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Community: Why Does It Matter To Me???

  • Writer: Luke Evans
    Luke Evans
  • Dec 11, 2020
  • 19 min read

Updated: Jan 9, 2021

I can't explain it. I don't know where it came from. I don't know why I love it as much as I do... but I do!!

Picture: Community Cast: Popculture.com


I stumbled upon "Community" for the first time during the Covid Debacle of 2020. At the same time, I found "Arrested Development". I loved them both instantly. It was my kind of funny. I'm really not sure what it was. Maybe the dry, sarcastic sense of humour. I do enjoy that. I like a straight-faced actor like Jason Bateman or Joel McHale reacting (or not reacting) to ridiculous situations. I do find it very funny. It wasn't long before I saw the Russo Brothers credited on both and being a ridiculous Marvel fan, I was very familiar with them. Maybe it was that. With "Arrested Development", I dropped off towards the end. The fourth season was not what I was looking for and because I was binge-watching it, the glaring difference in time from the end of S3 to the start of S4 was jarring for me. I did love the early years.


But "Community"... I fell in love straight away. I watched it right through and then turned back to the start and went through again. I got my daughters watching (some of) it. I used the Season 2 Paintball finale to teach Leadership Styles to my students in Wellbeing classes.


I loved everything about it.


And what is it that makes me love it? I'm not really sure, but what follows is me trying to work out the answer to this question...



The Humour, the Characters, and the Actors


In short, the characters are great. While they all start very differently from how they end up, the character dynamics - flaws and all - make their interactions real and relatable. The humour between them all is just sooooo good, in my humble opinion. I loved all of the characters and the actors themselves. Since my first viewing, I've watched some of their supporting vids and realised just how much these people actually seem to love each other in real life. Often, you'll see actors talk about how great it is working on set with cast and crew and how it's like a family. I wonder how long those feelings last normally, when they all move on to other things?


Well, these guys seem to have moved on to other things, and yet all hold each other close. They have a text chain together and still try to meet up for regular dinners and such, even the busiest of them. Ken Jeong (Senior Chang) and Joel McHale (Jeff) have a podcast together and the other actors regularly come back for hour-long chats. They really do seem to care a lot for each other. I think that showed on the screen very clearly through the way they interact with each other. The characters don't start out loving each other, it grows over the first season and looking at the clips below, you can see it grew in real life too, in a case of art imitating life or life imitating art...


Great examples of the cast all chatting together:



- Pic: From the Youtube.com clip: Episode #9 - 8 Podcasts and a Zoom Chat


Using the second picture directly above as a reference, I go through all of the characters at the bottom section of this page. It was really in the way here, so I've moved it to the end. If you already know the characters, just keep reading!! If you need to know who I'm talking about, read the blurbs at the end!



Social Issues - Racism, Bigotry, and Discrimination


I also like the diverse cast and the way that they openly discussed day-to-day racism, bigotry, and discrimination - and acknowledge how far we all have to go in this regard. I like that they tackle this as a serious issue, but can make the discussion light-hearted and keep it in the context of their relationships with each other. At the end of the day, they are a family and always come back to each other. There are many jokes revolving around how we deal with race and bigotry as a society and how no one is above having to work on what they say, think or do. We can all say or do offensive things from time to time without thinking:

Jeff: I'm saying you're a football player! It's in your blood! Troy: That's racist! Jeff: Your soul? Troy: That's racist! Jeff: Your eyes? Troy: That's gay? Jeff: That's homophobic! Troy: That's black. Jeff: That's racist! Troy: Damn.

AND I like the concept that even when we do make these mistakes or show our ignorance in a given situation, they made it look effortless for the family around the study table to move on together. They would point out the offending comment or action and move on. Even Chevvy Chase's character Pierce, who they call their "oldest, most racist friend", is forgiven for his ignorance and narrow-mindedness... well, most of the time. They always point it out to him, but they never try to change him more than he is willing to change and they only rarely try to get rid of him completely... Troy was writing a story in one episode and Pierce noticed some similarities between himself and a character:

Troy: I didn't say it was you! I said he was a crazy, old, racist doctor. Pierce: Yeah, and I'm your crazy, old, racist friend!

