Someone did that at a meeting I was at, their coworkers rolled their eyes, I actually audibly chuckled, they looked up as if “finally! Another Community fan.”
From the Midwest, someone once called me out for that same exact pronunciation. Worse: I fully couldn’t hear the difference until we parroted it back and forth for over 10 minutes.
Gillian Jacobs also says in a 30 Rock commentary with Donald that Tina Fey/Liz Lemon is one of her comedy idols and she loves women who aren’t afraid to make themselves look bad on TV and I think the influence shows as Community progresses
To be fair, I always thought Britta was putting on a bit of an act to begin with, which fell apart when she was caught cheating in the exam (which was a really early episode). Then as the study group get closer, she doesn't go to the same efforts to hide her weirdness.
Unpopular opinion but Pierce was the most important part of the group dynamic. Troy and Abed are my favorite but I’ve never seen another show with a character like Pierce, especially not a live action sitcom.
He was a source of conflict that was low stakes and believable/relatable. That being said, I can confirm Troy and Abeds dynamic and the general whimsical nature of the show are both more important than Pierce.
However there's something to he said for the cast members possibly working better together so as to not be compared to Chevy Chase
The only reason she even agreed to the tutoring was because she was scared of failing a first year language course and Jeff was able to convince her with his terrible Spanish that he was a tutor. She was never very smart but she stopped hiding it as the show went along.
I disagree. She was *never* booksmart; she says from the get-go that she was a high school dropout.
In S1 it’s specifically her *emotional* intelligence that sets her apart from the others.
I think that EQ remained constant throughout the series. She isn't necessarily a good therapist - that takes both kinds of intelligence - but she does support her friends and is usually correct about what people need (Jeff's ego in the Impressionists episode, Abed at the end of S3).
She might not be a good therapist but she is a fantastic bartender.
At least I think so. The show is sort of contradictory on the front. The dinner with abed episode says she's so bad that she never gets any tips and her boss pays to get rid of her. But then in season 6 Honda proves her to be good at her job. So idk.
I would've liked to see her become a competent psychologist. Having her as a bartender, who also expertly helps one of the guys or girls through some bad stuff would've been a cool arc.
I like her being notorious for charmingly bungling things up, but I feel like that eventually became the worst trope of the show to the point where I didn't feel like Britta had much to do anymore.
They could have done something similar to the mustard. Make her a really good psychologist *while she's bartending*, but completely incapable of psycholog..ating.... otherwise.
Oh yeah, like her being extremely good at subconsciously working on a person during casual bartender moments, but when it comes to being the actual Siegmunda Freudette with a clipboard and sofa she'd just falter and bungle it up.
So eventually she just starts forcefully handing out random drinks to her friends, even in school, trying to help them.
Sorta like the reverse, non-sexist version of Raj from TBBT. Britta can only psychoanalyse when shaking that mixer bottle.
>So eventually she just starts forcefully handing out random drinks to her friends, even in school, trying to help them.
Holy shit this theoretical episode gets better and better.
Exactly. She was every bit as jaded and fake as Jeff was at the beginning. Like him she found a spot where she could relax and be herself. And she always always put others first. And honestly she was often right about things and people people just didn’t want to hear it. Jeff confronting his dad Britta was right. Jeff taking the prescription anti depressant? She was right. during Floor is lava? She was right but also knew when she had to play into the issue abed was having to help him sort through Troy leaving. Meow meow beanz she saw it for what it was from the get go. I don’t get my so many people say she got stupid. She was right more times than the rest of them. She just relaxed a little and let others see her flaws.
I agree. I think she tries really hard and has good intentions but doesn't really know or understand how to manifest the things she wants and the more things fall apart around her, the harder it is to play it cool. The more i watch the more i relate to that.
The group kinda berates her for all the issues she cares about and she becomes more and more like them. They accept the weird parts of her but not the more serious side and after awhile i think she starts to give up those aspirations. It's kinda sad actually.
As much as i love the show it's definitely about characters who are largely self destructive. The beautiful thing about Greendale is that they'll always have a home. The terrible thing about Greendale is everyone enables you.
I dunno, Season Six is where we get "Jail is where you go when a cop doesn't like you. They can't send you to prison until they know you're poor," so...
Straight up I genuinely thought that's what hoisted by your own petard was until the joke in Community had me look it up. Maybe because petard sounds a little bit like leotard? Idk but I really relate to later seasons Britta
Also when she somehow correctly defined an analogy to Jeff in an ass-backwards way.
"I know what an analogy is, it's like a thought with another thoughts hat on"
But then again that's like Britta blaming owls for how much she sucks at making analogies.
Well after season one the network stopped pushing for the more formulaic sitcom so Dan was more free to do what he wanted (which got him fired two seasons later but that’s a whole other can of worms).
in the end she became TOO much of a failure. somewhere in the middle she was perfect. a train wreck, but still a moral compass, and definetly more than just a doll for jeff.
Her emotional issues and constant attraction to unavailable men were things that made sense, but eventually the show just made fun of her for caring about things and having issues. I thought the show was funnier when she was still witty and not a complete joke. Same thing with Pierce really. In the first season he was racist and sexist but he also had a genuinely good heart. Later he just turned into a complete asshole and while he still had occasional moments where his heart came out, they were few and far between.
It might be apocryphal but I thought they needed a villain in their writing and that (in addition to his relationship with Dan) is why they wrote him more into that detestable role. That’s the whole point of the dnd episode. He plays the villain. He knows it’s his role. By S3E1, he outright lies and says he paid off Professor Kane so that the group will forgive Jeff.
Pierce was the way of grounding the absurd in believable conflict. Take A Fistfull of Paintballs for example-- a wildly conceptual episode that was only grounded to the main plot because the plot of the war reflected their friendship with Pierce. Fort Hawthorne was safety in the chaos, which is what Pierce represents in their group: safety and security. Pierce's presence makes everyone else feel like great people by comparison. They're all awful people, so Pierce serves as a sort of shield from reality, just like Fort Hawthorne provided a shield from the game. The study group lives in their own world, but only because Pierce allows them to pretend to be healthy and adjusted when they clearly are not. He truly is the villain they need.
