Review of "Community"

Here at Northampton, we like to say that “’Community’ is our middle name.”  Well, at NBC these days, “Community” happens to be the full name of their new TV comedy series – one they’re so taken with that they’re airing it on Thursday night.  Americans have favored NBC on Thursday nights ever since “Cheers” in the 1970s and 80s and “Seinfeld” in the 1990s.  Now it’s “The Office” and “30 Rock” on Thursday night that make the “peacock” network proud today. 

But will TV viewers like “Community” and its version of life among community college students?  And what about those viewers who happen to be part of such a “community” themselves – like us?  We spend huge chunks of our daily lives in the show’s setting.  Will it prove to be both real and funny to us?

Thursday night’s premiere episode had a little reality and just enough humor for me to enjoy the show, although I can’t imagine Northampton or any community college recommending it to prospective students.  “If I wanted to learn something,” says the show’s main character, Jeff, “I wouldn’t have come to a community college.”  Ouch!!

This absurdity comes from a guy who’s been disbarred as a lawyer because his undergraduate degree from “Columbia” was actually from Colombia (a cheap shot at an entire nation and Hispanics in general).  Later he describes the fictional Greendale Community College as a “school-shaped toilet.”  These jokes about community college promote a stereotype that my students and colleagues at Northampton disprove every day.

Jeff’s good friend on campus is a psychology professor he defended on a D.U.I. charge and who drinks from a half-empty bottle of wine in his office – don’t try that here!  At least he promotes some respectability for his profession by not giving Jeff in advance the test answers he desires.

But Jeff mainly desires one of his classmates, Britta, and he creates a Spanish 101 study group just to hit on her. Here enters some reality, as the group is very much like one you might see meeting at Northampton, with a real diversity of personalities, ages, and backgrounds.  Chevy Chase, for example, plays an older businessman – a guy you’d rarely see taking freshman-level courses anywhere but at a community college. 

I’ve had a few students like him – and like the other types in the group.  And I’ve also known other students at Northampton that you just don’t meet teaching elsewhere: a Miss America finalist, a former heavyweight boxing champ, a pole dancer (Jeff would’ve liked her!), a South Korean pop singing star, and – perhaps my strangest example – a man in his 70s who’d been recruited to join our golf team.  Together they’d have made some study group!

By creating a “community” at Greendale of diverse learners, this new NBC comedy does indeed portray life at places like Northampton that offer a college education – and much more -- to nearly all Americans who desire one.  As Jeff proclaims to his classmates, “You’ve just stopped being a study group.  You’ve become something unstoppable…a community!”  That’s no joke, of course, and if “Community” can slip in more moments of truth and wisdom like that one…well, I’ll keep watching – and maybe Jeff will learn something at a community college after all!

Dr. James Von Schilling, Professor of English

The Northampton Community College faculty includes experts on everything from art to nanotechnology.  As teachers, they enjoy challenging students and each other to think carefully and critically about topics in the media.  Whether you agree or disagree with Dr. Von Schilling's views, join the discussion by posting your own thoughts.  To do, so, click on “Join” (above) and then sign in, or e-mail your comments to hbutler@northampton.edu for posting.