One great example of the tongue-in-cheek way they buck against political correctness is Senior Benjamin Chang - the Chinese Spanish teacher at the College. They have a lot of fun with this character, and having Ken Jeong playing him will always lead to laughs. While some of the characters are used to highlight racism for black people or homophobia or Islamaphobia, Senior Chang is used to point out many stereotypes assigned to Asian people, some subtely but most overtly. For a subtle one, there is the subtextual joke of Ken Jeong, a Korean-American actor, playing a Chinese man who teaches Spanish. Change points out the discrimination he has experienced as a Spanish teacher

- Pic: From the Youtube.com clip: Senor Chang - Spanish Genius

Chang: They say it just like that - "Why do you teach Spanish? Why you? Why not math? Why not photography? Why not martial arts?" I mean, surely it must be in my nature to instruct you in something that's ancient and secret, like, oh, building a wall that you can see from outer space? Well, I'll tell you why I teach Spanish: It is none of your business, okay?


They are constantly pointing out the stereotype that all Asians look the same - and yet, they have a Korean actor playing a Chinese man. At one point someone says, "Oh, I thought he was Korean!" and they get shouted down with, "He's Chinese!". At another time, he plays the Japanese Mr. Miagi in a stage production of The Karate Kid, to deepen the meta-joke. Deep cuts!


In Season 2's Episode 23: A Fist Full of Paintballs. Jeff and Chang are pinned down during their annual paintball tournament by the College Math Club. Chang says he has an idea on how to get them out:


Chang: Math Club? Math Club Member: Yeah? Chang: I'm Asian! You guys Asian? MCM: That's pretty racist, man! Chang: That wasn't a no! I'm coming over! Chang launches over the barricade towards the Math Club. He points back to Jeff's hiding spot Chang: Don't shoot me, shoot him! He's white and he's out of ammo!!

The Dean's character becomes increasingly flamboyant as the series moves forward. They use his character (among some others) to discuss issues relating to non-cis people, if I can use that term. At one point the School Board tries to label Dean Pelton as "gay" and to put him front and centre as their token gay member. Pelton states that "gay" doesn't begin to cover what he really is and he is offended to be labeled thus by other people - and fair enough too:

Dean: But I'm not just gay! Jeff: What does that even mean? Dean: If coming out is a magic show and gayness is a rabbit out of a hat, I'm one of those never-ending handkerchiefs... (skipping ahead) Dean: Now I get a chance to win. I can change the system, from the inside out, and all I have to do is pare down my sexuality to simply gayness - which is heavily in the mix ... Jeff: There you go! Dean: Get ready America, Dean Pelton is coming out as approximately two-sevenths of what he is!

- Pic: From the episode: Season 6 Episode 4: Queer Studies and Advanced Waxing.


The Dean goes on to inspire the young gay students of Greendale, who he discovers are struggling to feel accepted. When a student tells him that he never knew and that people do talk about it, the Dean replies that it has nothing to do with his work, to which the student replies with, "Yeah, but it's helpful, you know? To me, to a lot of us. So - thank you." He realises that he can help, but he still feels guilty for being seen as something he believes he is not, which makes him feel dishonest. They confront the issues in their usual light-hearted way, including a song "Gay Dean" that plays wistfully through the background of many scenes. Eventually, the Dean is sick of his "dishonestly" and at the episode's finale, the Dean holds a press conference to come out as what he really sees himself as - a politician...

So, they point out the stereotypes, the bigotries and the discrimination- and they still manage to have a bit of fun with them along the way. And on the way, they address them and move on. The creators also seem to be trying to diffuse the offense in some things by treating them in a light-hearted humorous way, rather than by being politically correct or taking offense at things.


I like it. In a world with so many people, we are all a little different from each other and we have a choice to try to get along, to embrace our differences and to laugh... or we can choose not to ...


Give me the first option!


Want more of their politically incorrect nonsense? Well, here's 38 scenes taken completely out of context that still make me laugh:


All of the characters are shown to have their own biases, intolerances and, yes, even racism when they look out at the other members of the school community. They are always called out on it, and yet they appear to be understanding of each other's imperfections, which leads to a strange tolerance of its own.



The Story Circle


Returning to my question of why I love this show - Maybe it was also creator Dan Harmon's Story Circle that appealed to me? As a writer, it has jumped out and I have shared this with students and my own children as well. The story behind the story circle goes a little something like this:


Apparently, Dan would get the early script from the writers and rewrite every episode to have it fit into this Story Circle template, where the components are basically that you:

1. Start off with a character that is in their own zone of comfort. 2. The character realises/discovers/expresses some "need" or "desire" that needs to be fulfilled. 3. To make this happen, the character enters an unfamiliar situation. 4. They need to adapt to the new situation. 5. They then try and succeed to get what they wanted. 6. In the process they pay a heavy price for it. 7. It wraps on the party's return from the challenge and into their familiar situation. 8. We then see that they have changed.

It is something that Dan evidently uses on "Rick and Morty" as well. More info on the story circle can be found all over the web! Google it!!

