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Title: | Management in/as comic relief : queer theory and gender performativity in The Office |
Authors: | Tyler, Melissa Cohen, Laurie |
Keywords: | The Office Queer theory Judith Butler Gender performativity Parody |
Issue Date: | 2008 |
Publisher: | © Blackwell Publishing Ltd |
Citation: | COHEN, L., 2008. Management in/as comic relief : queer theory and gender performativity in The Office. Gender, Work and Organization, 15 (2), pp. 113-132 |
Abstract: | Our discussion here focuses on gender performativity — the evocation of
gender through stylized modes of interaction and the recitation of particular
cultural norms — in the BBC comedy series The Office. We suggest that
The Office can be read as a cultural text that brings sedimented ways of
thinking about and enacting gender into relief, a technique that effectively
‘queers’ management and organization as gendered phenomena. In doing
so, we argue that not only does The Office parody the ways in which
management is configured according to the terms of what Judith Butler has
described as the ‘heterosexual matrix’, but that it also represents a parodic
critique of the gendered ways in which this configuration is enacted in
everyday organizational encounters. We also suggest that, in addition to its
capacity to be read as a parody of gender performativity, The Office reflects
queer theory’s concern, particularly as the latter has been articulated in
Butler’s writing, to reveal something of the pathos inherent in the desire
for recognition that underpins the hegemonic performance of gender. In
this respect, our reading of The Office emphasizes that, as a popular cultural
text, it throws into (comic) relief the extent to which the desire for
recognition underpins the organizational performance and management of
gender in accordance with the terms of the heterosexual matrix. |
Description: | This article is Restricted Access. It was published in the journal, Gender, Work and Organization [© Blackwell Publishing Ltd] and is available at: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/117990217/home |
Version: | Restricted access |
DOI: | 10.1111/j.1468-0432.2007.00351.x |
URI: | https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/2134/4135 |
ISSN: | 0968-6673 |
Appears in Collections: | Closed Access (Business School)
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