Hot Girl

By Brendan Flanagan

Steve Carrell is a great actor; he has created one of the greatest characters of all time, Michael Scott. Michael is the regional manager for Dunder Mifflin and stars in the hit show, The Office on NBC. He is not your normal typical boss; he is rude, ignorant and small. One of the primary reasons Michael Scott is hated by most of his employees is because of the way he at women. His behavior reveals three sexist approaches men commonly have toward women.

The one thing Michael Scott is motivated by more than anything in the world is sex. When many men see a hot girl their immediate impulse is to have sex with her. Men now a days don’t want to date and possibly marry, which is considered old fashioned. Men want to get the benefits of marriage on the first date. This goes for Michael Scott. In season one episode six he sees a very attractive woman named Katie. Before Michael even sees Katie he tells her to leave the office, but then when he turns his head to see her, all he can do is look at her body and tell her that she can stay. The only thing that matters to Michael is if she is hot, if Katie was fat and not so attractive like Phyllis, a sales person for Dunder Mifflin Paper Company, then Michael would not hesitate to throw her out of the office. Michael’s behavior reveals a sad truth about men: if a girl is hot men will respect her more and give them special treatment.

Michael thinks of certain women as objects, people that he looks at for pleasure. Michael Scott sets her up in the board room, an office wall away from his office and says, “There used to be a window here, and there isn’t anymore.” This line is telling you that Michael wishes that he had a window between his office and the conference room so that he could look at her all day. He sees her as an object and not as a woman with rights.

Throughout every season of The Office, Michael is in a competition with Dwight, but this time it is at a whole new level. They foolishly think they are competing for Katie and the winner gets to take her home. Michael is trying very hard to get Katie to like him, while Dwight is on the outside looking in but on the same mission as Michael. These men think that to live in this world they must compete; they compete for league titles, respect and women. Throughout the entire clip, Michael is aggressively going after Katie while Dwight on the other hand is skeptical on how to attack Katie. Later on in the episode (not shown in the clip) Dwight finds a plan of attack and asks Katie if she would like to go out on a date with him, Katie immediately says no and Dwight is left hanging with Michael laughing at him with defeat. But then Jim comes in and saves Katie from Michael, who probably was about to have the worst night of her life if Jim hadn’t stepped in and saved the day.

Michael Scott is a horrible boss due to the fact that he interacts with women the wrong way. He is thinks of them as objects and not as people. Competition for women as if they are trophies didn’t and doesn’t work. Neither of the competitors win. Both are left empty handed and alone. Michael Scott is a great example of how too many men in this country act.