"There's a lot of beauty in ordinary things.
Isn't that kind of the point?"
When you think of the most iconic “Girls Next Door” of modern times,
near the top of that list has to be Pamela Beesly,
the girl-next-desk to her shy, regular guy admirer, Jim Halpert.
The girl next door has long represented an unassuming,
everyday beauty, wholesome values, and a down-to-earth outlook.
“Maybe you’re too glamorous.
Take me, I’m more like the girl who lives next door.”
But girls next door in Hollywood
have hardly been truly average in any way.
More often the trope is a way to make an exceptionally attractive actress
feel attainable, unthreatening.
"Tomorrow, I'm gonna wake up and I'm gonna be Joey.
Just Joey, you know?
The too-tall girl from the wrong side of the creek."
The Office does two revolutionary things with Pam.
First, it actually makes her normal --to an extreme.
"It is the whitest sneakers award!
Because she always has the whitest tennis shoes on."
Jim (and the viewers) fall in love with her because she captures
what’s amazing about being a regular person.
“She’s so great.”
Second, rather than looking at Pam
primarily through the eyes of her male admirer,
the show digs into her psychology,
maybe even more than any other characters on the show.
It studies the effects of this extreme normality
on her mental health.
Here’s our take on why Pam’s commitment to normality is her strength, her downfall,
and her burden to overcome.
"It would just-just make my heart soar if someone out there saw this
and she said to her self be strong, trust yourself,
love yourself, conquer your fears."
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TV viewers are used to women onscreen being impossibly glamorous, super sexy,
or impeccably intelligent --often all three,
and maybe an athletic badass, too.
"Need a hand?"
"No thanks.
I'm good."
So it’s hard to overstate how bold and refreshing The Office’s approach
to Pam still feels.
"If you're using more than three pieces of tape to wrap a present,
you're doing it wrong."
It carefully avoids idealizing her,
instead using her to represent a real woman
and highlighting her normality as part of what makes her wonderful.
"I mean, it'll just be cool
to just have some after work clothes that aren't pajamas."
Pam’s likability is the same reason
The Office continues to have such enduring resonance with audiences.
This show proves that, actually,
audiences want stories that investigate, study, and celebrate normal,
without caving to the temptation that almost all onscreen stories do
to make life more exciting
"I think an ordinary paper company like Dunder Mifflin
was a great subject for a documentary."
And nowhere is that exploration of the regular deeper and more accurate
than in the character of Pam.
"Normally, I find Pam to be a comforting, if un-arousing, presence around the office.
Like a well-watered fern."
When she went for the role, the clearly beautiful Jenna Fischer
said she was told by the casting director:
“She said please look normal.
Don't make yourself all pretty, and dare to bore me with your audition.
Those were her words:
'dare to bore me.'”
Pam is not cool.
"We have good give-and-take.
I give, he takes."
And she’s decidedly not stylish.
"Boscov's at the Steamtown Mall?"
"It sure looked good on the mannequin."
"Well, you have good taste."
"Pam, run a comb through your hair."
So the show made it very clear from the beginning that Pam
is as normal as normal can be.
"Do you still have the plans for the dream wedding you couldn't afford?"
"That was our dream wedding."
But the interesting thing that happened as the show took off is that
this normality itself actually made her aspirational.
“You’re the best.”
“I kind of am.
It’s crazy.”
Seen through Jim’s eyes,
Pam’s friendly, perceptive, funny personality made her more appealing
than plenty of other women
who might score higher in typical metrics of status.
"You are like the new and improved Pam.
Pam 6.0.”
When The Office opens,
we meet an ensemble that’s full of nutty, zany over-the-top types,
while Jim and Pam are the two normals,
which comes out in the fact that they see the others around them clearly.
This might make us think
of what the expression “down to earth” actually means.
It’s being grounded and realistic,
not having your vision clouded by pie-in-the-sky illusions.
Eventually, though, Pam comes to feel too tethered to the earth.
"Dreams are just that.
They're dreams.
They help get you through the day."
She might benefit from dreaming a little bigger.
“Real art takes courage, okay, and honesty.”
“Well, those aren't Pam's strong points.”
“Yeah, exactly.
That's why this is motel art”
"The company is offering a design training program in New York."
"Well, I have a job right now, so I can't really take time off."
While Pam embodies all these really healthy aspects of normal,
over time, clinging excessively to an idea of normalcy is also
her great flaw.
Some of what she tells herself is satisfaction with normal is,
in fact, apathy.
"It's just that the weekends aren't good because, um…"
"There are always a million reasons not to do something."
Nothing happens quickly for Pam.