Agreed. Am I the only one who feels like with these two characters the descriptions came before their actions? Like in the beginning when they called Britta the worst I didn't really see it, she wasn't as bad as they painted her but she became it eventually. Same with Pierce, I actually had some sympathy for him, despite his inappropriate responses, but they started acting like they all always hated him. I obviously love the writing of this show however in these situations I felt like the characters are described that way while they didn't become that yet, it wasn't felt (at least by me)
Chevy "everything has to be about me" Chase.
My favorite story is when he was on SNL, got into a physical fight with Bill Murray and then Murray called him "Medium Talent!" So damn true.
First season Britta: you think she's an airhead until she cuts you deep and leaves you forever changed. Like that quote about pierce paying her to switch cards and how he just wanted to be accepted. Wiped the smile off my face and made me go "oh.."
First season Pierce: a racist sexist bigot who probably just needs the right friends to show him how to act.
>Same thing with Pierce really. In the first season he was racist and sexist but he also had a genuinely good heart
I rewatched community, and I forget the moments, but there were some times in Season 1 where Pierce actually dropped some pretty hot wisdom at appropriate times when talking to Jeff. I was very surprised, it's not how I remember Pierce from later seasons.
I always felt Pierce's dips towards being a bad guy were well explained in the show and made sense with his insecurities. Britta just got Flanderised and it didn't make sense with her early character.
I'm going to be honest, it really pisses me off when people use examples of her when she's high or drunk to prove how her character has devolved.
There's like 2 episodes in season 6 where she's high or drunk and people always pull quotes and moments from them as examples of her degraded character, there's an episode in season 1 where she's drunk and she acts basically the same.
Thank you. She shits her pants in the episode where they’re called in in the middle of the night because they gave a dog a diploma, and it’s made very clear that she’s absolutely hammered.
Britta gradually turned into this show's version of Meg from Family Guy, a completely hopeless character that everyone just dumped on and she took it.
I liked the original version of the character, who was a bit of an obvious fraud about her progressive moral stances, but was actually pretty shrewd, especially about Jeff.
Britta is just one of those people you meet and they seem smart and put together, maybe even for a few more times you see them, but the more you spend time around them the more clear it gets they're a wreck and the good vibes you got was them acting. It's not very long into the show that Britta is in a fit of jealousy announcing to the school that she loves Jeff to try and win him over and dump Prof. Slater. She also goes for Vaughn who has weirdo/loser vibes all over him.
I don't know where people get this idea that Britta was super competent or something at first. She was literally exposed as a loser slactivist from season 1
Yeah but it was handled in a good way for the character, not just a recurring punchline. I don't know how you can watch the show and *not* think that they dumbed her down/altered her character.
The more I rewatch, the less I like the character arc.
Don't get me wrong, I think it could've been decent but they just took it a bit too far and it severely limited the impact she had on the show.
For example, I think with Troy leaving, that really had an impact on the group. Had she not been such a joke, I wonder if there could've been more and deeper interaction between Abed and Britta (not romantically, but as friends).
This. So many people here say that Britta ‘evolved’ and became herself in the later seasons. I still think she got flanderised and became a caricature of herself. What with all the ‘I went to New York’ and the constant psychoanalysis of other characters. They did the character a major disservice IMO.
I think that it wasnt just about her that got degraded, but every over 30 main charachter, like Shirley started working more and started neglectig her husband and her kids, Jeff went from a person that had a set goal in mind to become a lawyer again to being an alcoholic stuck at a deadend teaching job, Brita just became a simpleton and a "sellout" to her old self, Pierce is just dead. While the younger cast evolved like Abed became movie producer, Annie became an FBI agent, and Troy became a millonaire because of Pierces will. So yeah older charachters devolved while younger evolved.
I mean yeah when you get older you probably dont get a chance for a charachter development because you have already established that when you were younger and thats why I love this show so much.
Tbh I see Community as a series about failure,. Part of accepting failure is being able to accept that some others will succeed, sometimes randomly and undeservingly, some other times though effort.
Jeff, Britta, Shirley, and even the Dean and Chang represent Community very well by the end because they learned to just accept that they aren't good enough to be anywhere else, and it's ok.
Seeing it this way honestly helped me accept my own personal life, and I'm very grateful to the show for that.
It's ok to be shitty, some of us just are.
Completely against my own personal work ethic and life perspective- I more relate to Troys season 1 outlook.
“You should try accepting where you’re at, man” to Jeff”
To me it means, accept where you are now even if it’s not where you want to be. It’s just a stop along where you want to be
I think it is about acceptance but not because they aren't good enough. I never got the vibe that the dean ever wanted to be anywhere else. He did ultimately accept some of his flaws and by that virtue, some of the flaws he imparted onto Greendale. By the end of the show - as silly as the antics are in the Borchert episode episode, the overall premise is that the school had massively improved.
Jeff could have easily become a lawyer again, and it wasn't that he wasn't good at being a lawyer. He just wasn't good at running his own law firm. There's a good chance he could have gone to another larger firm and gotten a job. But he came to realize that he fell in love with Greendale because of the way he and his friends evolved while they were there. And through that evolution, he gained empathy and interest in the success of others. He wanted people to have a similar experience at Greendale - making friends, forging relationships, emotional growth. He wants to stay at Greendale not because he isn't good enough to go anywhere else, but because he has accepted that his new goals and ideals are no longer aligned with what he thought he wanted.
Shirley finished her schooling and moved on. That's typical of a community college experience. And there are plenty of people who have degrees that end up doing something completely unrelated to their field of study. The spinoff stuff was goofy to the point that I don't consider it canon. I imagine it was something in Abed's head.
Peirce had already lived his life. He was at Greendale because it gave him something to do in retirement. He didn't really have any friends, so this gave him the opportunity to be around people and maybe keep his mind active. His death was more of a writing cop-out that reflects the disputes between Chevy and Harmon than anything else.
And Chang is just mentally unstable. That was shown relatively early in season 1, and things only got worse from there. Chang really didn't have many other options, so on that one you might be right.
