#jeff winger
Serious question why was the group in Community so grossed out and not okay with Jeff and Annie kissing because of the age difference but it’s ok when she likes Rick who has to be the same age as Jeff or older
This is an interesting question. In all honesty, I think everyone had different motivations.I’m going to go in order of what I think will get me the least amount of hate to the most amount of hate:
Meta Reason (i.e., Dan Harmon and the Writers): Basically to reinforce two things: 1) Annie is attracted to older men without really understanding what that could mean in terms of a relationship and 2) Good older men would see Annie as a vulnerable young woman and not take advantage of her attraction to them.
Think of how the whole story plays out in “Asian Population Studies.” Jeff is undoubtedly attracted to Annie, despite him dating the more age-appropriate Britta. Meanwhile, “good” older man (or at least the one painted as being the “good one” in the eyes of the characters) Rich, ultimately turns down Annie’s overtures specifically because she’s too young.
Think about this: Both Jeff and Rich treat Annie somewhat the same. Both pay a lot of attention to Annie, they compliment her, listen to her, and do take her somewhat seriously in limited circumstances. However, Rich is held up as the “right” way to deal with Annie when the friendship starts taking a turn into crush-ville. He lets her down gently, is honest about why, and then eases out of her life. Jeff, by contrast, is not honest, blows hot-and-cold, and (in season two, anyway) encourages Annie’s attraction when it’s convenient, and then dumps ice cold water on her attraction when it becomes inconvenient.
Compare and contrast: Jeff’s on-screen response to Annie when she confronts him is literally a non-answer (not yes, but not no either), leaving Annie to take decisive action when Jeff refuses to commit to any. Rich’s response (as told by Abed) is straightforward, to the point, and lays down clear boundaries.
Dan Harmon & Co. say in “Asian Population Studies” that Jeff is in the wrong from beginning to end (starting with his jealousy over the idea that Annie found someone even before he knew it was Rich, through his attempts at sabotaging a potential relationship between Annie and Rich, through his refusal to be honest with Annie when she confronts him about it, and ending with his request that Rich teach him how to be more manipulative). Meanwhile, Rich is held up as an example of what Jeff should do with respect to Annie.
The sad thing is this: Jeff never learns that lesson. Whether it’s season two or season six, Jeff is never really honest with Annie about his feelings, what he wants, or why he feels a relationship between the two of them is not possible.
Yes, Rich put up a brick wall, but here’s the thing: Annie may have been upset about it, but she very quickly got over it. From Annie’s point of view, Jeff strung her along for years without committing to anything.
Now for the character motivations (at least as I see them) under the cut:
Keep in mind, my reasoning below is in character, and is not meant to reflect whether Ithink they’re right (or wrong).
Pierce: Jealousy, pure and simple. I don’t think Pierce has any objections to younger women dating older men, even if those ages are 20 and 36, respectively. However, I can easily see him objecting to said 20 year-old specifically dating Jeff. Remember, Pierce has always shown himself to be, by turns, admiring and jealous of Jeff’s standing as group leader and (at least at this point in the series) resident “cool guy.” If Annie is dating Rich, she’s at least not dating Jeff. Bonus, Annie dating an older guy who’s not-Pierce but also not-Jeff wouldn’t be in his face. While there might be a little bit of protectiveness when it comes to Annie, let’s be serious. If Rich reinforced Annie’s a taste for older men, she just might try to get with him rather than Jeff. And if that next older man on Annie’s hit list just happened to be Pierce, do you honestly think he’d say “no” to that?
Shirley: Shirley has been low-key routing for Jeff and Britta from the get-go (a fact that comes up in asides through out the first five seasons), and she knows Annie’s got a thing for Jeff. Annie deciding to turn her affection and romantic attention on someone who’s not-Jeff clears away one potentially fatal distraction from her hoped-for rom-com happy ending, while also making Annie happy. In her mind, it’s a win-win. Plus, she could also see an Annie-Jeff match-up as being bad for Annie, especially since Jeff portrays himself as a hound dog. Rich comes across as a super-nice, respectable kind of guy who’d probably treat Annie right, as opposed to a notch on the bed-post.
Troy: Troy doesn’t particularly care when it comes to the whole question of Jeff vs/ Rich. Annie is friend, and nothing more. She can date who she wants. Troy pretends to care simply because other people care. If they think it’s a bad idea, then it probably is and he’s just missing something. Since he doesn’t want to admit that he can’t see what the big deal is, he’s just going along with what everyone else says.
Abed: Abed has decided that any hook-up between study group members is a bad idea. The whole fallout from “Pascal’s Triangle Revisited” and “Anthropology 101″ led to bad feelings and chaos in the study group. Worse, it made for “bad television” (read: soured the group dynamics for while), so he’s at the point where he doesn’t want any intra-group hook-ups. Annie switching her affections from Jeff to someone outside of the group eliminates one potential danger. And Abed knows it’s a danger. If you watch the lunch room scene where Jeff objects to Rich, Abed is watching Jeff very, very carefully. He knows that if Jeff really wanted it, Annie and Jeff would be an item (which could potentially lead to another cycle of bad feelings and chaos), and there’d be shit-all he could do about it.
Britta: This is the one I think people are really going to hate me for. Britta is all for Annie-Rich for a mix of reasons, complicated by a little jealousy and her own feelings of inadequacy and unhappiness.
