How Abed Nadir Saved Christmas: Identified Regulation, Self Determination Theory, and The Art of "Community"

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 all of the characters we see on the show become Christmas versions of themselves, loosely reflecting some of their character traits. Troy Soldier, Jeff-in-the-box, Ballerannie, etc. Our now Christmas-themed and stop-motion study group searches to find the true meaning of Christmas, with Christmas Wizard Duncan trying to find the real reasons for Abed’s delusions along the way. The characters slowly leave, get kicked out, and are cast out by “humbugs” for being sarcastic. All of their exits serve as excellent representations of their characters as well. For example, Abed rejects Britta for tricking him into therapy with Professor Duncan. 

Finally, Peirce, who was left behind in the bathroom, catches up with Abed as he is about to find the true meaning of Christmas. What is it? It is the first season of Lost on DVD. To Peirce’s confusion, Abed explains, “It's a metaphor. It represents lack of pay off”. 

But, In Duncan's attempt to find Abed’s repressed memories around Christmas, he finds not only some of his own but also a letter from Abed’s mom saying that she will not be coming for Christmas this year and will spend it with her own family. This is not revealed until the end of the episode, giving Abed a happy ending on his search for the true meaning of Christmas.

After this, the episode's resolution is Abed having to reconcile with the letter his mom wrote him. This leads him to a revelation. “I get it. The meaning of Christmas is the idea that Christmas has meaning. And it can mean whatever we want. For me, it used to mean being with my mom. Now it means being with you guys. Thanks, Lost. Wow. I feel so much better now. I guess we don't need to be stop motion anymore.” 

This episode serves as an excellent way for us, as the viewers, to break down and analyze Abed through the lens of Organismic Integration Theory (OIT). This theory asks why someone may be extrinsically motivated to do something. Acting as a subsection of Self-Determination Theory, it further explains how social contexts can affect one's extrinsic motivation, breaking it down into four categories: External Regulation, Introjected Regulation, Identified Regulation, and Integrated Regulation. 

Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas provides a glimpse into Abed’s reasons for motivation and how they lead him to pursue his goal of finding the true meaning of Christmas. During the episode, it is clear that Abed values Christmas. He says that as long as he can remember, every December 9th he and his mom would watch Christmas movies together. This is a day that is deeply important to him. Abed assumably sees Christmas as a time when people might even be able to understand him better as they lean into the festiveness of the season and participate in the unusual traditions that society doesn’t do throughout most of the year. Because of this, we can see that Abed is partly using identified regulation as the motivator for his goal. 

Identified regulation is a concept of OIT that says someone is doing something because they see its value and importance. One part of this theory that is particularly interesting in the context of the episode is that when people are motivated by identified regulation, there is often a vail of autonomy they believe to have, even though it is extrinsic motivation. Abed believes that he is doing some grander action in finding the true meaning of Christmas, but, in truth, he is suppressing his emotions about his mom not coming for the holidays. In this episode, we watch Abed in total control of a world, his stop-motion fantasy, that his friends are trying to get him out. How? of by playing along with that fantasy. (it's actually brilliant) Nonetheless, at face value, Abed is doing all of this autonomously but is truly driven by the more profound connection to his family and their lack of presence this holiday season. 

The resolution that Abed comes to in this episode is a perfect ending. In classic Abed form, it is not only meta but also touches on the viewers ' strings. Abed now has a new reason to love Christmas: his family, whom he grew up with at Greendale Community College. This is a found family that understands and accepts Abed. One of Abed's overarching character arcs is his quest to be understood. He uses social acceptance as an ongoing motivator and uses the medium of media to connect with others. This episode was a claymation one; sometimes it is Good Will Hunting, and other times it's Star Wars, but Community never fails to ensure that the audience is left thinking and pleased.