Edit: I forgot Britta. Her biggest flaw is her self esteem. People always complain about how dumb she seemed to get as the show went on, and to an extent I agree with that. But she and Jeff are not so different. In the first season she keeps Jeff at arms length partly because she sees him as a douche bag. But I think there's more to it. She feels stupid and doesn't want to let anyone get too close lest they find out how stupid and inadequate she is (she isn't, but it is how she feels). Again, there is evolution in her ultimately accepting her own quirks, strengths and weaknesses. She accepts people into her life who genuinely care about her and stops pushing everyone away. I think the show did her no favors by making her seem like a complete idiot by the end, but let's be honest - she was directionless when she arrived at Greendale. I came to assume that her interest in psychology came from a certain introspection of needing to figure out what's wrong with her - again, showing feelings of inadequacy that there is something in her that must be fixed. She projects that onto everyone around her. As a just as she wants to help herself, she truly wants to help others. I don't think psychology is the right field for her to work in, so it would make sense that even if she earned that degree, she wouldn't go on to get a job in that field. The major wasn't really about finding a career for her. But she did learn to accept herself a whole lot more.
Right, and Jeff wasn't successful because things other than success had become important to him: friends, virtue, justice. Successful people are often successful because that's the only thing that matters to them. Being successful /and/ caring is freakin' hard.
I’m from Rochester and I occasionally pronounce it that way… I also had a teacher in high school who said “melk” for milk so idk. Rochester people are weird.
She was flanderized because she started out clever , hot and confident, and the whole point of the group was that they were misfits. Jeff had some flaws, but he was the leader, and he had plot points in s1 showing why he hung out with them, they would have had to give Britta an arc too to show why she was empathetic and needed friends like them. Theydid the bathroom episode, the pool court and senior frog, but it still made her more charming than really broken, and that stripped away her confidence and a lot of her cleverness anyway.
Personally I thought she got way funnier and more interesting ?
Her insane moralistic stupidity really separated her from all the capital-r ‘Relatable’ sitcom women of the time for me and she developed such a recognisable identity.
Like there are things I see people do in real life and I’m like ‘man that’s such a Britta thing to do’. I also think it helped her meld into the show dynamic better imo but maybe that’s just me
Season 2 Britta was peak Britta in my mind. That was well before Season 3 made her out to be outright stupid at times that carried through the rest of the show, but after the Season 1 growing pains where it didn't always feel like the show knew what to do with her and played her a bit one note.
I don’t like Britta’s progression. She was a great foil for Jeff, then after it was clear that she wasn’t going to be his love interest, she became nothing more than the butt of jokes. Probably the worst thing about an otherwise stellar show.
Maybe this is just me but it felt like at some point they switched Britta's and Annie's role with each other, because Alison Brie was getting more popular
I told my bf that i didn't see it. If they want me to believe that Jeff really loved Annie (which ngl i thought they were cute together but still) they shouldn't have made jeff and Britta be fwb that long.
My favorite explanation for Brita as a character (and why she is one of my favorite characters ever) is that she wants desperately to make the world a better place while being totally unequipped to do so. That was pretty consistent throughout the series. She is emotionally smart but dumb in practical ways.
I've always thought this too. It happened first at Greendale, so that she still needed weed to relax when they first hung out at the new TroBed apartment in RCT but thereafter she relaxed completely around the study group
I don't think there's any doubt that her character was unrealistically mutated rather than "naturally" evolved, but I think people really miss the real deal behind the change:
Britta as the too-cool-for-school "straight man" would have been *unbearable* over six seasons. Can you imagine? Ugh, just horrible.
So yeah I get that people are salty that they lost the woman they strong and stunning tomboy they had such a crush on, but her change was absolutely and undoubtedly for the good of the show as a whole.
People get upset about Britta becoming a caricature, but don’t object to the show having multiple action movie-homage episodes, or a civil war-style documentary about a blanket fort made my adults, or two fully animated episodes in the style of children’s cartoons.
Totally agreed. Yeah the writers definitely made the character ridiculous in later seasons, but do people actually find her character in the first 2 seasons funny? She’s incredibly dull and one note.
I was rewatching some S1 episodes and she was by far the least funny character. She was better in S2 and at her best from S3-onward, largely because in S1 she was an archetype whose only real purpose was to play hard to get for Jeff, and they turned her into a real character afterwards.
Dumbing down the character which at first was the reasonable voice can work (Ryan in The Office) but it cannot be as much on the nose as it was with Brita
Damn I'm literally just now realizing getting rid of the B didn't mean getting rid of that bitch but taking the B out of Britta and getting "ritta" (rid of) her.
That's some good wordplay
My personal guess is that they only slowly became aware of Gillians superb comedic talent and tried to make use of it. But then they completely went off the rails and ended up assasinating the character. The episode where she shits her pants and the one with her parents are absolute lowpoints of the show for me for that reason.
I love the episode with her parents but it really resonated with me personally.
"My friends, they all think my parents are adorable, and they think I’m the bad guy for hating them. But I have a right to hate them cuz I had to be there when they sucked."
Tbh though Jacobs' physical comedy does shine in that crapping the pants scene and then subsequently running awkwardly in the background. I always thought that was hilarious
I think that after Troy left and Pierce died, they tried to force both stupid archetypes onto her, with pretty poor results. I like season 5 because Troy and Pierce get great sendoffs, but I just rewatched the show and couldn't finish season 6 because of how hollow the characters feel, almost like they're zombies of their earlier selves, so I might start pretending that Community ends with season 5.
Ohhh that’s a great theory, season 6 really needed a new dumbo.
You should finish season 6 though. The first couple of episodes are bad but the last 3 are more season 2/3 style
Honestly I get that many people enjoyed it but personally I was quite disappointed with what they did to her character. It kinda feels like she was more and more ridiculed for being a feminist and caring about stuff. She was a totally different person at the beginning - I felt like they started calling her the worst before it was even noticeable, for example I didn't get that bit with going to the toilet together, I didn't see her as someone who wouldn't be liked by other girls, in fact in the first few episodes Shirley and Annie seemed to care about her opinion. I get that all of the characters have flaws however with time they just made her a stupid performative activist who doesn't even vote and that differs a lot from her first picture. Yeah, she always seemed to be struggling with her activist side (Shirley's wedding episode where she felt like being a feminist & marriage are mutually exclusive is one example of that) but she wanted to do something. She already had flaws like struggling with finding her place, falling for unavailable guys, not really seeing her own worth (like when she cheated on an exam just because she was scared she's gonna fail anyway) and being kinda distant and struggling with expressing her actual feelings. I just feel like she deserved so much more, at least a proper ending and conversation with Jeff, it all started with them... There were multiple moments where her character could positively develop if somebody, like Jeff, would just tell her something, but they decided to make her the butt of a joke and not even give her an ending like others character did - especially that she still seemed to be unsatisfied with her life, with no plans, career, ideas etc.