People tend to forget that at this point Jeff and Britta are in the middle of their secret relationship. It’s pretty clear from the context of season two that it’s not even a little bit monogamous (Jeff and Britta can sleep with other people). Britta doesn’t really seem to have any issues with the arrangement, since we see her pursuing other men on screen and hear references to her seeing other men.
(Side note: I’ve always held that Jeff, at least initially, was more into Britta than Britta was into him. His conversation with Abed in “Critical Film Studies” hint at the fact that his relationship with Britta is not panning out as he hoped. I mean, he’s calling phone sex lines not for the sex, but to cosplay as someone he would peg as being a loser so he can hear someone say they love him despite that. It’s probably no accident that the first time we see or hear of Jeff chasing after another woman is in “Competitive Wine Tasting,” which is the very next episode.)
In short, I don’t think Britta actually cares about Jeff sleeping with other people, unless that “other people” is specifically Annie.
Now, I think the “Annie exception” for Jeff springs from a mix of good and bad motivations.
On the selfless side: Britta obviously knows that Jeff is a shit romantic partner, a selfish lover who’s emotionally closed off, and (she believes) a generally pretty terrible person. While she’s fine with it in a booty call-casual relationship kind of way, she knows that Annie wouldn’t enter into a relationship with Jeff with that same mindset. Annie’s is still, very obviously, a hearts-and-flowers romantic who’d have no clue how to handle someone with Jeff’s baggage. That means that Annie’s going to get really hurt and possibly damaged if she gets into a relationship with Jeff, at least at this point in her life. Going by some stray comments Britta has made throughout the seasons, I suspect that there’s a little bit of experience on Britta’s side where she did get badly burned in a parallel situation.
On the selfish side: If Jeff starts acting on his attraction to Annie, that will lead to an unnecessary complication in her thing with Jeff. She would either have to continue her secret relationship with Jeff knowing that Annie was the other woman in this scenario (guilt city, party one), or she and Jeff would have to end it, which she doesn’t particularly want to do. Worse, no matter which way she and Jeff decide to go (keep going or end it), the risk of her thing with Jeff getting public exposure increases exponentially. A wrong word in the heat of the moment is all it takes to a ton of shit to rain down on everyone’s head. The easiest solution all around is just to direct Annie’s attention and affection elsewhere as soon as the opportunity presents itself.
And finally, on the jealous side: Britta may also be afraid of another “Vaughn situation” where the guy she’s dating (or dated in the case of Vaughn) actually prefers Annie over her. This last bit actually has some support for it. There are a couple of times during season two when Annie and Jeff are being particularly chummy in front of the other study group members where a quick scene of Britta watching them through narrow eyes is inserted. In fact, you can even see in the lunch room scene that Britta is literally glaring at Jeff while he voices all his objections to Rich. She’s not buying anything Jeff is saying.
And…there it is. That’s my reasoning for why everyone objects to Annie dating Jeff, but is seemingly okay with her dating Rich.
“bethanyactually replied to your post “wordybee replied to your post…”
@wordybee Yeah, there’s a whole other comment to be made about the problems with the’s show’s attitude about lawyers and its assumption that in order to be a good one, one must be ~evil~ and lack a conscience. That’s ridiculous! There are plenty of principled, good-hearted lawyers in the world, and there’s no reason Jeff (who is smart and clever and has wanted to be a lawyer since he was a kid) couldn’t be one of them! (h/t @pepperf who pointed most of this out to me)“harryspaceshipmchale replied to your post “bethanyactually replied…”
I think it’s why I enjoy @hello-wright-or-wrong’s What We Don’t Know fic so much because you can read a taste of Actual Lawyer!Jeff doing his thang’.
All excellent points, mi’ladies. And a good plug for @hello-wright-or-wrong‘slawyer AU. :)
Just jumping in here @celerylapel:
Not for nothing, but Jeff did mention in S2′s “Accounting for Lawyers” that he did have a co-worker who was the do-gooder type (widower whose wife died of cancer, two adopted children, donated a kidney).
In fact, Alan tried to pin Jeff’s outing on this former co-worker, stating that this guy left the firm shortly after Jeff was fired, so he was the best candidate. Jeff immediately dismissed the idea when Alan presented it to him, because this former co-worker was so obviously one of the good guys that Jeff refused to entertain it (in fact, Jeff was the one that listed all of the positive qualities above).
So, I’ve always head-cannoned that it was a case of #notalllawyers, just lawyers at that particular law firm, who were less-than-ethical. In fact, I always got the impression that Ted didn’t particularly care one way or the other that Jeff lied about the undergrad degree. Theissue was that Jeff got caught by the bar because of an anonymous letter (or rather, Alan’s anonymously sent letter).
Someone who seems willing to look the other way, to the point where he is willing to throw a consulting bone Jeff’s way despite the fact that Jeff had been lying to him for years strikes me as someone who cares much more about his bottom line than actual professional ethics.
I should note that I always head-cannoned it that the reason why Jeff didn’t wind up in jail AND permanently disbarred like he would’ve in real life is because the Bar wasn’t able to find any proof that Jeff engaged in actual unethical behavior beyond lying about his bachelor’s degree. He may have been a scum ambulance chaser and bottom-feeder of a lawyer who conned the bar and his employers, but he never actually conned his clients.
In short, he more-than-competently represented his clients and gave them exactly what they paid for and was able to prove that he never overbilled or threw a case. Jeff himself said that at one point he had one of the best win-loss records in Colorado for a defense attorney – although he could’ve been bragging to exaggeration on that point. Still, he was clearly good at his job.
