Community
(NBC, 2009- )
ENGL 2030: Experience of
Literature—Drama [Lavery]
ENGL 2030: Experience of Literature—
Drama [Lavery]
The Community Cast. Front row: Jeff Winger (Joel McHale) and Britta Perry (Gillian Jacobs); middle
row: Annie Edison (Alison Brie), Shirley Bennett (Yvette Nicole Brown), and Abed Nadir (Danny Pudi);
back row: Pierce Hawthorne (Chevy Chase), Troy Barnes (Donald Glover), and Ben Chang (Ken
Leung)
ENGL 2030: Experience of Literature—
Drama [Lavery]
ENGL 2030: Experience of Literature—
Drama [Lavery]
ENGL 2030: Experience of Literature—
Drama [Lavery]
ENGL 2030: Experience of Literature—
Drama [Lavery]
Joel McHale as Jeff
Winger, a suspended
lawyer who enrolls at
Greendale after his firm
discovers that he falsely
claimed to have a
bachelor's degree from
Columbia. Jeff often acts
as the leader of the
group. A womanizer and
narcissist, he is often
seen using his charm to
get his way. Jeff often
tricks or persuades the
other members of the
group to do all of the
work.
ENGL 2030: Experience of Literature—
Drama [Lavery]
Gillian Jacobs as Britta Perry, a
former anarchist activist who
traveled around the world after
dropping out of high school, but
now trying to get her life back on
track. At first, Britta puts up a
facade, appearing intelligent and
cool at the start of the series.
However, as the group gets to
know her and her defenses are
stripped away, the charming flaws
in her personality become more
obvious.
ENGL 2030: Experience of Literature—
Drama [Lavery]
Danny Pudi as Abed Nadir, a popculture-obsessed Palestinian-Polish
film student with an encyclopedic
knowledge of TV shows and movies.
Abed has trouble interacting with
others, and his friends hint that he
may have Aspergers. On occasion,
Abed has displayed coping
mechanisms to things he cannot deal
with, such as seeing everything as a
claymation adventure, or being
convinced he is Batman. Abed is the
source of much of the show's metahumor, and he often interprets the
group's everyday adventures by
comparing them to TV tropes or
clichés.
ENGL 2030: Experience of Literature—
Drama [Lavery]
Alison Brie as Annie Edison, the
youngest of the group, a compulsive
over-achiever, relentlessly
organized and comparatively
innocent. Despite this, Annie ends
up at Greendale instead of an Ivy
League school because she
developed an Adderall addiction
while studying for finals, earning her
the nickname Annie Adderall. This
led to a major breakdown and a stay
in a rehabilitation clinic, as well as
being disinherited by her parents.
Annie was extremely unpopular in
high-school, to the extent that even
the teachers hated her and crossing
guards lured her into traffic.
ENGL 2030: Experience of Literature—
Drama [Lavery]
Yvette Nicole Brown as Shirley
Bennett, a single mother and
vocal Christian going to school
to start a brownie business.
Shirley is seen as the "mother"
of the group and often uses
this to manipulate them by
being passive-aggressive and
appealing to their sense of
guilt.
ENGL 2030: Experience of Literature—
Drama [Lavery]
Donald Glover as Troy Barnes, a
former high school star
quarterback who lost his
scholarship to a top-tier university
when he hurt his shoulder doing a
keg flip. Troy went to the same
high school as Annie, but never
spoke to her and did not even
recognize her at the start of the
series. Troy starts the series
obsessed with being cool, but due
to his friendship with Abed, he lets
his guard down and embraces his
nerdy, childish side.
ENGL 2030: Experience of Literature—
Drama [Lavery]
Chevy Chase as Pierce
Hawthorne (seasons 1–4), a
millionaire who enrolls at
Greendale due to boredom.