It can take a lot of agonizing, and years of unhappiness,
before she’s motivated to change
"Jim was 5 feet from my desk, and it took me four years to get to him."
Apathy manifests as an absence of positive feelings and interests,
and a hopelessness about the future.
It’s a response to disappointments and the belief that
you’re not good enough to overcome obstacles.
Pam spends most of her time in a state of inertia,
always ready to settle.
"And if he never comes back again, that's okay.
We're friends.
And I'm sure we'll stay friends.
"
She believes that because she’s not special,
she doesn’t deserve to be treated especially well.
She starts season one with cripplingly low self esteem.
She’s normalized disrespectful behavior from her fiancé, Roy,
that shouldn’t be seen as okay.
“Man, I would be all over that if I wasn’t dating Pam.”
"And when I went to the bathroom,
the game ended, and they forgot about me."
"That’s a joke."
"No, they had to come back for me."
As the show goes on,
she endures a series of setbacks
that she classifies as personal failures.
"I’m not an artist and I’m not a salesman,
so what would you call it?"
There are many possible explanations for how Pam first became apathetic,
but the daily office environment we observe is clearly a big factor
that exacerbates this tendency in her.
When we first meet her,
she’s been working at Dunder Mifflin for six years,
"Uh, Pam has been with us for forever, right, Pam?"
and she’s become institutionalized.
"These walls are funny.
First you hate them.
Then you get used to them.
Enough time passes... you get so you depend on them.
That's institutionalized."
The way she’s treated signals to her
that receptionist work is not important or worthy of respect.
Even though she’s widely liked and indispensable to the people around her,
she’s rarely thanked or applauded.
"I would never say this to her face,
but she's a wonderful person and a gifted artist."
"What?
Why wouldn’t you say that to her face?"
But look at how much Pam actually does for this office,
often above and beyond her job description.
She instigates bonding activities,
"Did I wake up this morning thinking I'd be throwing together
a bird funeral?"
irons out problems,
"I tore my scrotum.
I need you to take me to the hospital."
offers total support to those in need without being asked,
"Remember how it felt when he cheated on you, though?"
"Which time?"
and absorbs the worries and troubles of others.
"Pamela Beesly-Halpter is my best friend."
There’s a word for the unappreciated work Pam does around the office:
emotional labor.
"Every so often, Jim dies of boredom.
And our deal is that it's up to me to revive him."
This term was coined in the 1980s by sociologist Arlie Hochschild,
and she used it to mean the act of
“performing or deliberately obscuring emotions at work.”
So far, so Pam, right?
"Michael, do you remember,
you specifically told me to only bring one sheet of paper.
You said that it only takes one sheet of paper to make a difference,
and I said, 'Are you sure, Michael?" and you said, "Pam Pam Pam."
"Uhh, I don't."
"Okay.
I'll go look for another one."
Since then, the term has come to encompass broader emotional work
including acts of feeling, listening, communication, and caring.
"Got you this card.
When you're ready, we all signed it.
We just wanted you to know we're thinking about you."
Things like remembering to call elderly relatives,
comforting a friend who’s upset,
checking in on neighbors.
"Go up and check on him.
He's upset."
"You know he's doing all this on purpose."
"Please?
Just make sure he's okay."
It is almost always unpaid and, not exclusively, but often
undertaken by women.
Pam’s role as the Office’s human glue, a sounding board,
an emotional support worker, the provider of gentle nudges,
is a classic example of someone taking on the lion’s share
of emotional labour for a group.
"Michael!
Michael!
Hey, hi, I’m just coming out to see what you’re doing
and maybe stop you!"
So because most of the great stuff Pam does has no value
or compensation attached to it,
she internalizes a feeling of worthlessness that’s very tough to shake.
"It's just, I don't think it's many little girls' dreams
to become a receptionist."
Making the problem worse is all the casual workplace sexism Pam endures.
"Pam Beesly, office hottie.
She will do you."
"If you think she’s cute now,
you should’ve seen her a couple of years ago."
What’s incredibly realistic and powerful about how
the Office portrays this situation is that nothing ever comes of it.
"Pam Pam and her pam pams.
Wow, I have said some crude things about those."
The harassment is more or less constant.
"Usually the day we talk about sexual harassment is the day that
everyone harasses me as a joke."
So we can see why Pam feels that to object to any one instance would be futile,
and instead ends up normalizing this behavior.
"I don’t have my contacts."
"Bla bla blah, I can't even hear you.
It’s like noise coming out of an ugly scientist."
The picture we often see onscreen is an impossibly beautiful woman
being appreciated for her looks,
so it’s easy to fall into the assumption that, even if it’s annoying,
this kind of attention gives a woman confidence.
The Office shows that’s a myth.
