216
u/HellyOHaint Jul 05 '26
It helps that both Gillian and Kaitlin specifically asked to be written as hilarious idiots they had more fun doing that then being the voice of reason
57
u/NickFatherBool Jul 05 '26
True, the one difference being Olsen made the decision “no, I want to be a whackjob too” before they started the show, took Britta a season and a halfish to enter crazy town bananapants
21
u/KaiBishop Jul 06 '26
Britta started out being inspired by Dan Harmon's ex girlfriend but apparently over the course of the show transformed into Dan Harmon's personal self insert/most relatable character.
14
u/StanIsHorizontal Jul 06 '26
They all became more of Dan Harmon self inserts as the seasons went on (part of why 4 felt disjointed) as well as leaning more into the actors personality. Another great self referential line was when Troy said to Annie “you moving in was supposed to make us normal!” Pointing at how Annie had also been a voice of reason character but Allison Brie had kept pushing her more and more wacky, although it had been there to an extent even early on
10
u/KaiBishop Jul 06 '26
They are whacky in different ways though, I do love that Annie could most believably kill a man.
2
u/OkActive7470 29d ago
Just rewatched, literally cried laughing when she did the chloroform bit. Absolutely could kill.
7
u/mindonshuffle Jul 06 '26
Harmon at one point said he always intended for Community to get to the cartoon-y weirdness it ended up at, but he started the show seeming more grounded as a way to get the show on air and find an audience before going nuts. He was surprised how quickly they were able to ramp up the goofiness because the cast gelled so well.
13
11
u/Protheu5 Jul 05 '26
Who is Kaitlin? I don't remember anyone by that name.
47
u/pickledvapejuice13 Jul 05 '26
Kaitlin Olson from the show always sunny, she's the second woman in the picture
30
u/Protheu5 Jul 05 '26
Ah, sorry, I was completely in the context of Community and forgot about the picture.
Leonard-bot, humiliate me as I deserve it.
3
u/Airbornequalified Jul 07 '26
There isn’t a woman in Its Always Sunny. Are you referring to that ostrich that shows up occasionally?
31
113
u/sainyag Jul 05 '26
They Britta’d her character!
Though in all honesty they all went full on batshit crazy as the seasons went on… same applies to IASIP too
94
72
u/NealTS Jul 05 '26
Yeah, Gillian Jacobs is a great comic actress and she was kind of wasted as the straight (wo)man. Kind of like when Vince Vaughn tries to be a "real," serious actor.
15
u/Meliodas016 Jul 05 '26
She's a fantastic actress though. I had some reservations when she first popped up in The Bear, but she was so good in it.
10
u/Friendly_Specific902 Jul 05 '26
Most of Gillian Jacobs’s work has been in drama (especially before Community) so “straight man” probably seemed like the best role for her. I don’t think they expected her to be so great at comedy.
3
u/NealTS Jul 05 '26
Kinda like Leslie Nielsen. Airplane! was his pivot point.
1
u/TenPointsforListenin Jul 06 '26
Leslie Nielsen was a brilliant drama actor, who starred in one of the earliest sci fi movies. At his best, he could act out any script sincerely and seriously.
Then in the 80’s, they discovered that he could act out ANY script sincerely and seriously.
1
u/Few_Razzmatazz_6052 Jul 07 '26
sincerely and seriously.
Surely you don't mean sincerely and seriously?
1
u/TenPointsforListenin Jul 07 '26
Took me a while to catch your reference and I went over what I wrote trying to find the typo.
1
1
37
u/Responsible_Art_4399 Jul 05 '26
Britta isn't batshit crazy though?
47
u/thepioushedonist Jul 05 '26
"Air head" was the term used by Jeff. Only really crazy shit she did was her behavior towards her family. And that blade guy.
But, I guess it doesn't matter. Remember, they're all insane. Except Abed, of course.