Pierce is often seen as the least
liked member of the group due to
his self-importance, incoherence
and casual bigotry. Despite his
apparent arrogance, Pierce is
aware of his place in the group,
and he often attempts to appear
cooler, fit in, and make others like
him more.
ENGL 2030: Experience of Literature—
Drama [Lavery]
Jim Rash as Dean Craig Pelton (recurring
seasons 1–2, starring seasons 3–present),
the dean of Greendale, who desperately
wants his school to be more like a real
university, and goes to excessive lengths to
appear politically correct. Although his
sexual orientation is left ambiguous, he is
an avid cross dresser who has occasionally
displayed an attraction to Dalmatians. Dean
Pelton considers the group to be his favorite
students and has an obsessive crush on
Jeff.
 Dean Pelton’s Outfits (Community
Wiki)
 A Video Compilation of Pelton’s
Outfits
ENGL 2030: Experience of Literature—
Drama [Lavery]
Ken Jeong as "Señor" Ben Chang,
an extremely unhinged man,
originally the group's Spanish
teacher until the school discovers his
incompetence and lack of teaching
qualification. He goes on to become
a student and later a security officer
for the school. Chang's insanity and
loose grip on reality often lead him to
take extreme action for no apparent
reason.
ENGL 2030: Experience of Literature—
Drama [Lavery]
At an hilariously inept community college in
California, a co-ed, multi-racial, multigenerational gang of seven finds itself
thrown together as a study group and
becomes, against all odds, the granfalloon
nucleus of an ingenious new sitcom. The US
has long been known, in every decade, for
its stellar contributions to the genre, from I
Love Lucy, The Honeymooners, The Dick
Van Dyke Show, The Mary Tyler Moore
Show, All in the Family, and The Bill Cosby
Show, to Seinfeld, Friends, Everybody Loves
Raymond, The Simpsons, and Frasier, but
none gave us dialogue quite like the
following:
ENGL 2030: Experience of Literature—
Drama [Lavery]
Dr. Duncan: Listen, I wanted to ask you about that young lady in your
Spanish class. You know, the blonde, with the pouty, strident, Cate
Blanchett sexuality, and the ridiculous name.
Jeff: Britta.
Dr. Duncan: That’s it. Can you imagine living with that? Can you
imagine? Unbelievable. Anyway, um, are you two an item, and if so,
would that item be impervious to sabotage?
Jeff: You know, you have the savoir faire of a hyena. How is it that you
and James Bond come from the same island?
Dr. Duncan: Message received. I'll just wait for you to finish striking out
first.
Jeff: Cheers.
Abed: M*A*S*H.
Dr. Duncan: Game over. Have a nice day.
“Advanced Criminal Law,” Community, 1.5
ENGL 2030: Experience of Literature—
Drama [Lavery]
This exchange from an early episode of the critically beloved/ratings-challenged
NBC sitcom Community may need some unpacking for a newbie to arguably the
most inventive show on American television. Dr. Duncan, played by the English
expatriate comic John Oliver (a regular on The Daily Show), is a pretentious,
opportunistic, alcoholic, lecherous psychology professor at Glendale Community
College in Los Angeles. Jeff Winger (played by the host of Talk Soup) is a razorsharp, full-of-himself, conniving womanizer, a former lawyer now being reeducated because the degree from Columbia which had gotten him admitted to
law school was actually a fake certificate he purchased in Colombia. The Britta
they speak of, likewise a student, is an attractive blonde woman in her thirties, a
high school dropout, former billboard vandalizer, foot model, Radiohead groupie,
and Peace Corps volunteer. The Muslim Abed Nadir is a pop culture nerd,
perhaps suffering from Asperger’s Syndrome, an aspiring filmmaker defying his
father’s plan for him to become heir to a falafel stand. A sitcom-typical colloquy
over a woman morphs, without warning and without explanation, into almost
idiolectic, intertextual wordplay about, well, sitcoms, both British and American.
