Abbott Elementary stands on the shoulders of mockumentary giants. Sure, The Office, but also Ja’mie: Private School Girl. At the show’s TCA Studio Day panel, creator Quinta Brunson spoke on how a show impacted her sense of how unlikable a comedy protagonist can be. “Ja’mie was more inspiration for me for Ava than anything. People think it’s Michael Scott,” Brunson said. “Ja’mie is so horrible, but by the end of the show I’m like ‘Aw man, I really want Ja’mie to get what she wants. I really believe in her.’”
The Office most clearly impacted Abbott Elementary behind the camera, with director and executive producer Randall Einhorn. When working on The Office, Einhorn came up with one of the show’s most subtle dramaturgical flourishes: characters who have a future outside Dunder Mifflin have a window behind them in their talking heads. People who are “stuck” in the office are also stuck in the frame. At the panel, Einhorn said he hadn’t come up with anything as impactful on Abbott, which Brunson immediately called bullshit on. “When we first started, I wanted to put the talking heads in the classrooms,” she told Einhorn. “You said ‘These are teachers who are on the move. They don’t have time to sit down and have talking heads in the classroom.’ And that’s where them doing talking heads in the hallway, with activity in the background, came from.”
The Abbott crew emphasized how crucial it is to keep the -umentary part of a mockumentary in focus. “For me, there’s a very good reason there’s a documentary being done at an inner city underfunded school,” Einhorn said. “It needs to be done, it needs to be spoken about.” Everything has to be weighed against reality. Big guest stars won’t be on the show if they break the reality of the world. So stop coming up to Quinta Brunson at parties and pitching yourself, Hollywood elites. It’s not gonna happen!
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Bethy Squires , 2024-02-14 03:41:49
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