... or click here:


It's a great writing device and I guess that it sets each story up into a somewhat predictable pattern - Or at least it would if Dan Harmon's mind was anything other people could replicate. That's actually an amazing point, when you think about it - He uses a set format for story-telling, and yet the episodes and the script are pretty unpredictable as they move along. There are regular plot points, special episodes, references to other aspects of the show, long-running jokes - all of which he seems to pull out of the air to catch us by surprise. Who would predict the yearly references to paintball, the meta jokes, the character progressions, the movie plot spoofs? Well... I didn't, anyway...



Abed and The Darkest Timeline


There was a great episode (Season 3 Episode 4: Remedial Chaos Theory) where the Study Group goes to Troy and Abed's new apartment and has a housewarming party. The pizza delivery man arrives and no one wants to get the pizza, so Jeff suggests that they roll a dice and starting on his left each person would have a number. The number that comes up on the dice will determine who goes to get the pizza. Abed warns Jeff that if he does this, he is now creating 6 different timelines - one for each number and each person who has to leave the table. Jeff dismisses the idea and throws the dice. The episode then shows us what happens in each of the new timelines. The timeline that corresponded to the 1-roll of the die was referred to after this as "The Darkest Timeline". There are several crossovers with this timeline through the series, mostly via Abed's internal imagination - which at times border on full delusions and what might even be classed as complete mental breakdowns.


As a little aside, in the main timeline, Abed actually caught the die before it landed and reveals that Jeff had constructed a system where he never had to go and get the pizza himself - since there were seven people at the table and only six sides to the dice. It is the 7th possible timeline and the one that we are shown as the "real world". Click on the 6 different timelines link for a rundown of the other six timelines. Funny stuff! Better yet, watch the episode!



Anyway, back to Abed. Abed starts the series simply by referencing movies all of the time or acting out scenes from movies in his real life in response to whatever is happening. Abed is autistic, having what might have been referred to at the time as Asperger's Syndrome, which is now a somewhat defunct term. Jeff tells him that he has Aspergers once in the first episode out of frustration, but mostly through the show, they only allude to his condition, with characters mentioning things more abstractly to him. Example: Also in the first episode, Abed tells Jeff that Britta had informed him that she has a brother who works with children with a condition that he (Abed) might want to look into. This is a typical way that it is addressed through the show. Anyway, having limitations to his social skills, Abed adopts responses that he has seen from movies that he thinks are relevant in a given situation. Sometimes, he adopts the persona of a character that he thinks suits the moment to help him get through. At other times he relies on the study group to help him to understand and how best to respond to situations.



At several times during the series, Abed shows that he is in fact incapable of distinguishing the real world from his imaginary one. He also once adopted the persona of the Darkest Timeline's "Evil Abed" almost completely as his own, which nearly had disastrous consequences. In Season 5 when Troy leaves the show, he heart-breakingly tells Troy that he knows that he is "crazy", as he has heard people telling him this all of his life.


A lot of the show's depth and emotion come through people's interactions with Abed. He and Troy develop a very deep friendship (or "bro-mance", as is often joked) and it brings so much heart and humour to the show. Abed's interactions with the other members of the Study Group family are often based more on humour than deeper experiences, but he is a treasure in the group and also for the viewers to watch. It's a very unique character on TV really and deals with both autism and mental illness in a creative and thought-provoking way.


- Pic: The Wrap



Paintball and Games?


The ongoing homage episodes involving the campus' annual Paintball Assassin Competition are among my favourite episodes. They were packed full of tributes to different movies and movie tropes that I just loved (the ones I got, anyway! There were so many!).

- Source pics: Community Wiki


The first season rips off Die Hard and a bunch of other movies (see: This Reddit Post by User u/gravewisdom45). In the second season, they have a two-parter, with the first paying homage to Spaghetti Westerns and the second paying tribute to Star Wars. In Season 3, they didn't do an episode as such, but there was a flashback to a previously unseen paintball moment where the Dean has been shot in a noir-inspired round of paintball assassin. Abed holds the Dean, dressed as a 1920's "dame", as he pretends to "die", and asks why the Dean saved him:

Dean: I know how important paintball is to you, Abed. I wanted you to win. Abed: It's not important anymore. I get it now. It just feels... forced.


So funny. To have a paintball just for the sake of it at that point would've been forced. Season 4 brought back the next paintball round in a new way when Jeff, who was looking at the possibility of graduating early, was fearful of leaving the group. In what was shown to be a sci-fi episode knocking off a bunch of different films, including Terminator, it was revealed that Jeff was imagining the alternate versions of the Study Group from Abed's "Darkest Timeline" coming to the show's prime timeline to wipe their counterparts out. It's not really paintball, as such, but a sci-fi knock-off with some paintball-inspired vapourization guns... Whatever it was, I enjoyed it.