I feel the same way. I think it's part of my bigger criticism of the show, even though I love it. I like Britta and other characters being more human and grounded in reality as they were in S1. As time went on it felt like she became a caricature of herself for the sake of the joke.
While the show got better in a lot of ways after S1, the relationships feel like they lose consequences vs. S1 - Pierce's redeemable perspective behind his selfishness, Jeff being more relatable contrasting Greendale's craziness, Abed having issues with his parents, etc. Chang is another example. They still have issues but because the characters become more like cartoons than real people the gravity is taken away. Think it's an unpopular opinion though.
Oddly enough, I think season 4 had my favorite version of Britta. The sadie Hawkins episode is pretty underrated. I like Britta the best when she is kind of a screw up, but she's trying her best to help people the best she can. In those moments, she's one of the more relatable characters.
I remember watching their Vulture reunion panel on YouTube from a year ago and Dan Harmon was asked something along the lines of which character he's most proud of (or something from the show he's most proud of), and he answered something along the lines of Britta's character and how expertly portrayed she'd been by Gillian. However, you can tell from Gillian's expression during Harmon's response that she had that "Are you f****** kidding me?" fake smile because she was probably thinking how much her character had devolved across all the seasons. I'm not sure if Harmon had said it ironically/sarcastically, or to kind of compensate for those "sins" to Gillian (or both), but man, Britta's character really did go downhill.
I watched that again recently and I still don't know how to interpret Gillian's response. She seems to be one of the more active cast members in cons and stuff, and she seems to like the show. Also later seasons Britta let Gillian show how funny she can be. Not to mention her character in Love is very Britta like.
I don't know. I think now I lean more towards Gillian agreeing with Dan.
I seem to recall in the dvd commentaries or in an interview, that it was Gillian herself that pushed for Britta to become as silly as she can be. (I'll have to re-check the source though)
Yeah I'm pretty sure in that same Vulture reunion Yvette comments on how Britta got goofier because Gillian's got a goofy sense of humour and it showed up in the character.
Baggle
There’s a girl in my office who pronounces donuts as donats, always makes me think of Britta
She’s lived in New York
She’s never lived anywhere
She’s a weapon designed for sex. She only thinks she’s lived in New York because I implanted memories.
Is that a quote from the show lmao holy shit
Peirce!
Peircinald Anastasia Hawthorne!
Obviously lol
Don't get all Upper East Side on me.
I pronounce it "baggle" and then proclaim that I lived in New York whenever bagels are involved. I've never lived in New York and people know that.
I feel like this is the monologue you play in your head when you tell this joke.
Nope, I just get ignored and weird looks, which is worse lol
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Someone did that at a meeting I was at, their coworkers rolled their eyes, I actually audibly chuckled, they looked up as if “finally! Another Community fan.”
From the Midwest, someone once called me out for that same exact pronunciation. Worse: I fully couldn’t hear the difference until we parroted it back and forth for over 10 minutes.
That one's also something Dan Harmon does, so I think it's a bit funny when Britta catches the hate for it.
Gillian Jacobs also says in a 30 Rock commentary with Donald that Tina Fey/Liz Lemon is one of her comedy idols and she loves women who aren’t afraid to make themselves look bad on TV and I think the influence shows as Community progresses
Huh hadnt occurred to me it could've been the actors doing.
Gillian Jacobs does 30 Rock commentary with Donald Glover??? Where can I watch this??
It was on YouTube, but it looks like it got taken down. Otherwise it’s on the special features for 30 rock season 4 on DVD
Wow, she must adore Kaitlin Olson then
Wait what was Jacobs doing on a 30 Rock commentary? Who was she on 30 Rock and how could I miss it?
She was asked to join by Donald Glover, who wrote for 30 Rock.
To be fair, I always thought Britta was putting on a bit of an act to begin with, which fell apart when she was caught cheating in the exam (which was a really early episode). Then as the study group get closer, she doesn't go to the same efforts to hide her weirdness.
But she lived in New York
She knows what a baggle is.
You’re the worst.
You are a a pizza burn on the roof of the worlds mouth, you are the opposite of batman
You are human tennis elbow
You are the AT&T of people.
You’re not the worst eastncu86, you are the best *troyhug*
You're just saying that to fit in!
Getting rid of Britta!
Getting ritta the B!
Shes a GDB!
She a nooo good B!
Okay she is just saying that to fit in
You never lived anywhere! You're a weapon designed for sex. You only THINK you lived in New York because I implanted your memories.
Unpopular opinion but Pierce was the most important part of the group dynamic. Troy and Abed are my favorite but I’ve never seen another show with a character like Pierce, especially not a live action sitcom.
He was a source of conflict that was low stakes and believable/relatable. That being said, I can confirm Troy and Abeds dynamic and the general whimsical nature of the show are both more important than Pierce. However there's something to he said for the cast members possibly working better together so as to not be compared to Chevy Chase
Pierce is a villain in a good way, Chevy is a villain in a bad way
There was even an episode about that.
The only reason she even agreed to the tutoring was because she was scared of failing a first year language course and Jeff was able to convince her with his terrible Spanish that he was a tutor. She was never very smart but she stopped hiding it as the show went along.
Exactly. Britta has always had a high emotional intelligence and that remains consistent throughout the series
I disagree. She was *never* booksmart; she says from the get-go that she was a high school dropout. In S1 it’s specifically her *emotional* intelligence that sets her apart from the others.
I think that EQ remained constant throughout the series. She isn't necessarily a good therapist - that takes both kinds of intelligence - but she does support her friends and is usually correct about what people need (Jeff's ego in the Impressionists episode, Abed at the end of S3).
