The movie 9 to 5 was released by 20th century fox in December of 1980. The movie shows women in the workplace and some of the difficulties that they had to endure at the time. The movie centers around three working women. Jane Fonda plays Judy Bernly a recently divorced lady who was thrown into the workforce for the first time. She struggles at first with her new job and is trying to get used to the idea of being divorced. Dolly Parton in her first acting role plays Doralee Rhodes a happily married secretary who spends most of her day trying to fight off the advances of her boss. Comedian Lily Tomlin plays Violet Newstead a widowed mother of four who despite being an irreplaceable employee is constantly being overlooked for promotion. The three ladies are in constant battle with their boss Franklin Hart played by Dabney Coleman. Hart is quite a character constantly taking credit for ideas that are not his own and being a complete slime ball to his female coworkers.
He belittles the women whenever possible making any one of them fetch his coffee at a moment’s notice. He even forces the ladies to shop for him or put gas in his car. He is insulting to the women speaking such lines as “spare me the women’s lib crap” and telling Doralee that she is more to him than “just a dumb secretary.” The three ladies form a friendship based off of their mistreatment and start to imagine ways that they would get even with their boss. My favorite part of the movie is when the women have fantasies about how they would like to get even with Mr. Hart. In Judy’s fantasy she imagines chasing down Mr. Hart in a sort of hunt. She imagines the entire office hunting down Hart in what looks like one of those scenes from an old movie when the townspeople revolt. Mr. Hart gets away from them only to find Judy waiting for him in his office dressed like a big game hunter. She shots at him and in the next frame you see his head is mounted on the wall like some sort of trophy. In Doralee’s vision she is treating him with the same disrespect that he treats her she is dressed in a cowboy out fit and eventually hog ties him. At the end of her scene you can see her roasting him over an open fire. The last vision is Violet’s she imagines herself being some sort of cartoon princess surrounded by woodland creatures. When being forced to make his coffee she drops poison out of her ring into his drink. I thought that the part of this vision is when the steam from the drink and poison mixture makes a skull and crossbones symbol over the drink was hilarious. The drink becomes so toxic that it eats the spoon that she is using to stir it. When she gets to the office she serves him his toxic drink and then launches him out the window. The funny thing that they each get the opportunity to carry out their fantasy. Mr. Hart almost gets poisoned he ends up tied up and shot at.
The second half of the movie revolves around the girls trying to cover up their tracks from the attempted poisoning. They end up having to restrain Mr. Hart until they can get the correct paperwork to prove that he has been embezzling money from the company. The girls eventually get their wish because the great work that they had been doing for Mr. Hart around the office during his absence leads to a promotion and transfer for him. The movie has several great one liners throughout it. One of my favorites was when Doralee is threatening Mr. Hart and threatens to turn him from a Rooster to a Hen. This movie is well known as being one of the first of its kind that showed the treatment of women in the workplace. The movie took off from some of the legislation that was being passed in the 1980’s trying to keep sexual harassment out of the workplace. I think that 9 to 5 was a huge movie for showing the conditions and glass ceiling that women had to endure in the early eighties.
The movie brought to light a lot of issues that I don’t believe were talked about at that time. There weren’t many movies at the time where the main characters were strong and independent women. The fact that these women had to work together to overcome a boss that had been mistreating his employees was something that wasn’t covered a lot at the time. The movie shed light on some of the conditions that were going on in the office as more and more women joined the workforce.
second highest grossing movie in 1980.Reviews of the film were really very positive. Film critic Roger Ebert liked the move calling the movie “Pleasant entertainment”. The movie seemed to be enjoyed by a lot of the critics who viewed it. The movie was a huge success and one of the first movies that portrayed women in the workforce in a powerful light which was a huge thing in the nineteen eighties. The clothing and dress of the people let you know that you are watching an eighties movie but it doesn’t take away from the enjoyment of it. The nice thing about the movie is that it is paced a way that it doesn’t bore you. As you watch it you become interested in the characters and are really pulling for them to get out of the mess. I think that 9 to 5 did a lot to shine a light on the problems that some women had to go through in the workplace.
References
www.rogerebert.com/reviews/nine-to-five-1980
www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=9to5.htm
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