Season 5 skipped paintball again - a very wise decision - and had a campus-wide game of "Hot Lava" to farewell Troy from the school instead. It was still pretty cool and paid homage to the first season when Abed declared a game in the Study Room, and only the younger three members of the group jumped up on their chairs, while the older four stayed seated and Jeff remarked about the generation gap in the group.


Paintball came back one last time for Season 6's very enjoyable spy-themed, underground and outlawed paintball session. My favorite reference in this one was to "Highlander" when the opening duel occurs in an under-cover parking lot. There were "The Bodyguard" references, "True Lies" references, and a very funny use of Batman actors names as codenames: "West" (Annie), "Bale" (Abed), "Keaton" (Jeff), "Clooney" (Britta), "Kilmer" (Elroy), and the extremely funny "The Voice of Diedrich Bader" (The Dean). This lead to some internet speculation as to why each actor was paired with each character, with the obvious one being Britta, who has the running joke through the series of people saying "You're the worst!" to her. I wonder if that one would be "Affleck" now...? Oooh, low blow... and nope... Still Clooney...


If I was to look back and ask which one was the best for me, the Season 2 double ep has a special place in my heart, but I really enjoy the last one as well. Hell, I enjoy them all!!


Throughout the series, they play a couple of other games too, including two rounds of building Troy and Abed inspired pillow and blanket forts (which erupted into full-scale Grendale civil war on the second occassion) and a little bit of fooseball thrown in to boot (ha... see what I did there?? Boot... ha...). They are all just... fun. At times the show degenerates into ridiculousness, but I really don't care. It's just fun.



Too many references?


One of the links I provided above had a thread on it where some people said that they found the huge amount of references difficult to get on board with. There were two reasons. The first was that they had enjoyed an episode of the show and then found out that it was mostly comprised of references and tropes and that had killed it for them. It seemed like lazy writing to them. The episode being referenced was the first round of paintball: Season 1 Episode 23: Modern Warfare.

To me, it's even better writing. If you can enjoy the show on face value, then they have done their job - they have entertained you. If someone could construct a show completely full of references and make it into a good show, I would suggest that this would be a lot of work to make it all come together. To me, that's the opposite of lazy. They made their own story from all of these pieces of stories from different places, and it worked as its own whole.


The second part they said was probably more obvious. They just didn't get it, because they knew that it was full of references they didn't understand. The more I look into it, the more I see there are hundreds of things happening that I didn't even know about. It doesn't matter to me - it made the second run through even more fun and I still missed soooooo much. When I started writing about the Season 1 paintball thing, I wrote that it was an homage to Die Hard alone... Then I looked up the link where the detractors wrote and found out there were at least ten movies it was based on! I love that stuff. I watched this YouTube clip Community: 15 Insane Details You Definitely Missed and was pleasantly surprised to find out they were wrong. I did see a fair bit of this stuff! There was a long-running gag where Abed was meeting with a pregnant couple in the background and he eventually delivered her baby. I saw one scene where she went into labour and he helped her out of the cafe. It was blurry in the background, but I saw it! Watch the clips to see how much of that story I missed! It was a lot...


I see what they are saying. It's jam-packed with them because I think that's how Dan Harmon's mind works. He just jumps out with them and he knows a lot of them, so they bleed into his writing and comedy. I saw a table reading of one of the Community scripts with Pedro Pascal (of "The Mandalorian" fame) and when I watched some interviews after, Joel McHale (Jeff) said that Dan was making Mandalorian puns and jokes throughout. I didn't even hear them. On two occasions I heard Dan say "Dalorian!" and I thought he said, "Delorian" (like the car)... It turned out that he/someone else had said "Man" and then Dan quickly added "Dalorian!" to the end of it as an off-the-cuff joke. I didn't even notice it...

There are definitely a lot of them. Not too many for me, but I appreciate that it is too many for some, especially if you don't know what they are referencing.


For the people who do like seeing the references to other movies and shows, here's a few more:



BRIEF COMMUNITY CHARACTER PROFILES:


Using the picture above as a reference, I'll quickly go through each character and actor, since I'll be discussing them all below. Starting at the top left:


* Gillian Jacobs as Britta - an idealistic protestor who gains the semi-undeserved reputation for being "the worst" throughout the series. In reality, she is loving and kind and tries hard to be a good person. She eventually chooses phycology as her major, despite being pretty bad at reading people in this way.


