Motivation and Emotion - Abed Nadir

Abed Nadir is no stranger to making cognitive attributions, and in fact, his character is constantly trying to process the events on screen and providing interpretations or explanations for what is happening around him in his unique and pop-culturally driven way. Re-watching the show while writing this blog has allowed me to watch Community through a psychological lens more easily. Understanding Abed’s attributions can better explain his behaviors throughout the show.  As discussed in previous blog posts, Abed often frames life through media tropes and pop culture references. These are external factors that help him make sense of the seemingly unpredictable world around him while at the same time distancing him emotionally from the event itself. I go back to the episode we have discussed on this blog before, “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas”. In this episode, it is revealed that Abed is attributing his feelings of loss and disappointment about the holidays to external factors. Th...

 “Abed, stop being meta. Stop taking everything we do and shoving it up its own ***!! ” - Jeff Winger As a character Abed is both constantly trying to be outwardly understood and fit in. This dichotomy is stressed by his neurodivergent traits, reference humor, and as Jeff Winger stressed above, often making everything a little more 'meta'. In this balance of primary and secondary control come some of Community 's best moments. In this blog post we will go over a couple of examples of times when Abed Nadir lends himself to both secondary and primary control and the fantastical events that followed.  Season 3, episode 4: Remedial Chaos Theory, widely considered one of the best episodes of Community, lends itself to conversations about primary control quite well. In primary control people attempt to change the world around them so that it fits the needs and desires they have. In this very unique episode we see our study group meeting at Troy and Abed's new apartment for th...

In this week's Blog post, we take on one of Community's most creative and impressive episodes. Season 2, Episode 11, Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas, is one of the only animated episodes of the show and is done entirely in stop-motion claymation. This episode touches on themes of seasonal loneliness around the holidays and support through the use of found family. It does it all in a particularly fantastical way that the Community has done many times so well.  Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas is an episode where our character of study, Abed Nadir, attempts to find the true meaning of Christmas. Abed declares that this episode must be “the most important Christmas” because they are all stop-motion animated. The study group rejects this idea and leads him to the study room, where psychology professor Ian Duncan (John Oliver) attempts to help him with this psychological episode he appears to be having.  We are transported to Planet Abed, where the “atmosphere is 7% cinnamon,” and a...

When talking about a character's values, sometimes it may be complicated as their actions on screen only reflect their values metaphorically. One of the best parts of Abed Nadir is how his values play out physically for the audience. Abed’s values and interests are often intertwined, but some of his more significant values include loyalty, control, creativity, and authenticity. Abed being on the spectrum also creates great moments that add to his understanding of his values.  For example, in season 1, episode 5: Advanced Criminal Law, Troy teaches Abed that friends “mess with each other” after messing with Abed's gullibility. This leads Abed to spend the day convincing Troy that he is an alien. It is altogether cute, over the top, and slightly pathetic. As Troy puts it “It would be less crazy if you were actually an alien.” however, the resolution is Troy redacting his original statement and telling Abed, “From now on, Abed, friends don't mess with each other”. This moment...

One of the ongoing and quintessential bits of Abed Nadir is his uncanny ability to be "Meta" or realize that he himself and his group of funny counterpart friends are all just characters on this TV show we watch called community. This is a character trait of his that is paired well with his love for pop culture and film. In fact, Abed is at Greendale Community College to earn his degree in film studies. This is referenced as far back seasons one episode three Introduction to Film  where Abed uses a camera to display his emotions about his friends and family. It's both touching and interesting to say the least. Today though, I want to discuss season 2, episode 5: Messianic Myths and Ancient Peoples. In this episode Abed is given the Christian Bible by his religious friend, and one of the other main characters Shirley Bennet (Yvette-Nicole Brown). She gives him it with the intention of having Abed make a viral video that surrounds the topic of Christianity. This idea was pr...

"I don't think the lava's here because you're leaving. I think it's here because I won't let go." - Abed Nadir This heart-wrenching line comes at the end of Season 5, Episode 5 of NBC's  Community. An episode where the beloved star Donald Glover, in the role of Troy Barnes, Abed's best friend, leaves the show. This episode conveys emotions of loss, longing, fear, and emptiness from Abed, a Neurodivergent character whose raw emotion we, as the viewer, do not often get to see. In this episode, Abed announces that on this day of school, Greendale Community College would participate in a game of 'The Floor is Lava' with the prize being a comic book collection of Abed's valued at $50,000. In classic Community fashion, the school is 'All in' with the episode devolving into a MadMax-style parody with students ganging up to win the prize with groups like the "Locker Boys' led by student Ben Chang (Ken Jeong) hiding within the s...