The Office actress Lindsey Broad, who played temp receptionist Cathy Simms, continues to receive hate from series fans over her character's actions. Her character was featured in a 12-episode span during The Office season 8 to test coworker Jim Halpert's (John Krasinski) marital fidelity. The much-lauded NBC sitcom ran for nine seasons, ending it's run in 2013. Jim's office and personal life tribulations formed much of the core of the through-lines for the series.
During production on The Office season 8, actress Jenna Fischer, who played Jim's wife Pam, was pregnant. The show's writers opted to writer her pregnancy into the show and having Pam go on maternity leave in the middle of the season. The following episode, titled "Pam's Replacement," saw Cathy come onto the scene as her temp replacement. Not only did she fill directly into Pam's character's job in the office, she winds up unsuccessfully attempting to seduce Jim during a business trip to Florida. Fans of the series went from disliking a workplace replacement to hating Cathy for trying to tempt Jim away.
It seems that the dislike for Cathy (even eight years after her ill-fated seduction attempt), continues to be applied to the actress herself. On Twitter, Broad revealed how after posting on Instagram about her dog being killed, commenters said she deserved what happened for what she had done to Jim. Broad was even called by her character's name. In a Twitter post, she wrote, "If your goal is being told to f**k off by someone associated with a TV show you genuinely love, it is absolutely something you can accomplish but accomplishing it means you are both nasty and profoundly stupid, Enjoy! F**k off"
This is hardly the only time an actor has been harassed on social media for the actions and words of their characters. In recent years, Star Wars' Kelly Marie Tran was bullied off Instagram, and Will Poulter left Twitter after appearing in the Black Mirror episode "Bandersnatch." Even though the rise of social media has brought about a number of positive developments, there are still far too many of these unfortunate instances of viewers using their platform to torment creatives. In Broad's case, things were taken much too far. Espousing hatred on anyone for doing their best on a job is callous enough, but being glad someone's dog is dead does little to ingratiate actors to continue interacting with fans.
What's even more disheartening is the harassment of Broad comes years after she appeared on The Office, showing some viewers are still conflating characters and their actions after a considerable amount of time (even supportive replies to Broad's tweet refer to her as "Cathy"). Without passionate followings, properties like Star Wars and The Office wouldn't have become as popular as they are today, but toxic fandom remains a serious issue in the industry. Audiences need to understand that just because they have the ability to say something, doesn't mean they should. Social media's emerged as a great tool to connect actors with fans, but it has the potential to do more harm than good.
Source: Lindsey Broad