Like millions of others, I have been watching the confirmation hearings with open-mouthed astonishment. It looks as though we will get an election denier as our next attorney general. And the pick for secretary of defense is a bizarrely unqualified boob (who admittedly has nice hair).
Since I have also been bingeing The Office, it is hard not to make comparisons. But here’s the thing. When you watch the insane clown show, and see all of those senators trying hard to maintain a straight face, you begin to see the characters in The Office differently.
At the end of the day, Michael Scott and his co-workers have a certain measure of dignity. Underneath the absurdist comedy, you end up seeing real people, flawed yet striving to be better.
That particular quality — the possibility of redemption — is one of the defining traits of absurdist comedy. But there is nothing at all redemptive about the current round of confirmation hearings. They are simply sad and tragic and stupid, although most definitely absurd.
Maybe in these hearings we are witnessing the birth of a new kind of reality television — absurdist tragedy.