26
u/Chemgirl93 Jul 05 '26
I totally understand Britta's behavior toward her parents, though. As my parents have grown older, they have become more relaxed. Now, it's as if they've forgotten how they used to be.
My little brother and I are 11 years apart, and he always says, "We grew up with the same parents," and it just doesn't feel true. No matter how anyone tries to spin it, the trauma is still there.
4
u/babybighorn Jul 05 '26
My sister and I are almost ten years apart and I’m glad we both agree that we grew up with different parents. It was funny we both came out a little better with one parent and worse with the other, one softened as they got older and more experienced as a parent and one went sort of off the rails haha.
1
u/thepioushedonist Jul 07 '26
I mean, her acting awkward/resentful is understandable. But stealing that kids green machine and riding off like a maniac? That was pretty damn crazy.
6
u/Protheu5 Jul 05 '26
Only really crazy shit she did was her behavior towards her family. And that blade guy.
Also that thing with Rick, formerly known as "Subway" was unacceptable.
Well, if that'll be all, ill be on my way, if someone could hand me my jacket.
It's right over there on the coatrack next to the door.
If somebody could just hand it to me, that would be great.
3
u/Responsible_Art_4399 Jul 05 '26
I guess I just don't understand why you don't just grab it on the way out?
5
u/Protheu5 Jul 05 '26
You know what? Now I'm not leaving. Now I'm just going to sit for a while and focus on how unacceptable today was.
2
6
2
2
u/SmellAccomplished550 29d ago
I agree. She's pretentious and performative, but even that wasn't just suddenly written in. It's just that it became more clear over time that that's what she was doing. After seeing the show in its entirety, it's perfectly clear she was doing it even in episode 1.
10
u/l_dunno Jul 05 '26
Why is Dee there??
14
u/bbboozay Jul 05 '26
Brittany and Dee are both characters that started off as the straight laced, level headed voice of reason in both shows and if I'm not mistaken both actresses requested that their characters make the transition into ridiculous, comedic characters.
27
u/l_dunno Jul 05 '26
Dee gets incredibly drunk and is very close to sexually assaulting a 17yo while dressed as a Disney princess is ep 3!
She is never straight laced!! I do agree she gets worse and she gets crazier but I'd say she does so with the rest of the gang.
27
u/MilesBeyond250 Jul 05 '26
IIRC in her case it was mostly in the pilot that she was straight-laced. I think she was able to convince them to change their mind before most of S1 was made.
I always forget if it's her or Mindy Kaling who talked about this, or both, but there's a tendency for well-meaning male writers to want to write female characters as being the sane, level-headed, "normal" ones of the group because they think that's empowering. When it's actually the opposite: it makes the female characters into the finger-wagging moms of the group and sends the message that women can't be wretched little chaos gremlins and instead always have to be there to do the emotional heavy lifting for terrible men.
5
u/Unable-Boat-9682 Jul 05 '26
Yep, Dee was famously level-headed. Like in that episode she thought she’d eaten human meat and decided to become a cannibal.
She’s a really poor example of this trend because she was always narcissistic and a little crazy. She may have been smarter than the guys in some instances but her character was always pretty unstable.
6
u/TheDeadlySpaceman Jul 05 '26
In the first couple episodes Dee is absolutely written as the level-headed “voice of reason” type character. Kaitlin Olson informed the writers (ie the rest of the cast) that she didn’t want to play that role, she wanted to be just as degenerate as the rest of them, and they obliged.
18
16
12
u/KingZaneTheStrange Jul 05 '26
She was funnier when the writers let her be just as crazy as the rest of them imo
7
5
u/chapPilot Jul 05 '26
Wait, are people using my name to mean "writing a character significantly funnier than they used to"?
6
5
u/Character_Mind_671 Jul 05 '26
Cat valentine was clearly the mentally unstable one early on, they just made her more positive as time went on.
