With Materialists now in theaters, the cast has been doing a lot of press to promote it, and, of course, love and relationships are among the topics that get discussed the most. Recently, Chris Evans and Dakota Johnson were asked which fictional couple are their “ultimate relationship goals” — their OTP, for those of us who grew up on Tumblr — but they weren’t of the same mind. Evans was quick to name Jim Halpert (John Krasinski) and Pam Beesly (Jenna Fischer) from The Office, but Johnson frowned at that. Evans acknowledged that nowadays this particular couple is sometimes regarded as toxic, but reaffirmed his position as a fan. Although no relationship is ever perfect and always requires some work from both parts, Jim and Pam have indeed gotten more scrutinized over time, to the point where many fans now don’t necessarily agree that they were really the perfect couple, yours truly included.
Jim and Pam’s Relationship Had Many Faults From the Start
Jim and Pam’s will-they-won’t-they dynamics are one of the key parts of The Office in its earlier seasons, designed to be one of the elements that gets viewers hooked up on the series. They’re in a very relatable situation for anyone who has ever had a boring office job and/or had a crush at work, and both their characters are written to make the whole thing seem rather idealized for our work-oriented times: Jim is the nicest guy ever and has an unrequited crush on Pam, the quirky receptionist who is engaged to a guy who doesn’t treat her nearly as well as we know Jim would. But it’s a romance that began its story in 2005, when the world was a very different place and some behaviors weren’t considered problematic yet.
For starters, Jim’s near obsession with Pam. We put it like this because, over the course of two seasons, Jim makes it clear to the audience that he doesn’t like his job at Dunder Mifflin and considers it pointless, but he also doesn’t leave because of his crush on Pam. The series succeeds in making us feel sorry for him at first, but the truth is that, nowadays, his behavior isn’t considered healthy at all, especially seeing that Pam was engaged at the time. Jim has always been a good salesman and could have moved on to a better job elsewhere, and was just as likely to find someone else to date, instead of banking on someone who’s already in a steady relationship. But he only takes steps in this direction after he is openly rejected by Pam in the Season 2 finale, “Casino Night,” when they kiss, and he moves to Stamford in Season 3. Even by early 2000s standards, this was kind of problematic.
The series is careful about not painting either Pam or Roy (David Denman) as villains or being directly responsible for Jim’s misfortune, which is cool, but Pam was mostly written back then to make us cheer for her relationship to crumble, not because it was toxic, but because there was a supposedly better match for her. She had barely any personal development as a character. In Season 3, after the Scranton branch absorbs Stamford and Jim is back in the office, he is in a relationship with Karen (Rashida Jones), Pam and Roy have broken up, and the roles have reversed. But Pam’s jealousy and frustration and Jim’s indecisiveness then make everything awkward, not romantic. When Jim and Karen break up, and he finally asks Pam out at the end of Season 3, we’re more relieved about the awkwardness being done than happy for them.
After They Get Together, Pam Sacrifices a Lot More for Their Relationship Than Jim
Pam’s character does get a lot more development once she starts dating Jim, but she also becomes the focal point of their relationship in a different way. In Season 2, she hears from Jan (Melora Hardin) the iconic “there are always a million reasons not to do something” quote, and that changes her in a way, but not enough to make her prioritize herself instead of a relationship after a three-year engagement. In Season 5, she decides to attend art school in New York, but eventually fails because she “hates computers.” Her stint in New York lasts only two episodes because, in the second, Jim proposes to her, and she returns to Scranton.
Of course, Pam may have simply found that she really didn’t enjoy graphic design after all, but the whole timing of it all feels too convenient. Ultimately, she returns to Scranton to marry Jim and stay close to him. If that’s what she really wanted, okay, but couldn’t they have found a way to both support her dream and get married? That’s what they do for Jim in the later seasons of The Office. He first takes a job in Philadelphia to work at his new sports marketing agency without telling Pam, leaving her in Scranton to care for their kids and continue working at Dunder Mifflin. Later, they moved to Austin because of his job again, so why is it fair to support his dream and not hers?
We know that this storyline is there because of behind-the-scenes factors in Season 9, but it still lends to the idea that they are not as perfect as a couple as we’re led to believe, and that Jim is only willing to be away from Pam on his terms. He does support her when she joins Michael (Steve Carell) at the Michael Scott Paper Company in Season 5, for example. But, considering what Jim says when they get married in Season 6 — “Plan A was marrying her a long, long time ago, pretty much the day I met her” — everything between them has always happened much more to his benefit than to hers, although love isn’t really a zero-sum game. Pam may be okay with how things turned out for them, but she has always sacrificed more than him for their relationship.
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Dunder Mifflin makes you feel a lot of feelings.
No Relationship Is Perfect, but There Are Much Healthier Couples on TV Than Jim and Pam
What all of this means isn’t that Jim is an inherently bad person, or that he is harmful to Pam, but he is, as a man, a product of another time, a time when men had a more “dominant” role in relationships and weren’t held accountable for their actions the way they are now. By the end of The Office, Jim and Pam seem happy together, and that’s what really matters. There are indeed many positive things about Jim and Pam as a couple, but they are too idealized, and nowadays, there are many other couples on TV that truly represent ideal relationships.
The Office is available to stream on Peacock in the U.S.