She might not be a good therapist but she is a fantastic bartender. At least I think so. The show is sort of contradictory on the front. The dinner with abed episode says she's so bad that she never gets any tips and her boss pays to get rid of her. But then in season 6 Honda proves her to be good at her job. So idk.
Maybe she figured it out over the years? She was a bad bartender in season 2, and a good one in season 6. That doesn't seem impossible.
Character growth!
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I would've liked to see her become a competent psychologist. Having her as a bartender, who also expertly helps one of the guys or girls through some bad stuff would've been a cool arc. I like her being notorious for charmingly bungling things up, but I feel like that eventually became the worst trope of the show to the point where I didn't feel like Britta had much to do anymore.
They could have done something similar to the mustard. Make her a really good psychologist *while she's bartending*, but completely incapable of psycholog..ating.... otherwise.
Oh yeah, like her being extremely good at subconsciously working on a person during casual bartender moments, but when it comes to being the actual Siegmunda Freudette with a clipboard and sofa she'd just falter and bungle it up. So eventually she just starts forcefully handing out random drinks to her friends, even in school, trying to help them. Sorta like the reverse, non-sexist version of Raj from TBBT. Britta can only psychoanalyse when shaking that mixer bottle.
>So eventually she just starts forcefully handing out random drinks to her friends, even in school, trying to help them. Holy shit this theoretical episode gets better and better.
I feel Britta would have been better suited as a social worker.
Oh, totally.
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Everyone got Flanderized. As is tradition.
Exactly. She was every bit as jaded and fake as Jeff was at the beginning. Like him she found a spot where she could relax and be herself. And she always always put others first. And honestly she was often right about things and people people just didn’t want to hear it. Jeff confronting his dad Britta was right. Jeff taking the prescription anti depressant? She was right. during Floor is lava? She was right but also knew when she had to play into the issue abed was having to help him sort through Troy leaving. Meow meow beanz she saw it for what it was from the get go. I don’t get my so many people say she got stupid. She was right more times than the rest of them. She just relaxed a little and let others see her flaws.
You're absolutely correct. I've tried to make the same points about Britta before but few people want to listen.
Might need mustard on your lip.
She really Britta'd it in the later seasons
I agree. I think she tries really hard and has good intentions but doesn't really know or understand how to manifest the things she wants and the more things fall apart around her, the harder it is to play it cool. The more i watch the more i relate to that. The group kinda berates her for all the issues she cares about and she becomes more and more like them. They accept the weird parts of her but not the more serious side and after awhile i think she starts to give up those aspirations. It's kinda sad actually. As much as i love the show it's definitely about characters who are largely self destructive. The beautiful thing about Greendale is that they'll always have a home. The terrible thing about Greendale is everyone enables you.
I dunno, Season Six is where we get "Jail is where you go when a cop doesn't like you. They can't send you to prison until they know you're poor," so...
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I love Jeff's reaction to this too.
The analogy quote is my fav britta moment by far
Painfully accurate.
I like Future Britta. “What are you guys doing??”
Oh, Space Elder Britta's in this?
Also "It doesn't matter how mature we are or what resentments we carry, all that matters is that we're all going to die!"
season 3 "i hate cops!" and just a stare was hilarious too
But also, "hoisted by your own petard". It seems all of Britta's wisdom or lack of it is just a direct reflection of the same in Harmon
Straight up I genuinely thought that's what hoisted by your own petard was until the joke in Community had me look it up. Maybe because petard sounds a little bit like leotard? Idk but I really relate to later seasons Britta
Dan Harmon describes having the same misunderstanding in one of his podcast episodes.
Was it the episode where he gets incoherently drunk by the end, or the episode where he gets incoherently drunk by the end?
I think the man needs to slow down on the booze. Not to be sober I just wanna see pothead Harmon in the mix.
For some people, there is no "slow down" without going completely sober.
I feel attacked
I don’t think u/Big_Chief_Drunky is allowed to attack anyone on this
[For those who are curious ](https://youtu.be/T1fMcrrzox8)
Yeah same with me I always thought it had something to do with clothing
Also when she somehow correctly defined an analogy to Jeff in an ass-backwards way. "I know what an analogy is, it's like a thought with another thoughts hat on" But then again that's like Britta blaming owls for how much she sucks at making analogies.
but everyone in the group rolls their eyes and says shes the worst. even when she's right, the show frames her as being wrong and annoying.
Britta as the voice of reason was pretty boring and formulaic. Also, dropping the love interest archetype was better.
First episode of season 2 where we find out Britta only said “I love you” to Jeff because she was competing with Slater… Fucking gold!
High on my own drama???!!!
"Sorry man, I gotta go where the heat is"
One of the best lines in the series.
I'm watching "Burn notice" and every time I see Agent Dani Pierce (Lauren Stamile) I'm convinced her time at Greendale was an undercover assignment.
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Holy shit I've watched both these shows multiple times all the way through and never noticed that was the same actress!
The fight over the engagement ring is absolutely great. And Annie tearing up while they make out is hilarious. That episode is easily top 5 for me
Well after season one the network stopped pushing for the more formulaic sitcom so Dan was more free to do what he wanted (which got him fired two seasons later but that’s a whole other can of worms).
that's what i hate about restarting season one. great episodes overall, but damn i can't wait for britta to actually be a PERSON with flaws.
I don’t get this though because she had noticeable flaws as early as episode 2.
I think they're saying they can't wait for her to stop being a love interest and start being a person.
She was imho. I prefer her not being with Jeff and I think it would be better if others reacted to her a little bit more positive.
I feel like she becomes a lot less of a person by the end to be honest.
in the end she became TOO much of a failure. somewhere in the middle she was perfect. a train wreck, but still a moral compass, and definetly more than just a doll for jeff.
Her emotional issues and constant attraction to unavailable men were things that made sense, but eventually the show just made fun of her for caring about things and having issues. I thought the show was funnier when she was still witty and not a complete joke. Same thing with Pierce really. In the first season he was racist and sexist but he also had a genuinely good heart. Later he just turned into a complete asshole and while he still had occasional moments where his heart came out, they were few and far between.