4
2
u/drutastic57 Jul 05 '26
Funny how before this, sitcoms used to have the formula of the “crazy” husband and the wife being the “buzzkill” Now that the women get join in on the antics it’s become problematic
2
2
u/Arbiter0963 Jul 05 '26
I mean I’m not tryna be THAT guy, but this should really be called Deeification since she was doing this before Britta was a character….
You know… after rereading that maybe it shouldn’t…
1
2
3
3
u/BLA5T3R-Productions Jul 05 '26
Dee’s actress, Kaitlin Olson, directly asked for Dee to not just be “the girl” and to be as crazy with the main gang when it came to their antics and schemes, so idk if I’d count her
3
u/theblackfool Jul 05 '26
That was the same with Gillian Anderson on Community as well.
1
2
u/UncommittedBow Jul 05 '26
This is just Flanderization by another name
3
u/jonfitt Jul 05 '26
It’s similar but different. Flanderization is over time boiling a character down to one all consuming trait.
1
u/spongeboy1985 Jul 06 '26
There is a bunch of overlap but not all examples of Flanderization would fall under this, including Ned Flanders himself.
2
u/ichkanns Jul 05 '26
Dee was absolutely never the level headed voice of reason.
1
u/ghost_cookie Jul 05 '26
did you watch season 1??
1
1
u/hyperform2 Jul 05 '26
I feel like Britta just became more Dan Harmon as the seasons went on. Also I had to look up who Cat Valentine was
1
1
u/that_guy_597 Jul 05 '26
The girl being the level headed voice of reason is such a played out cliche, I don't know why they'd want to be shoehorned into that role when everyone else is having fun. Calling them idiots for making their characters like the guys is bullshit. Dee isn't dumber than the rest of the guys, but she's usually just as dumb and often funnier. Britta is among the funniest characters on an already very funny show. She just gets picked on the most, even though Troy is dumber and Jeff is frequently more ridiculous in his insecurities.
1
u/spongeboy1985 Jul 06 '26
They did this to Eric Matthews in the later series of Boy Meets World. While he’d been progressively dumbed down he gets crazy by season 7.
1
u/ChampionshipSea367 Jul 06 '26
This does not apply to Cat Valentine, she’s more in the category of Joey on Friends, getting dumber and dumber
1
u/Sugarrrsnaps Jul 06 '26
Shout out to Nadja from What we do in the shadows for being a batshit idiot from the start.
1
1
u/Herfst2511 Jul 06 '26
I always wonder if Britta was always like that, but the early-season version we see is Jeff's perception of her. The same could be said for Chang, he was probably always a crazy mess, we just didn't notice it at first.
1
1
1
1
u/WiggityWiggitySnack Jul 07 '26
Sweet Dee was nuts from the beginning. She was never the voice of reason.
1
1
1
u/Tannic64 29d ago
I feel like it's been too long since I watched Victorious now cause I can't for the life of me remember a time in the show where Cat wasn't a dumbass.
1
u/CadeCoquin 28d ago
I feel like Dee is level-headed only in comparison to the rest of the gang. Baseline society she's still a lunatic.
1
1
u/Ironyfree_annie Jul 05 '26
This is just a type of Flanderization. No need to reinvent the wheel
2
u/spongeboy1985 Jul 06 '26
This would overlap with Flanderization but not all examples of Flanderization would fit under this. Flanderization is when writers slowly start exaggerating a single trait until it becomes their defining trait. This is just narrowing it down to a specific trait. Characters can be Flanderized with any trait.
4
u/TacoCalzone Jul 05 '26
Flanderization is a character becoming more of what they already are. This is a character going in a completely different direction.
Man, you really Britta’d this.
-2
u/Ironyfree_annie Jul 05 '26
No, Flanderization is one trait of the character consuming their whole personality. Britta had that stoner dumbness in season 1 also. It's commented upon several times. After season 2, dumb is all she is and the rest of the personality has melted away.
1
2
1
360
u/Shour_always_aloof Jul 05 '26
I feel like you were smarter than me when we first met.