Pam is worn down by the onslaught of scrutiny.
"Well I remember why I dress the way I do at work."
Pam’s looks are subject to a constant commentary,
as everyone feels entitled to weigh in and evaluate her.
"She'd probably be a six in New York but she's like a seven here, in Scranton."
It’s a very recognizable situation.
When a woman is labeled “attractive,” a debate frequently ensues about
how attractive or not attractive
she truly is.
"She looks like a monster."
"Guys, she is a beautiful movie star, so maybe we should just go to work."
"She's not hot."
"Who thinks that Hilary Swank is hot, raise your hand."
Over the show’s run,
the sexual harassment towards Pam gradually dissipates,
as she becomes a mother and ages out of the category in which women
are deemed fodder for this kind of analysis.
"You were at your most attractive when you were twenty-four
with a slight, gradual decline
and a steep drop-off when you got pregnant for the first time.
Gradual recovery and, uh, well now, obviously, you're at an all-time low."
It’s no coincidence that, as she’s sexualized less over time,
she gradually starts to stick up for herself
and go after what she wants more.
"There are a few ways to get promoted.
One is to wait for an opening for it.
That's the main way.
But this could work."
Punctuating Pam’s resting state of inertia,
something fierce periodically surfaces in her,
rebelling against her smothering apathy
with sudden, snap decisions to assert herself and be bold.
“Except I don't want to be a receptionist anymore.”
“Right.
Executive assistant.”
“Salesman.”
These mini-moments of retaliation and growth
feel like big victories for Pam.
"I have decided that I'm going to be more honest.
I'm gonna start telling people what I want directly."
The Brave Pam feels like the Real Pam in a sense,
the Pam we root for,
"Why didn't any of you come to my art show?
I invited all of you.
That really sucked."
whereas much of the time she’s holding her tongue,
being nice, not saying what she really thinks.
Pam’s biggest victory is
arguably creating the role of Office Administrator for herself.
"Is one of you the office administrator?"
"I am!
I’m the office administrator!"
She eventually recognizes that all this work she’s been doing
in the office deserves a legitimate title and fair salary,
"I get paid forty a year."
"Great."
"Maybe fifty."
"Fifty?!"
"No, not fifty.
Forty... one."
"That's great."
So because this doesn’t exist yet in her workplace,
she takes charge and creates meaningful change
through channeling that gutsy person we love within Pam.
"Say it."
"Mm-mm."
"Say that I'm lying.
Or say I have the job.
Make a definitive statement, Gabe."
"So as it turns out,
I may not have done so hot on my customer reviews this year."
"Maybe it's cause you spent the whole year flirting with the receptionist."
Another aspect of normality we see explored through Pam is her love with Jim,
which echoes the trajectory of so many real relationships:
from the first flutters of romance to the excitement of getting together,
through long-distance love, unplanned pregnancy,
diverging interests, and marriage counseling.
"You woke up early with the kids and let me sleep,
and I really appreciate that."
"Thank you.
I appreciate that you appreciate that."
This is so rare on TV,
which tends to focus on the drama of love connections sparking or imploding.
Watching the many stages of regular life this couple goes through is in many ways
a lot more interesting, and lets us see ourselves in Jim and Pam.
"I've been putting the kids to bed by myself every night for months.
And you had to miss one phone call.
Is that your truth, Jim, that's really your truth?"
"I guess I will swallow my truth."
"Are you guys high?"
Near the end, though,
this question of whether normal is enough forms the central test of their marriage.
"I just-I liked our life in Scranton."
"And I have started a business in Philadelphia."
Pam feels she’s totally content with their typical family life.
"Dwight, you might find this hard to believe, but I love my boring life--"
"Come on!"
"--exactly the way it is."
"No!"
But when she voices her vision of their future in front of Jim,
“I don’t think anything’s going to change with us with work and 2 kids,
nothing interesting is going to happen to us for a long, long time.”
he’s visibly shell-shocked.
Pam thinks she doesn’t need more than they already have,
but Jim realizes he does.
“There’s always something better.”
And in this conflict,
all the issues we’ve been talking about in Pam’s character come to a head
"I don't want to give him an ultimatum,
but I am not moving our family to Philly."
as she resists Jim's drive to go after a more fulfilling career,
we have to ask, is this coming from her healthy contentment with normality,
or her apathy rearing its ugly head?
"Even if it was a great boss and a great job, I just...
I don't know if I want--
I don't know if I want this."
"This is a little out of left field."
"Is it?"
It’s not always easy to tell.
“If I didn't do certain things without telling Pam,
she'd be married to Roy.”
Should we constantly be wanting more,
or is it a virtue to be happy with less?
