Parks and Recreation, “The Stakeout” (2.02).
There is a moment from the sitcom Parks and Recreation (2009-15), created by Greg Daniels and Michael Schur, that is exemplary of the staging of action ans stillness in the series. Ron Swanson, played by Nick Offerman, is at the heart of the scene. He is an advocate of libertarianism who is purposely remote and, perhaps contradictorily, serves as the Director of a Parks and Recreation department in Indiana — which, of course, he believes it should not exist. The series is a mockumentary that employs stylistic devices and techniques that have been used in other workplace sitcoms like The Office (2001-5, UK; 2005-13, US) such as hand-held filming and direct sound.
The moment is from the episode “The Stakeout” (2.02). Ron is fixed in his chair. The smallest movement of his body causes excruciating pain because of a hernia that had been bothering him for a while. “I made the mistake of sneezing”, he explains. Since he is usually seated and almost does not move, people do not notice his troubling situation. Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler), the energetic Deputy Director talks to him as if everything is as it usually is. In analysing and interpreting this moment, I call attention to the particular achievements of Offerman’s understated comedic performance. But also to the character’s physical characterisation, between action and stillness, feeling and apathy, mutual help and self-reliance, with a penetrating political dimension.
Such a moment revelas the richness of the sitcom, one of the most popular and neglected forms of televisual art. More broadly, the close stylistic analysis of this moment from Parks and Recreation gives me the opportunity to scrutinise and appraise Greg Daniels’ work as television creator. He had developed the American version of The Office and has been responsible for the animated sitcom King of the Hill (1997-present; with Mike Judge). In Parks and Recreation, he worked with Michael Schur. A distinct aspect of his work in the history of television lies in how it employs the format of the sitcom to frame satire. Satirical comedy makes use of irony and exaggeration in order to be socially and politically critical. Parks and Recreation uses the workplace sitcom to examine the inner workings of the institution that oversees public parks, open space, and community centres, its function in democracy and its connection with the daily lives of Pawnee’s inhabitants (Pawnee is the series’ fictional town in Indiana). Moreover, the series adapts the sketch comedy of Saturday Night Live (1975-present), where Daniels began as a member of the writing staff, to the sitcom genre along with the everyday, often subtle, humour of King of the Hill that paints a portrait of Middle America.
