come on…what drew me initially was the idea that they were secretly in love with each other and what has kept me interested in their romance is the fact that it is completely relatable to anyone in a healthy, happy relationship. That said, I love this show as a whole, every charater, and I doubt I would watch it if it did not give other people in the ensemble a chance to shine. And, I can’t wait until Thursday!