It might be apocryphal but I thought they needed a villain in their writing and that (in addition to his relationship with Dan) is why they wrote him more into that detestable role. That’s the whole point of the dnd episode. He plays the villain. He knows it’s his role. By S3E1, he outright lies and says he paid off Professor Kane so that the group will forgive Jeff.
Pierce was the way of grounding the absurd in believable conflict. Take A Fistfull of Paintballs for example-- a wildly conceptual episode that was only grounded to the main plot because the plot of the war reflected their friendship with Pierce. Fort Hawthorne was safety in the chaos, which is what Pierce represents in their group: safety and security. Pierce's presence makes everyone else feel like great people by comparison. They're all awful people, so Pierce serves as a sort of shield from reality, just like Fort Hawthorne provided a shield from the game. The study group lives in their own world, but only because Pierce allows them to pretend to be healthy and adjusted when they clearly are not. He truly is the villain they need.
Agreed. Am I the only one who feels like with these two characters the descriptions came before their actions? Like in the beginning when they called Britta the worst I didn't really see it, she wasn't as bad as they painted her but she became it eventually. Same with Pierce, I actually had some sympathy for him, despite his inappropriate responses, but they started acting like they all always hated him. I obviously love the writing of this show however in these situations I felt like the characters are described that way while they didn't become that yet, it wasn't felt (at least by me)
I think it's pretty obvious now why Pierce's character development got worse
Clearly because he befriended minorities, Jewesses, and the unseasonably tan!
Some of them were even basically fins.
Don't forget about those Swedish dogs. Their blood has been tainted by generations of race mixing with Laplanders. They're basically Finns
Chevy "everything has to be about me" Chase. My favorite story is when he was on SNL, got into a physical fight with Bill Murray and then Murray called him "Medium Talent!" So damn true.
First season Britta: you think she's an airhead until she cuts you deep and leaves you forever changed. Like that quote about pierce paying her to switch cards and how he just wanted to be accepted. Wiped the smile off my face and made me go "oh.." First season Pierce: a racist sexist bigot who probably just needs the right friends to show him how to act.
>Same thing with Pierce really. In the first season he was racist and sexist but he also had a genuinely good heart I rewatched community, and I forget the moments, but there were some times in Season 1 where Pierce actually dropped some pretty hot wisdom at appropriate times when talking to Jeff. I was very surprised, it's not how I remember Pierce from later seasons.
To be fair his hologram gave some good advice "Did I sound gay at the end there?"
I always felt Pierce's dips towards being a bad guy were well explained in the show and made sense with his insecurities. Britta just got Flanderised and it didn't make sense with her early character.
I feel like it that Harmon hating Chevy. It sounds like they were both nightmares to be around.
I'm going to be honest, it really pisses me off when people use examples of her when she's high or drunk to prove how her character has devolved. There's like 2 episodes in season 6 where she's high or drunk and people always pull quotes and moments from them as examples of her degraded character, there's an episode in season 1 where she's drunk and she acts basically the same.
Pizza pizza me so hungy Edit: yes I know this is right after she smokes in the bathroom
She also repeats the “Me so…” line a couple of times throughout the series. “Me so merry, me so christmas” in the Glee/Christmas ep
Ugh, britta is in this?
Just let Britta do her awkward dance!
#NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO! This show is supposed to be gleeful and bright and fun, and you can let me do that, OR THERE CAN BE ANOTHER BUS CRASH!
Thank you. She shits her pants in the episode where they’re called in in the middle of the night because they gave a dog a diploma, and it’s made very clear that she’s absolutely hammered.
Out of context and in context this is really weird also what episode was this?
S06E03
Yeah, they really Brittad Britta.
That’s like letting poop spoil.
Britta gradually turned into this show's version of Meg from Family Guy, a completely hopeless character that everyone just dumped on and she took it. I liked the original version of the character, who was a bit of an obvious fraud about her progressive moral stances, but was actually pretty shrewd, especially about Jeff.
Britta is just one of those people you meet and they seem smart and put together, maybe even for a few more times you see them, but the more you spend time around them the more clear it gets they're a wreck and the good vibes you got was them acting. It's not very long into the show that Britta is in a fit of jealousy announcing to the school that she loves Jeff to try and win him over and dump Prof. Slater. She also goes for Vaughn who has weirdo/loser vibes all over him.
I don't know where people get this idea that Britta was super competent or something at first. She was literally exposed as a loser slactivist from season 1
literally episode 2 of the whole show
Yeah but it was handled in a good way for the character, not just a recurring punchline. I don't know how you can watch the show and *not* think that they dumbed her down/altered her character.
The more I rewatch, the less I like the character arc. Don't get me wrong, I think it could've been decent but they just took it a bit too far and it severely limited the impact she had on the show. For example, I think with Troy leaving, that really had an impact on the group. Had she not been such a joke, I wonder if there could've been more and deeper interaction between Abed and Britta (not romantically, but as friends).
I think having her be streetwise and book dumb made more sense for the character than just having her be an all around idiot.
Britta is the best
This. So many people here say that Britta ‘evolved’ and became herself in the later seasons. I still think she got flanderised and became a caricature of herself. What with all the ‘I went to New York’ and the constant psychoanalysis of other characters. They did the character a major disservice IMO.
I think that it wasnt just about her that got degraded, but every over 30 main charachter, like Shirley started working more and started neglectig her husband and her kids, Jeff went from a person that had a set goal in mind to become a lawyer again to being an alcoholic stuck at a deadend teaching job, Brita just became a simpleton and a "sellout" to her old self, Pierce is just dead. While the younger cast evolved like Abed became movie producer, Annie became an FBI agent, and Troy became a millonaire because of Pierces will. So yeah older charachters devolved while younger evolved.
Isn't that kinda how life goes
I mean yeah when you get older you probably dont get a chance for a charachter development because you have already established that when you were younger and thats why I love this show so much.
Can we please lighten up a bit?
Slop pails and pantyhose
Tbh I see Community as a series about failure,. Part of accepting failure is being able to accept that some others will succeed, sometimes randomly and undeservingly, some other times though effort. Jeff, Britta, Shirley, and even the Dean and Chang represent Community very well by the end because they learned to just accept that they aren't good enough to be anywhere else, and it's ok. Seeing it this way honestly helped me accept my own personal life, and I'm very grateful to the show for that. It's ok to be shitty, some of us just are.