On the one hand, Pam’s aversion to change
denies Jim the freedom to pursue a professional passion,
something he’s finally doing for the first time after years of
wasting his potential at a job he doesn't really like.
"When he's excited about something, like the Office Olympics,
he gets really into it and he does a really great job.
But the problem with Jim is that he works here,
so that hardly ever happens."
Jim apparently begins to wonder if Pam is what’s been holding him back.
"Well if Pam says she won't go,
then we're going to need a lot more than counseling."
When the couple goes to Roy’s wedding
and he’s suddenly become this amazing guy with his new partner,
"He plays piano?"
"No.
Roy?
No."
both Jim and Pam seem worried that, by not expecting more of Roy,
Pam was somehow partly responsible for his stagnation.
"I mean seriously, I kind of dodged a bullet on that one."
"You're welcome."
"Thanks."
Of course it’s totally unfair to blame Pam
for Roy’s lack of growth while they were together,
but the question is raised in Jim’s and Pam’s minds,
while they talk about whether
it's important to still have surprises in their lives.
"We still surprise each other."
"Definitely."
When Jim wants to work in Philly, Pam almost seems hurt that
he’s showing this level of enthusiasm for something besides her,
as expressed in her fixation on whether she’s enough for him.
"And I'm afraid that this is not enough for you,
and I'm afraid that I'm not enough for you."
Meanwhile, Jim’s dishonesty coupled with his lack of appreciation for what
she’s doing to make this possible for him,
“I am doing everything I can every week to bring home something for our family--"
"I am trying to make everything perfect here, okay,
so that you can have everything that you want."
brings out the revelation from Pam that she’s been stifling
her honest reactions to a number of events in their life before now.
Jim has repeatedly failed to communicate or consult her on important joint decisions,
but because he presented his actions as grand gestures of love
she felt she couldn’t protest.
"He took this job in Philly without telling me,
he bought our house without telling me.
At a certain point, he shouldn't be rewarded for that."
It’s only really in the final season
that we see the toll this has gradually taken on her.
“I don't know what I was so worried about.
I have the best wife in the world.”
“I still can't believe he didn't tell me”
The Office isn’t a show with explosive plots every episode.
It’s slow and steady,
just like everyday life.
Their crisis in the last season illustrates
that there doesn’t have to be dramatic anger or a torrid affair
at the root of a marital breakdown.
"You know what,
I don't think you want to start a conversation with me
about what's fair."
A pattern of poor communication can be enough
“So you invested $10,000 to look like a team player?”
“You weren't there.
It was very clear that $10,000 was what we had--
We'll talk about it later”
Once Jim proves that their normal family life
is everything to him, that he doesn’t need anything else,
“You are everything.”
her insecurity and feeling of imbalance is cured.
And in the finale,
brave, bold Pam emerges once more with a big gesture to support Jim.
“And I could come to you with this big Jim gesture
and show you all at once just how much I love you,
and how much I really do believe in your future."
So we can only hope that her apathy will at last be kept at bay.
While this healed Pam may have a slightly more exciting life,
when we leave her she’s still a pretty average person,
and that's the point.
She takes her life purpose from her family, as so many of us do,
and doesn't end up as some kind of
inspirational female symbol with an amazing career.
Her endpoint probably left a lot of viewers with a degree of mixed feelings,
which proves The Office stuck with its honest portrait
of the normalcy mindset through this character to the end.
From the outside looking in,
even Pam herself can see what she should be doing differently.
"I kept wanting to scream at Pam.
It took me so long to do so many important things."
But The Office spends a great deal of time inside Pam’s mind,
making us understand why she’s so easily satisfied with less.
The phrase “girl next door”
contains its point of view right there in the words.
It’s the girl next to our protagonist.
Instead, The Office zeroes in on Pam herself,
exploring how it feels to be that shy girl,
who’s sidelined, belittled, critiqued, and under-appreciated
until she finally learns to be aggressive and believe in her self-worth
“I did the coal walk.
Just, I did it.
Michael, you couldn't even do that.
Maybe I should be your boss.”
Apart from these surmountable perils that can arise from the
normal-is-enough mentality,
Pamela Beesly-Halpert exemplifies, time and again, the beauty in the ordinary.
"Why do you use your name when you answer the phone?"
"Oh, that's how Pam does it.
I just copy her.
She's sort of a living legend."
Her life isn’t perfect
"STOP DATING MY MOTHER!"
but it’s filled with perfect moments.
And the rest of us can hope to be blessed
by such perfectly wonderful pieces of normal, too.
"So, look out world, cuz ol’ Pammy is getting what she wants.
And, don't call me Pammy.”
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