Seedy little men with seedy little jokes

S1E2: ‘Work Experience’ and how The Office smacks of gender

This piece is part of a series on The Office (UK), running up to the 20th anniversary of its finale this Christmas. Don’t miss out by following me on Medium.

Four women form the grid of this episode’s story: the new girl, the female boss, the semi-requited lover, and David Brent emasculated twice over: dressed down by his boss and lampooned as a porn actress.

The first one David interacts with is Donna, the work experiencer of the episode title. In a callback to the last episode when Tim dropped Gareth’s stapler out of the window, David pretends for Donna to defenestrate his nagging answerphone (the one on which we first heard Chris Finch, perving over their boss — more on both later) but he makes a pratfall of himself. Although there’s a trace of him trying to impress a pretty woman, David’s main attitude towards Donna is patronising, faux-paternal protectiveness.

As he explains in a team meeting, she’s the daughter of his best friends Ron and Elaine as well as his lodger. She’s also young: the show’s never explicit about her age, but she’s only doing work experience yet, although old enough to be out of school and living away from home. (Gareth’s ditty in a couple of episodes’ time about when cherry’s are red might give us an estimate.)

David protects her from men in the office with ‘hard dad’ threats by proxy; hers is “not only a copper but a bloody big bugger, so hands off!”—which is another way to concede they’d want to put hands on. We’re in the murky territory here of fathers’ proud jealousy over their princess-like daughters. David does laugh along with a couple of cop-themed double entendres but at a third and the most graphic one - “I wouldn’t mind escaping up her tunnel” - he snaps and takes the harshest action we ever see him do as a boss: he throws out the offender like an angry teacher. If there was chivalry here it’s ruined a moment later by his final word on the issue: “I will not have her tunnel bandied around this office willy… nilly.” Tunnel and willy: in his sexual censure Brent’s mind is never far off sex.

Despite the censure, the younger men in the office start circling Donna, who far from jejune has the draw…