Community is a self-aware sitcom that trades on its viewers’ knowledge of the
conventions of the medium both for humor and characterization.
ENGL 2030: Experience of Literature—
Drama [Lavery]
Consider another exchange—this from Community’s Season 2’s
first episode (“Anthropology 101,” 2.1). After unexpected
revelations lead to Jeff breaking up with both Britta and Annie,
the always meta Abed goes for the metaphor:
Abed: By the power vested in me, I now pronounce you
“canceled.”
Jeff: Oh good. Cancel us. And while you're at it, why don’t
you take your cutesy “I can’t tell life from TV” gimmick with
you. That’s very season one.
Abed: I can tell life from TV Jeff. TV has structure, logic,
rules. And likeable leading men. In life we have this. We have
you.
ENGL 2030: Experience of Literature—
Drama [Lavery]
As another of its signatures, Community (with rare exception) takes its episode
titles from the names of real or imagined courses at the community college:
"Accounting for Lawyers,” "Advanced Criminal Law,” "Anthropology 101,”
"Applied Anthropology and Culinary Arts,” "Asian Population Studies,” "Basic
Genealogy,” "Basic Rocket Science,” "Beginner Pottery,” "Celebrity
Pharmacology,” "Communication Studies,” "Comparative Religion,” "Competitive
Wine Tasting,” "Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design,” "Contemporary
American Poultry,” "Cooperative Calligraphy,” "Critical Film Studies,” "Custody
Law and Eastern European Diplomacy,” "Debate 109,” "Early 21st Century
Romanticism,” "English as a Second Language,” "Environmental Science,”
"Epidemiology,” "Home Economics,” "Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking,”
"Interpretive Dance,” "Intro to Political Science,” "Introduction to Film,”
"Introduction to Statistics,” "Investigative Journalism,” "Messianic Myths and
Ancient Peoples,” "Mixology Certification,” "Physical Education,” "Romantic
Expressionism,” "Social Psychology,” "Spanish 101,” "The Art of Discourse,”
"The Politics of Human Sexuality.”
ENGL 2030: Experience of Literature—
Drama [Lavery]
Jeff is right, of course: Abed’s Life = Television obsession was well
established in Community’s first season, but how can it be that Jeff
possesses that extra-diegetic knowledge? “Il n'y a pas de horstexte” [“There is nothing outside the text”], Derrida insisted, and yet
Jeff has apparently been outside Community enough to know that
Abed has gone to the well once too often. Abed, on the other hand,
knows his TV. He’s absolutely right about Jeff: he is not your
standard “likeable leading man.” In fact, he’s pretty much a son of a
bitch.
Jeff is not the only easily/possibly dislikeable major character we
will meet in this survey of American sitcoms: flashforward to Barney
Stinson of How I Met Your Mother and Sheldon Cooper of Big Bang
Theory.
ENGL 2030: Experience of Literature—
Drama [Lavery]
If Community is the most selfreferential sitcom since The
Simpsons, it is, like its
animated forebear,
wonderfully, fiendishly,
hilariously intertextual. In a
Halloween episode
“Introduction to Statistics”
(1.7), Abed impersonates the
Christian Bale Batman
(although the episode’s final
image seems decidedly nonsuperheroish).
ENGL 2030: Experience of Literature—
Drama [Lavery]
One year later, in
“Epidemiology” (2.6), a
costumes-required school
dance (Abed comes as the
monster from the Alien films,
Pierce as Mr. Spock, Troy as
Ripley-in-the-futuristic fork-lift
[from Aliens], and Chang as
Peggy Fleming???), taco meat
purchased from the military
turns everyone into a zombie
and the episode into a spot-on
homage to an attack-of-thezombies movie.
ENGL 2030: Experience of Literature—
Drama [Lavery]
An entire episode (“Advanced Dungeons and Dragons,”
2.14), built around a marathon session of the
eponymous role-playing game, succeeds in advancing
several major (and one minor) character arcs. A
Christmas episode, told from Abed’s point of view
(“Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas,” 2.11), unfolds as a
stop-motion cartoon, with clay versions of all the
characters . . .
