The show featured offensive behavior, but the framing is pretty crucial.
Michael Scott was incompetent, and aside from Dwight, almost none of his subordinates respected him because of his insensitivity and his inability to be a professional boss. For a short period of time, I had a manager like him, and if my office wasn’t a small business, I probably would have had no trouble filling a grievance with human resources. It wasn’t quirky or charming. It made for toxic work experience. I didn’t last long there and I’m glad I’m gone.
The show’s mockumentary style (specifically, scenes showing how uncomfortable and upset he made his higher-uppers and subordinates) along with the Jim Face™ made it work.
I’m not sure the show would have worked if there were no characters to offset Michael’s behavior. I think everyone who has worked in an office can connect with the various characters in the show. Not everyone though, can connect with Michael.
In that case, my advice would be to write out a disclaimer, basically just saying you don’t agree with any of the offensive statements in your story and you’re actually criticizing these ideas, and just place that at the beginning of your episodes. However you prefer to word it. Honestly, I think people are reasonable, but they’ve just been burned too many times by people who actually mean x offensive thing to have more faith that it’s a misunderstanding.
If you do this, you’ll probably still get some odd comments, but that’s true of any story under the sun. Just check your story periodically during editing to make sure you’re on track (who is being made fun of, what the punchline is, and do you need to change it) + use that disclaimer to clear up any misinterpretation.
I think you should defo do it! as you can tell from the others, a lot of us enjoy edgy/offensive humor however it may hurt people and can lead to assumptions and misunderstandings
thats why i think you should put a notice at the start or in your bio of the story so people will read it and not take it seriously or not read it at all if it hurts them .
You’d better tell me if you finished the story! (if you’re doing it ofcourse)
