The Irrepressible Joy of Kelly Kapoor

Among the many zany characters trapped together as Dunder-Mifflin employees in The Office, Kelly Kapoor (Mindy Kaling) stands out.

Kelly is the only woman of color until Karen Filippelli (Rashida Jones) makes her first of several guest appearances in Season 3. Yet Kelly also stands out for another reason: her joyful attitude in the midst of her often dour coworkers. Maintaining joy in the midst of challenging circumstances, incompetent bosses, bad boyfriends, and dismissive colleagues is difficult, but Kelly never lets her circumstances change the essential nature of her character.

Given how often television writers employ racist tropes about women of color being “angry,” “sassy,” or “fiery,” it feels revolutionary that Kaling (who is also a writer and producer on the series) made Kelly funny, celebrity-obsessed, strong, and slightly ridiculous. Kelly is a constant source of laughter. In her, we see a woman of color who contains multitudes beyond being a brassy best friend. Kelly is good at her job, but her work is not what makes her interesting. It is not who she is as a person. In fact, her role as an employee is actually the least interesting thing about her character.

Many of us spend a good deal of our lives in offices and it can be easy to allow our work to consume us. But Kelly is not frustrated by the ups and downs of the paper industry because her identity is not first and foremost in her work. In “E-Mail Surveillance,” when Kelly asks Stanley (Leslie David Baker) and Oscar (Oscar Nuñez) not to talk about paper while they are hanging out at Jim’s barbeque, an awkward silence ensues because they do not, in fact, have anything else to talk to each other about. By contrast, Kelly’s hobbies are the source of her joy and constant gabbing.

Sebastian Traeger and Greg Gilbert, in their book The Gospel at Work, say that when work is not an idol, “you are free from growing frustrated and bitter in difficulties and drudgery your job brings. ...Your happiness is secured elsewhere, you do not have to be discouraged that your job is not providing it.” No character in The Office models this truth quite as well as Kelly.

Work, of course, is an integral part of our lives. In A Woman’s Place, Katelyn Beaty writes that God calls us to work in order “to take our time, talent, resources and community and create something good. . . that will glorify God.” Kelly is an excellent customer service representative. In “Product Recall,” when everyone is enlisted to answer complaint calls after the defective paper is delivered, Kelly trains the others on proper responses. She is the model of hospitality and it’s clear her work is important. One might even say customer service is Kelly’s calling—but it is not her ultimate identity. As Christians, we are all meant to work as if for the Lord, but not out of the hope that our work will be the source of meaning in life.

Kelly keeps her work at Dunder Mifflin in its proper place, and it makes her a better coworker and friend. Kelly’s love of seemingly frivolous things outside of the office always made her the perfect person to turn to when the others were struggling. When Pam (Jenna Fischer) is sad about breaking up with Roy (David Denman) in “The Coup,” Kelly encourages her to buy new clothes online and put on a “fashion show at lunch!” When work is the thing of utmost importance in our lives, we miss opportunities to encourage our coworkers, celebrate our families, and love our friends—all in hopes of getting the sale, hitting our number, or closing the deal. Kelly shows us how to keep work in its proper place: to take it seriously, but not so seriously that we do not have time to console a struggling coworker or encourage our boss to search out the blood-drive donor with whom he had a brief, but meaningful, connection.

To be clear, being joyful does not require ignoring the bad things happening in our lives. Joy does not preclude sadness or even anger. When Michael (Steve Carell) persists in making racist comments about Indian-Americans on “Diversity Day,” Kelly slaps him out of his ignorance. She does not ignore the harm of the offensive comments by laughing them away. Having joy in Christ does not mean putting on a fake smile and accepting others’ harmful actions. We can possess joyful spirits and still call out sin where we see it. But the joy of the Lord allows us to see even those who hurt us as created in the image of God. It allows us to maintain relationships and to forgive those who have wronged us because we celebrate the forgiveness freely given to us.

Hebrews 12:2 encourages believers to fix their eyes on Jesus, who for the joy set before him endured the cross. Choosing to be joyful and hopeful, even under difficult circumstances, takes discipline. Kelly is always hopeful, even when she’s entitled to be upset. When Angela (Angela Kinsey) struggles to be kind and apologize to complaining customers in “Product Recall,” Kelly does not belittle her but instead chooses to praise her good qualities and encourage her to work on her apologies.

People will disappoint us. They will overlook us and they will hurt our feelings. But Nehemiah 8:10 tells us that the joy of the Lord is our strength. In Christ, we have the strength to forgive, love, and laugh with those who hurt us. Kelly Kapoor isn’t perfect. Take for example when she and Ryan (B.J. Novak) comically run off together into the sunset at the end of the series and irresponsibly leave behind Ryan’s baby! But Kelly is a reminder that even in the dysfunctional workplace of The Office, joy can be found, cherished, and passed on. While Kelly’s sources of joy are far from perfect, our joy is complete in Christ. We can endure hard things, not by our own strength, but through the strength and joy that's found in knowing that even in a world full of trivialities and distractions, Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith.

This article was originally published in 2019 as part of our Theology of The Office ebook.

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At Think Christian, we encourage careful cultural discernment. We recognize and respect that many Christians choose not to engage with pop culture that contains particular content, such as abuse, sex, violence, alcohol or drug use, or that employs the use of coarse language. To that end, we suggest visiting Common Sense Media for detailed information regarding the content of the particular pieces of pop culture discussed in this article.