ENGL 2030: Experience of Literature—
Drama [Lavery]
The Community Cast with Feet of Clay (screen capture from “Abed’s
Uncontrollable Christmas”)
ENGL 2030: Experience of Literature—
Drama [Lavery]
In “Critical Film Studies”
(2.19), the study group
dresses up as
characters from
Quentin Tarantino’s
Pulp Fiction for a
surprise birthday party
for Abed.
ENGL 2030: Experience of Literature—
Drama [Lavery]
But without at first realizing it, Jeff gets caught up in
the birthday boy’s reenactment of My Dinner with
Andre (Louis Malle, 1981).
ENGL 2030: Experience of Literature—
Drama [Lavery]
The final two episodes of
Community’s second season,
"A Fistful of Paintballs" and
"For a Few Paintballs More," in
which a rival community
college seeks to destroy
Glendale by unleashing a
property and psyche destroying
paintball tournament brings
Leone back to life.
ENGL 2030: Experience of Literature—
Drama [Lavery]
Community’s
ingeniousness is not
without risks however. As
its creator Dan Harmon
recognizes in his
conversation with New
York magazine imaginative
brilliance may work against
the long-term interests of
quotidian television:
Dan Harmon (photo from
Salon)
ENGL 2030: Experience of Literature—
Drama [Lavery]
New York Magazine: Obviously this is a
show that's not afraid to take a leap into the
absurd and the fantastical. But do you ever
worry you've gone too far?
Harmon: I constantly worry that we've gone
too far. I especially worry about that right
now. At the end of season one, we decided
to end the season itself on a departure
episode. And I worry about the volume with
which we fantasize in season two. And then I
get worried that I really need to take stock
and watch all the episodes again, because
there are political reasons to worry about
that stuff, too: When that conversation is
happening in your head, it's happening also
in hallways where people make decisions
about scheduling and promotion that affect
the next twenty episodes, and I
Dan Harmon (photo from New
York Magazine)
ENGL 2030: Experience of Literature—
Drama [Lavery]
need those conversations out of people's heads.
Whether or not the show needs to change in this way
or that way, I need people to stop using certain
buzzwords when they talk abut our show at the water
cooler, like "weird," "inaccessible," "off-putting,"
"torture," "experimental," "irritating." I've got to replace
those words with "Parks and Rec." [Laughs.] If this
show is going to for seven years, it's going to need to
somehow roll out the red carpet for my mom in the third
season, without alienating the fans that we have who
love nothing more than the unpredictable nature of the
show, people I'm compulsively unable to betray
because I'm one of them.
ENGL 2030: Experience of Literature—
Drama [Lavery]
In a featurette on the Season 1 DVD set of Community
entitled “Creative Compromises,” Harmon shows us his
original vision for the series—before it was “watered down”
and “gutted” by “the TV machine.” What follows is a series
of clips in which his female characters pass gas
uncontrollably thanks to a newly-laid-down flatulence track.
The joke, of course, is that Community, while remaining
faithful to comedy’s centuries old allegiance to sex and
scatology, is anything but a prolonged fart joke. It is (so far)
a sitcom masterpiece.
ENGL 2030: Experience of Literature—
Drama [Lavery]
At the end of Season
Three, after a very public
battle with Chevy Chase,
Community’s mastermind
Dan Harmon was fired by
NBC, a network in its death
throes. Without Harmon in
charge, Season Four was,
IMHO, awful. Surprisingly,
Community was
nevertheless renewed and
Harmon was brought back
for Season 5.
ENGL 2030: Experience of Literature—
Drama [Lavery]
"Remedial Chaos
Theory" [3.4]—Onion
TV Club
ENGL 2030: Experience of Literature—
Drama [Lavery]