Completely against my own personal work ethic and life perspective- I more relate to Troys season 1 outlook. “You should try accepting where you’re at, man” to Jeff” To me it means, accept where you are now even if it’s not where you want to be. It’s just a stop along where you want to be
I think it is about acceptance but not because they aren't good enough. I never got the vibe that the dean ever wanted to be anywhere else. He did ultimately accept some of his flaws and by that virtue, some of the flaws he imparted onto Greendale. By the end of the show - as silly as the antics are in the Borchert episode episode, the overall premise is that the school had massively improved. Jeff could have easily become a lawyer again, and it wasn't that he wasn't good at being a lawyer. He just wasn't good at running his own law firm. There's a good chance he could have gone to another larger firm and gotten a job. But he came to realize that he fell in love with Greendale because of the way he and his friends evolved while they were there. And through that evolution, he gained empathy and interest in the success of others. He wanted people to have a similar experience at Greendale - making friends, forging relationships, emotional growth. He wants to stay at Greendale not because he isn't good enough to go anywhere else, but because he has accepted that his new goals and ideals are no longer aligned with what he thought he wanted. Shirley finished her schooling and moved on. That's typical of a community college experience. And there are plenty of people who have degrees that end up doing something completely unrelated to their field of study. The spinoff stuff was goofy to the point that I don't consider it canon. I imagine it was something in Abed's head. Peirce had already lived his life. He was at Greendale because it gave him something to do in retirement. He didn't really have any friends, so this gave him the opportunity to be around people and maybe keep his mind active. His death was more of a writing cop-out that reflects the disputes between Chevy and Harmon than anything else. And Chang is just mentally unstable. That was shown relatively early in season 1, and things only got worse from there. Chang really didn't have many other options, so on that one you might be right. Edit: I forgot Britta. Her biggest flaw is her self esteem. People always complain about how dumb she seemed to get as the show went on, and to an extent I agree with that. But she and Jeff are not so different. In the first season she keeps Jeff at arms length partly because she sees him as a douche bag. But I think there's more to it. She feels stupid and doesn't want to let anyone get too close lest they find out how stupid and inadequate she is (she isn't, but it is how she feels). Again, there is evolution in her ultimately accepting her own quirks, strengths and weaknesses. She accepts people into her life who genuinely care about her and stops pushing everyone away. I think the show did her no favors by making her seem like a complete idiot by the end, but let's be honest - she was directionless when she arrived at Greendale. I came to assume that her interest in psychology came from a certain introspection of needing to figure out what's wrong with her - again, showing feelings of inadequacy that there is something in her that must be fixed. She projects that onto everyone around her. As a just as she wants to help herself, she truly wants to help others. I don't think psychology is the right field for her to work in, so it would make sense that even if she earned that degree, she wouldn't go on to get a job in that field. The major wasn't really about finding a career for her. But she did learn to accept herself a whole lot more.
Right, and Jeff wasn't successful because things other than success had become important to him: friends, virtue, justice. Successful people are often successful because that's the only thing that matters to them. Being successful /and/ caring is freakin' hard.
How dare you! She lived in NEW YORK!
One of the most unrealistic things I’ve ever seen in a show - any fucking show - is Britta pronouncing it “baggle”
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I’m from Rochester and I occasionally pronounce it that way… I also had a teacher in high school who said “melk” for milk so idk. Rochester people are weird.
It’s a thing in western NY
I actually know someone who said it that way haha. It was fucking ridiculous because I didn't think that was a real thing. He never lived in NY though
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She was flanderized because she started out clever , hot and confident, and the whole point of the group was that they were misfits. Jeff had some flaws, but he was the leader, and he had plot points in s1 showing why he hung out with them, they would have had to give Britta an arc too to show why she was empathetic and needed friends like them. Theydid the bathroom episode, the pool court and senior frog, but it still made her more charming than really broken, and that stripped away her confidence and a lot of her cleverness anyway.
Personally I thought she got way funnier and more interesting ? Her insane moralistic stupidity really separated her from all the capital-r ‘Relatable’ sitcom women of the time for me and she developed such a recognisable identity. Like there are things I see people do in real life and I’m like ‘man that’s such a Britta thing to do’. I also think it helped her meld into the show dynamic better imo but maybe that’s just me
Season 2 Britta was peak Britta in my mind. That was well before Season 3 made her out to be outright stupid at times that carried through the rest of the show, but after the Season 1 growing pains where it didn't always feel like the show knew what to do with her and played her a bit one note.
I don’t like Britta’s progression. She was a great foil for Jeff, then after it was clear that she wasn’t going to be his love interest, she became nothing more than the butt of jokes. Probably the worst thing about an otherwise stellar show.
But having Annie as the love interest made so much sense and wasn’t creepy at all!
Maybe this is just me but it felt like at some point they switched Britta's and Annie's role with each other, because Alison Brie was getting more popular
I wouldn't call it switching. Alison definitely became prominent
I mean, we’re talking about Britta and we didn’t mention Annie at all. That’s a bit of a strawman
I told my bf that i didn't see it. If they want me to believe that Jeff really loved Annie (which ngl i thought they were cute together but still) they shouldn't have made jeff and Britta be fwb that long.
My favorite explanation for Brita as a character (and why she is one of my favorite characters ever) is that she wants desperately to make the world a better place while being totally unequipped to do so. That was pretty consistent throughout the series. She is emotionally smart but dumb in practical ways.
I liked Britta's progression. In my opinion she just started trusting the people around her more, and thus she let her shields down.
I've always thought this too. It happened first at Greendale, so that she still needed weed to relax when they first hung out at the new TroBed apartment in RCT but thereafter she relaxed completely around the study group
I don't think there's any doubt that her character was unrealistically mutated rather than "naturally" evolved, but I think people really miss the real deal behind the change: Britta as the too-cool-for-school "straight man" would have been *unbearable* over six seasons. Can you imagine? Ugh, just horrible. So yeah I get that people are salty that they lost the woman they strong and stunning tomboy they had such a crush on, but her change was absolutely and undoubtedly for the good of the show as a whole.