* Danny Pudi (top middle) is Abed Nadir - A young Palestinian-Polish American who is obsessed with pop culture references and wants to be a film director. According to Wikipedia, he has an "undiscovered mental condition which makes it hard for him to comprehend individuals", but it is more than likely that this is intended as a version of autism. While Jeff defines it as "Asperger's Syndrome" in the first episode, the rest of the time it is undefined. Autism or Asperger's would not be enough to outline the full extent of his condition, as he also appears to be unable at times to distinguish between the real world and his imagination and one several occasions appears to suffer from a form of mental breakdown. There are aspects of his character that seem like schizophrenia or dissociative identity disorder ... but I'm not a psychologist!! Don't trust me. Regardless, he is the heart and soul of the group and despite his delusions, he often helps the Study group to see what is happening more clearly than anyone else can.


* Joel McHale (top right) stars as Jeff Winger - the main protagonist, Jeff is a lawyer who faked his undergraduate degree and was disbarred. He has come to Greendale to get a degree as quickly as he can so that he can return to law as soon as possible. He spends the vast majority of the series trying to overcome his selfish personality and despite himself, he quickly falls in love with the study group, which he initially started as a means of getting a date with Britta.


* Ken Jeong (middle left) is Ben Chang - "Senior Chang" or "El Tigre Chino" ("The Chinese Tiger") is a Spanish teacher who serves as one of the antagonists of the series, mainly because he really wants to be a part of the group. Eventually, he is accepted into the group, but only after being fired as a teacher, enrolling as a student, taking over the school as a security-guard-turned-dictator, faking amnesia, going to jail for trying to blow up the college and kill the study group and finally being rehired as a maths tutor... it's a long story... It's as stupid as it sounds and I love it. My only criticism is that I wish he was actually accepted into the Study Group sooner. I love this character so much.


* The middle pic is Dan Harmon, series creator, writer, showrunner and executive producer. He is also the co-creator of "Rick and Morty".... Legend...


* Donald Glover (middle right) plays Troy Barnes - one of the two youngest characters in the study group. His relationship with Abed is one of the most heartwarming in the group and Troy's character shifts from being a selfish jock to more of a nerdy companion for Abed pretty quickly. Donald Glover is great as Troy and brings a lot of humour and heart to the character.


* Yvette Nicole Brown (bottom left) is Shirley Barnett - a stay-at-home mother who came to Greendale to learn the skills she would need to start up her own baking business. Shirley is a Christian and can be quite passively-aggressive to the other members of the group. While calling out other members of the community on their inherent biases and discriminations, Shirley often appears to be blind to her own. She is the mother figure of the group.


* Alison Brie (bottom middle) is Annie Edison - the other young one in the group, Annie went to school with Troy but dropped out due to an addiction to Adderall. She is one of the smartest and most diligent students in the group, along with Shirley, and is often shown to be innocent and sweet. Due to her young age, there is a tension between Jeff and Annie throughout the series, as they share an attraction, but are very aware of the age difference (Jeff is in his late 30's and Annie is 18 at the start of the show).


* Jim Rash (bottom right) is Dean Craig Pelton - The administrator of the school, Dean Pelton considers the study group as his favourite students. He develops an obsessive crush on Jeff early on in the series, which intensifies as the series goes on. The Dean is an avid cross-dresser and when pushed into declaring himself as "gay" claims that is merely "Two-sevenths" of what he really is. It offends him deeply when others mislabel him, pare-down, or dismiss his sexuality as something less than it is - while at the same time noting that it is not an important part of his work life or anyone else's business anyway. He is not a particularly good school administrator (as evidence I cite that he once nearly gave a degree to a dog), but his heart is generally in the right place and he loves his school and it's students.


* Chevy Chase (not pictured) is Pierce Hawthorne - A rich socialite, Pierce is referred to once by Jeff as their "oldest, most racist friend". That sums him up. He can be petty, racist and unapologetically rude, which often brings him into conflict with the other characters. His character dies off-screen in Season 5 (when Chevy was fired and left the show) and several other cast members came on to take his place during Seasons 5 and 6 - including Jonathan Banks as Professor Buzz Hickey, Keith David as Elroy Patashnik.


* There are heaps of other amazing characters, including my favourites John Oliver as Professor Ian Duncan and Richard Erdman as Leonard Briggs. More details on all of them here.





Thanks for reading!



NOTE: The pictures used here have been sourced from different internet sites, always linked to under the picture. All rights remain with the original creators and have been used here for entertainment and educational purposes only.

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