This month, Old Academy Anew explores a tale of perseverance and triumph: Working Girl. Now, be sure to always spell that “girl” singularly; you’ll get a completely different set of stories if you add an S by mistake.
Funny enough, I came across this movie thinking it was the one with Dolly Parton, 9 to 5 (1980). Utterly lost because I haven’t watched either. So, yeah, same era, wrong movie— completely different music. Do I need to investigate the number of movies about corporate shenanigans/misogyny throughout that decade? Nah, feels like doing homework to understand the MCU. #nothappening.
Also within the realm of music, Working Girl throws a conflicting thing at me in its first minutes. Songs with gospel choirs aren’t my favorites, and “Let The River Run” (the main theme of the movie) is obnoxiously grand and almost operatic in its self-satisfaction. I don’t even like the choir part of Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” and that is my jam. Interestingly, both songs came around about the same time. Was that a trend of the day? Then amid all the belting, we see a ferry towards Manhattan, and guess who/what makes an appearance? You guessed it, them-no-longer-there Twin Towers.
THE TITLE SEQUENCE OF WORKING GIRL TRIES TO FOCUS ON THE STATUE OF LIBERTY, TELLING US WE ARE TO EXPECT A HAPPY ENDING. ALL THAT GOES OUT THE WINDOW TWENTY-TWO YEARS AFTER 9/11 AS SOON AS WE SEE THOSE TOWERS. ONE IMMEDIATELY REALIZES THIS IS A NEW YORK THAT DOESN’T EXIST ANYMORE. ALMOST WITH A SENSE OF OTHERNESS— A DARK FAIRYTALE.
CORPORATE CORPS
The camera slowly zooms into the packed ferry. This watery contraption has always fascinated me due to its incongruence; the love child of a city bus, old-timey train, and first-generation jumbo jet, conceived in one of Neptune’s orgies. In a corner, a woman holds a cupcake with 3 lit candles for her friend as she sings. Birthday girl, Tess (Melanie Griffith) blows the candles, and her friend Cyn (Joan Cusak) asks if she made a wish. Tess did, and her eyes sparkle in anticipation for the promises of the day.
For the next few minutes, we get a very subtle but masterfully clear vision of where our girl Tess is in life. Her friends have organized a surprise party back at home. The female middle management co-workers like her a lot. Her boss is a douchebag. The men in higher positions around her are disgusting P.I.G.S. So yeah, everything is subtle but the misogyny.
To top off that fabulous birthday, Tess’s boyfriend Mick (a young and very hairy Alec Baldwin) got her lingerie for the umpteenth time. She even remarks that it’d be nice to get something she could wear outside. You know— a pair of earrings or a sweater.
The inciting incident is a couple of minutes of performance by non-other than Kevin Spacey; he’s a coke fiend wanting to get the milk (and the cow) without paying for it. He even puts porn in the limo as they drive to a hotel to check Tess’s expertise in finances. I mean, the film does use its R rating to great effect, not gonna lie. But not here. Tess gets out of the limo and goes to what I guess it’s meant to be HR.
HUMAN RESOURCES IN WORKING GIRL IS MORE LIKE, “HEY, IF A GUY GRABS YOUR BUTT YOU GRIN AND BEAR AND KEEP GOING, GIRL.” THE HR LADY ALSO USES A BASEBALL METAPHOR WRONG. YOU’RE OUT AFTER THREE STRIKES NOT FOUR. ARE WE TO BELIEVE WOMEN DIDN’T KNOW SPORTS IN THE 80S?
But everything happens for a reason, and those Spacey shenanigans send our heroine to a female boss (Sigourney Weaver).
ASSISTANT’S ACCESSORY
Tess’s new boss seems like the ticket to a better tomorrow from the get-go. They sat to discuss expectations, ground rules, and above all: openness; the goal is to have a two-way relationship for mutual benefit. As they finish their first meeting, Tess calls her boss, “Katherine,” before Weaver says, “And call me Katherine” when they shook hands. Is this a mistake or a hint that the boss is a major byotch? I’ve been burned too many times by modern cinema to produce a proper interpretation.
Time goes by as it does in movies, and we see how smoothly Katherine navigates the misogyny-infested waters of Wall Street. Tess’s admiration grows daily because she’s found not only inspiration but a mentor. It’s possible to use womanly gifts to progress without giving the goods! But guess who ain’t liking this happy close-to-empowerment Tess? Hunky Hairy Mick from Staten Island. He’s neither rude nor violent but his dismissive attitude tells a lot.
Katherine gets ready for a ski weekend. She tells Tess this might be it. The man she’s seeing will probably pop the question; after all, they are in the same city now. Tess wonders what happens if the guy doesn’t. Katherine’s answer will propel the plot forward in unexpected ways. “I really don’t think that’s a variable.” She almost shrugs. “Tess, you know, you don’t get anywhere in this world by waiting for what you want to come to you. You make it happen.”
KATHERINE GETS INJURED DURING HER SKI TRIP— SADLY, NOT FATALLY. WORKING GIRL GIVES US A PREVIEW OF WHAT WILL BECOME THE LIFE OF EVERY ASSISTANT IN THIS CENTURY. LUCKILY, THERE’S NO LITTLE DOG IN NEED OF WALKS AND POOP-SCOOPING.