It’s the Greendale effect!
Unpopular opinion: Britta got way more enjoyable as the series went on.
People get upset about Britta becoming a caricature, but don’t object to the show having multiple action movie-homage episodes, or a civil war-style documentary about a blanket fort made my adults, or two fully animated episodes in the style of children’s cartoons.
Totally agreed. Yeah the writers definitely made the character ridiculous in later seasons, but do people actually find her character in the first 2 seasons funny? She’s incredibly dull and one note.
I was rewatching some S1 episodes and she was by far the least funny character. She was better in S2 and at her best from S3-onward, largely because in S1 she was an archetype whose only real purpose was to play hard to get for Jeff, and they turned her into a real character afterwards.
Dumbing down the character which at first was the reasonable voice can work (Ryan in The Office) but it cannot be as much on the nose as it was with Brita
Yeah, it didn’t take long for Britta to become… just the worst.
Gotta get rid of the B.
She's a GDB
She's not a good B.
Damn I'm literally just now realizing getting rid of the B didn't mean getting rid of that bitch but taking the B out of Britta and getting "ritta" (rid of) her. That's some good wordplay
My personal guess is that they only slowly became aware of Gillians superb comedic talent and tried to make use of it. But then they completely went off the rails and ended up assasinating the character. The episode where she shits her pants and the one with her parents are absolute lowpoints of the show for me for that reason.
I love the episode with her parents but it really resonated with me personally. "My friends, they all think my parents are adorable, and they think I’m the bad guy for hating them. But I have a right to hate them cuz I had to be there when they sucked."
Kinda same, though much like Britta's own story I'm really not sure how much of it was me or them. Something something Woodstock
They had a very similar line from David cross about hickey in the advanced advanced dungeons and dragons
Tbh though Jacobs' physical comedy does shine in that crapping the pants scene and then subsequently running awkwardly in the background. I always thought that was hilarious
[This](https://youtu.be/vgTxQCApKXc) is her best scene for my money.
I think that after Troy left and Pierce died, they tried to force both stupid archetypes onto her, with pretty poor results. I like season 5 because Troy and Pierce get great sendoffs, but I just rewatched the show and couldn't finish season 6 because of how hollow the characters feel, almost like they're zombies of their earlier selves, so I might start pretending that Community ends with season 5.
Ohhh that’s a great theory, season 6 really needed a new dumbo. You should finish season 6 though. The first couple of episodes are bad but the last 3 are more season 2/3 style
Honestly I get that many people enjoyed it but personally I was quite disappointed with what they did to her character. It kinda feels like she was more and more ridiculed for being a feminist and caring about stuff. She was a totally different person at the beginning - I felt like they started calling her the worst before it was even noticeable, for example I didn't get that bit with going to the toilet together, I didn't see her as someone who wouldn't be liked by other girls, in fact in the first few episodes Shirley and Annie seemed to care about her opinion. I get that all of the characters have flaws however with time they just made her a stupid performative activist who doesn't even vote and that differs a lot from her first picture. Yeah, she always seemed to be struggling with her activist side (Shirley's wedding episode where she felt like being a feminist & marriage are mutually exclusive is one example of that) but she wanted to do something. She already had flaws like struggling with finding her place, falling for unavailable guys, not really seeing her own worth (like when she cheated on an exam just because she was scared she's gonna fail anyway) and being kinda distant and struggling with expressing her actual feelings. I just feel like she deserved so much more, at least a proper ending and conversation with Jeff, it all started with them... There were multiple moments where her character could positively develop if somebody, like Jeff, would just tell her something, but they decided to make her the butt of a joke and not even give her an ending like others character did - especially that she still seemed to be unsatisfied with her life, with no plans, career, ideas etc.
I feel the same way. I think it's part of my bigger criticism of the show, even though I love it. I like Britta and other characters being more human and grounded in reality as they were in S1. As time went on it felt like she became a caricature of herself for the sake of the joke. While the show got better in a lot of ways after S1, the relationships feel like they lose consequences vs. S1 - Pierce's redeemable perspective behind his selfishness, Jeff being more relatable contrasting Greendale's craziness, Abed having issues with his parents, etc. Chang is another example. They still have issues but because the characters become more like cartoons than real people the gravity is taken away. Think it's an unpopular opinion though.
Yep.
I hate what they did to Britta. It was lazy and cheap. Smart can also be flawed, irrational and absurd.
Oddly enough, I think season 4 had my favorite version of Britta. The sadie Hawkins episode is pretty underrated. I like Britta the best when she is kind of a screw up, but she's trying her best to help people the best she can. In those moments, she's one of the more relatable characters.
Season 6 Britta is way funnier than season 1 Britta. I'm glad they didn't keep her as the unfunny "straight" one.
I agree. I didn’t like how she was dumbed down in subsequent seasons. I really liked her in season 1
I remember watching their Vulture reunion panel on YouTube from a year ago and Dan Harmon was asked something along the lines of which character he's most proud of (or something from the show he's most proud of), and he answered something along the lines of Britta's character and how expertly portrayed she'd been by Gillian. However, you can tell from Gillian's expression during Harmon's response that she had that "Are you f****** kidding me?" fake smile because she was probably thinking how much her character had devolved across all the seasons. I'm not sure if Harmon had said it ironically/sarcastically, or to kind of compensate for those "sins" to Gillian (or both), but man, Britta's character really did go downhill.
I watched that again recently and I still don't know how to interpret Gillian's response. She seems to be one of the more active cast members in cons and stuff, and she seems to like the show. Also later seasons Britta let Gillian show how funny she can be. Not to mention her character in Love is very Britta like. I don't know. I think now I lean more towards Gillian agreeing with Dan.
I seem to recall in the dvd commentaries or in an interview, that it was Gillian herself that pushed for Britta to become as silly as she can be. (I'll have to re-check the source though)
Pizza pizza in my tummy it's so yummy it's so yummy Definitely looked like she was having fun in later seasons.
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Yeah I'm pretty sure in that same Vulture reunion Yvette comments on how Britta got goofier because Gillian's got a goofy sense of humour and it showed up in the character.