HOMEWORK for Monday, March 2nd

Michael Scott & Dwight Schrute bobblehead cardboard cutouts
Originally uploaded by muuuusic

Hey kids -

Here is a link to an online version of "A Modest Proposal".

http://www.victorianweb.org/previctorian/swift/modest.html

Please read it in its entirety for Monday and be prepared to answer questions on its content.

Also, don't forget to complete The Office: Diversity Day Worksheet, due Monday. You can catch the rest of the episode at www.hulu.com

I found the following online; it's a little blurb about the episode and its satirical nature:

The Office: Diversity Day

"During its first three seasons, NBC's The Office satirized corporate America's bumbling attempts to change its own entrenched sexist, racist, and homophobic attitudes. Michael Scott is a comic representation of the hypocrisy of the American business environment; personifying both its urge to be seen as likable and tolerant and its longing to return to a time when it could freely run on a system of white male privilege.

A manager who became successful during a time when business shamelessly ran on the good ol' boy system, Michael cannot change his sexist and racist outlook to keep up with the corporate world's new need to seem inclusive. Yet, it is he who has to lead the diversity day training (where he requires all staff to say racially insulting things about whatever ethnic group is named on a card taped to the person's head) and oversee the sexual harassment awareness training (in which he constantly sexually harasses the office women).

However, no matter how diverse his staff or how many diversity training sessions he attends (or leads), Michael continuously fails to rewrite his sexist and prejudiced views of people. Michael treats every woman as a sex interest, a matron, or an emotional fluff brain and insults every minority by mimicking stereotypical representations of their ethnic group. He is constantly surrounded by women and minorities who are far more competent than he is, but he unfailingly adjusts his view of them to match his preconceived notions of a group to which they pertain. Part of the humor of the show comes from watching people decide how to react in the face of his egregiously incorrect views. We watch people react to Michael's misbehavior and recognize the decisions we make on a daily basis about when to let an offense go unmentioned and when we should protest."