With a broken leg, Katherine needs to stay put for at least two weeks wherever the accident happened. Fortunately, Tess discovers the woman is a conniving B-word while keeping things kosher in New York for her. Appropriating one of Tess’s ideas for an acquisition, she meant to get in touch with Jack Trainer (Harrison Ford) for a pitch meeting.
Heartbroken, Tess decides to skip school that night to nurse that wound in her hot boyfriend’s arms. That anomaly in her schedule makes things way suckier. She finds Mick doing the Devil’s Tango with a woman we previously saw at her B-day party.
It’s never shown but Tess probably returned to Katherine’s evil lair to spend the night. The next day, as she sits on the B-word’s chair, she comes to a decision. She’s going to make things happen. And you know what that means: makeover montage!
Nope. This is not that kind of movie. Tess does improve her appearance using Katherine’s wardrobe and getting a haircut. She gets in touch with Jack Trainer, and they agree on a meeting the following morning. Taking a page from the evil boss book, she decides to go to a party. There she expects to check Jack’s behavior before they see each other the next day.
YOU KNOW THAT “SHE’S NOT LIKE THE OTHER GIRLS” TROPE? WELL, WORKING GIRL GIVES US A REVERSE COWGIRL, MAKING JACK TRAINER “NOT LIKE THE OTHER BOYS.” IT’S CUTE AND WELL DONE. THEY END UP IN BED, BUT NOT IN THE WAY YOU THINK. R RATING BE DAMNED.
The “Oops, I woke up in your bed, and we have our first meeting today” trope also rears its funny head. Was this the movie that launched a thousand versions of that nugget? Well, that’s the thing when you pop old movies’ cherries; many directors must have made a pie from it already.
NOSTALGIC NOSTRUM
Jack and Tess team up to make the acquisition happen; thus, shenanigans ensue. You probably know the rest— if not, go check it out.
Here we stop to propose that pesky Old Academy Anew question: can we make this film today? Now I have an even better question: Why the fukkity fookk would anyone want to make Working Girl in the 2020s? On the first strike, you cannot have a female antagonist or a strong male co-lead, and this film has both. Second strike, unless she’s attracted to other women, your strong female lead cannot be Caucasian; Tess, a white girl, is strong in her determination but very shy almost meek in her approach to obstacles. Her femininity has been wielded against her, keeping her down— exactly why she pushed back. In her own slurred words after several tequilas, “I have a head for business and a bod for sin.”
Sadly, a woman can’t say shit like that in 2023. According to Hollywood, women’s bodies are to be worshiped or feared; perhaps both if our feeble male brains can handle two emotions at once. And to wrap up the strikes because they’re three regardless of what HR lady believes; Tess went to night school and is still taking classes to better her prospects. A 2023 Tess would have finished top of her class at an Ivy League college and be smarter than any man in a thousand-mile radius. Looking at you, most movies since 2018.
WHAT MODERN HOLLYWOOD DOESN’T GET IS THAT WE GO TO THE MOVIES TO WATCH A JOURNEY. IF A CHARACTER STARTS THE MOVIE AT THE TOP OF THEIR GAME, WHERE DO THEY GO FROM THERE? WORKING GIRL TAKES US ON A JOURNEY OF HOPE, OF FEMININE STRENGTH UNLEASHED AT THE RIGHT MOMENT.
Tess is a kind human being. She’d bring a co-worker she just met a coffee because it’s a nice gesture without expecting something in return. You can’t have that in 2023. Our “me first” and “gimme more” culture won’t compute that.
The only thing current screenwriters wouldn’t change about this movie is how most men act around women, but only to use it against them. To show that patriarchy runs rampant and needs to be defeated. There’s a funny moment when Jack is in his office on the phone and needs to change his shirt. He’s oblivious to his open windows until he turns around, and the women outside applaud the show. He even bows because this is clearly not the first time he’s put on such a performance.
I see that happening in very, very few movies in 2023.
The problem with nostalgia is that it makes us misremember. The things we loved when we were younger cannot have the same impact today because we aren’t the innocents we were then. Our good memories do not have flaws, and that’s why we cling to them so hard.
IF YOU ENJOYED MOVIES LIKE WORKING GIRL WHEN THEY CAME OUT, TODAY YOU COULDN’T SEE THEM WITH THE SAME EYES. FOR INSTANCE, THE MANDELA EFFECT ENTHUSIASTS WOULD SAY THE TWIN TOWERS WERE BOTH THE SAME HIGH, AND THEY DON’T LOOK SO HERE.
You would neither think Spacey’s antics are funny because we have seen the repercussions of such actions all around us. It’s impossible to see something from the past without the encroachment of the present.
All those fresh-faced actors have lived, and not always in the most pristine ways. With all the information we have at the tip of our fingers 24/7, innocence is lost. You can’t see those heroes and heroines with the same eyes as when you only knew them from the movies.
On a lighter note, did I mention I hate every single fashion choice in this film? As a product conceived in the last leg of the 80s, it crams every possible fashion aberration it can grab. I had to laugh because I was in my teens and indulged in all that mess; a certainly terrifying trip down memory lane.
I’ll encourage you to watch this movie if you’re over 35. Avoid if under 35 and drank the Kool-Aid; you’ll be not only scandalized but enraged ’cause you’re probably too lazy to find context. I’m giving Working Girl 7 out of 10.
This movie is available for rent everywhere.
