Mapping DOA to The Office: an overlong shitpost

That's what she said - Michael Scott

So someone on the Discord called DoA the one lesbian webcomic that isn't afraid to be boring, and I've been thinking about that. (and not in a logical way. I think way too much about pop culture. This is your sign to click away if you're not into long-ass posts comparing webcomics to sitcoms because this will annoy you.)

I'm a big The Office fan and there's a parallel. There's a Jenna Fischer clip where she talks about The Office cast basically getting told early on not to be afraid to be boring, because that's what sold the whole fake-documentary cringe thing. Same energy.

So - I don't think Willis is going (intentionally) for the same 'dreary/cringe/somehow still occasionally funny' vibe of Season One of The Office - but they might be getting there anyway.

They've specifically compared Joyce and Dorothy to Leslie and Ann from Parks and Rec before.

But I think, upon reflection, Joyce and Dorothy are much closer aligned to a couple of characters from The Office than anyone from P&R. (note - they are both Greg Daniels and Michael Schur shows and there is a bit of sameness between some of the characters on the shows. Leslie and Michael Scott do share a bunch of qualities: over-enthusiasm, big heart, need to be liked. Leslie (post season one, anyway) is sort of the gender-swapped Michael Scott who is competent and has some leadership chops.)

Anyway it got stuck in my head and I started trying to figure out who's who, and it goes way further than it has any right to.

Joyce = Michael Scott. I mean. Zero chill, socially clueless in the way that's supposed to be funny, makes everything about herself, and she's where most of the cringe in any given storyline is coming from. Super weird about minorities and dramatically overshares romantic stuff. I could go on. There are a lot of points of convergence between Michael and Joyce. (Many more than she has with Leslie from P&R, anyway.) Michael is the only other fictional character I could see accidentally making themselves the center of an anti-genocide movement without really meaning to or knowing what it was even about.

Dorothy = Dwight. This one kind of annoyed me with how well it fits. Overachiever, rules-brain, intense, thinks being good at stuff makes her a good person, huge blind spots (see her recent conversation with Danny etc). One meaningful exception: Dwight's pining for Angela was never as messed-up as Dorothy's pining for Joyce (Dwight never ran back into a protest that was being kettled to get a girl's attention. What the heck was that anyway? Ah well - we're slow-walking the Dorothy PTSD arc, I suppose.) Leaving that elephant aside, it maps pretty well. (Honestly, you could also argue for Ryan as the Dorothy mapping instead of Dwight, but it doesn't hold up quite as well.)

Becky and Dina = Andy and April. Together, as a set. Loud sunny one plus the flat moody one, both secretly soft about each other. Which, ok, that's a Parks and Rec couple and not an Office one, but hang on.

Billie = Meredith. Not gonna explain it.

Ruth = Jan. The whole boss-but-also-a-mess thing. Volatile, controlling, kind of bent on self-destruction.

Sarah = Stanley. So done with everyone. Wants to be left alone and never is. Not even going to touch the whole 'I was your big sister before Jocelyne was' thing, because, well, that's insane and I'm pretending it wasn't a thing.

Lucy = Erin. Sweet, eager, a little lost, running on pure golden-retriever energy.

Asma = Season 1 Kelly. Barely defined right now, same as Kelly was in s1, and I'd put money on her getting flanderized into a bit in the near future. I'm pretty sure the "lovesick lesbian" thing is going to be played for laughs. Let's hope I'm wrong.

Charlie = Kevin. I hate how well this works. 80% of the time either is on screen - it's for a joke about how they're dumb or scatterbrained.

Ethan = Oscar. Look it's mostly that he's the gay guy who never gets screen time. moving on. In fairness, there are a few different gay/bi male characters in DOA so, yay, representation box checked. Unfortunately, as with Oscar, they pretty much don't get much screen time.

Carla = Post-Season 1 Kelly. Yeah, I'm splitting Kelly across two people, fight me. In fairness, Kelly is probably less off the rails than current day Carla.

Mary = Angela. No need to explain this, right?

There are a bunch more, but a couple genuinely don't fit. Walky's the most obvious miss. Jim is the closest you get and it still doesn't really work. And then there's Amber, who doesn't map at all, because a slice-of-life cringe comedy simply doesn't have a slot for someone with superhero alter-ego. That's less a gap in the bit than the point where DoA stops mapping to The Office and turns into its own thing.

Anyway - I'm sorry if you read all that.