One way 9 to 5 has aged magnificently is that it perfectly conveys that fact that having to work fucking sucks. I went into this film assuming it would be a gritty, realistic look at being a working woman in 1980, and while it’s something much sillier – more on that in a second – it is very much that in the first twenty minutes or so. One thing I’ve found when reading on women’s issues in the workplace is how much I recognize the basic exasperation of having to work, and that trying to empathize with women involves layering on the extra frustrations they have on top of what I’m familiar with. One of the things interesting about 9 to 5 is how it splits different issues across its three leads pretty evenly; Violet (Lily Tomlin) is very competent but finds the male villain Frank (Dabney Colman) both dismissing and stealing her ideas; one great storytelling note is that he was initially her underling but was promoted ahead of her.
Judy (Jane Fonda) is a new hire, thrown into the workplace as a result of her husband’s infidelity and divorce; she notes she’s been a homemaker for fifteen years, and she’s immediately treated with contempt and indifference, with little training and less respect as a person. Doralee (Dolly Parton) is perfectly competent – lacking Violet’s eye for imaginative policy but otherwise getting her job done without fuss – but is subject to assumptions about her sexual proclivities, beginning with the idea that she has any; not only does Frank harass her, people are assuming based on her looks that they’re already having an affair.
One way 9 to 5 has aged interestingly is that it almost has the structure of most Eighties Hollywood films. What I strongly associate with that time and place is a sense of structure that is almost stultifying; formulaic Save The Cat* variations on Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, where everything that happens is a piece in a longer, cliche story; a hero gets a tool they’ll use later, a villain does something dickish that will be part of their ironic comeuppance, etc.
*Okay, it’s a helpful illustration of the kind of writing I’m trying to convey here, so I’m not editing it out, but: that book came out in 2005?! What the hell. It feels like it’s embedded into the Hollywood mentality so perfectly that it must have been out decades longer than that.
9 to 5 manages to capture everything useful about that formulaic structure whilst being a lot messier than it implies. Its most Eighties element is effectively throwing us right into the story with the absolute minimum of backstory necessary; Judy’s newness is used to give us someone to exposit to, but otherwise we’re jumping right into the middle of these women’s lives and experiencing them with them. The movie, however, veers around in interesting ways; it takes nearly half the runtime to get to the ostensible premise because it uses the opening act to show the three leads coming together as friends, with Violet initially seeing Doralee as Frank’s mistress and only learning the truth through their adventures together. It means we come to care about their friendship because we’ve forged it alongside them.
This sneakily-slower opening act also – and this is really interesting – allows us to fully see Frank. Colman doesn’t overplay Frank or make him an easy villain; the writing conveys that more than effectively, and he simply commits to Frank’s emotions and blindspots. What becomes clear is that Frank has never paid much attention to his life because he’s never really had to; he never really questioned rising faster and higher than the woman who started as his boss, nor whether his policies were actually effective, because neither of those were necessary to achieve his goal of total personal comfort. I really like how plausibly the film lays out, through behaviours and implication, how Frank would have mindlessly climbed the ladder to be in the position he’s in at the start.
Once the story gets going, it starts depending on sillier and sillier contrivances to keep the story moving; even then, maybe even especially, I enjoy the neatness of its construction. The one part of the film that doesn’t feel like it’s pushing the story forward in the moment – when we see each of the women’s fantasies of how they’d deal with Frank – turns out to be setup for the actions they’ll take in reality when things start going absurd. The film throws in coincidences to set the characters in motion and then watches them react; there’s an internal logic to it all.
I think my favourite part is during the climax, when Tinsworthy, Chairman of the Board (Sterling Hayden) shows up. The movie has created an impossible situation for Frank; he has the humiliation of seeing that every policy he failed to enact has improved the company remarkably, meaning he knows full well that the company has been worse off than if he’d never taken his job, coupled with the fact that he can’t get revenge on the leads without very publicly revealing this information. He effectively has to choose between public and private humiliation (if the movie has any weakness philosophically, it’s not knowing as we do now that men like Frank very much choose the former).
About the writer
Tristan J. Nankervis
Tristan J Nankervis (aka Drunk Napoleon) has been a writer, pop culture critic, dishwasher, standup comedian, waiter, potato cake factory worker, gamer, TV worker, and various other things. You can find him in Hobart, Tasmania.
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Department of
Conversation
What did we watch?
Red vs Blue, Season Two, Episode Twelve
“You know, I kind of like this new, all-knowing, badass Tucker. He’s certainly a lot better than the old one.”
“I take it back! You still suck!”
“Caboose, that’s why I always liked you. Everything always falls into two categories: either you don’t understand it, or you just don’t care.”
“Yeah, I don’t really know what you’re talking about, but it doesn’t matter.”
“I am Caboose! The Vehicle Destroyer!”
They wanted the alien baby to infect him with the AI and generate supersoldiers that would take over the world.
“All we want to do is shoot you!”
“Don’t listen to them! It’s a trick!”
“How do you like that? No!”
“Well since you asked, I don’t like it at all.”
“That’s a nice idea, son, but blowin’ up things isn’t a democracy.”
“I thought you had a pirate accent.”
“Arr, I’m not very consistent.”
“Did I tell anyone that I made a baby, but don’t know how babies are made?”
“I want to get back to my day smelling butts.”
We get an explanation for the yellow Church back in the other timeline.
“Good question. I seem to be dramatically pausing for some reas–.” [gunshot]
O’Malley ends up infecting each character step-by-step, the punchline being that when he infects Church, Church ends up exactly the same.
So, this was the original finale for the show, before they moved onto first a serious miniseries set in the same world and then a new set of comedy series. It actually originally aired with three different endings, depending on which link you clicked, and this compilation only uses the serious one; Church watches Tex die, failing at the whole goal he set himself, and the Reds and Blues return to their respective bases in the canyon. We then have a recreation of the first episode with two differences: one, the teams are swapped (Caboose and Church reflect on why they’re there whilst Simmons and Grif are watching them through a sniper rifle), and two, the meditations are more serious and reflect on the themes of the show; Church rejects mindless hate asked for by an army in favour of personal hate that comes from getting to know somebody.
Which is reason for me to reflect on the show. I had no intention of continuing after this season; I remember when I was a kid that I watched the miniseries and found it tedious and bogged down in worldbuilding, and I did continue with the show for a while and while I remember some good bits – the discovery that Church is an AI as well, which he personally rejects in favour of his theory that he’s a motherfuckin’ ghost – I kind of lost interest in it. This rewatch has been interesting and even informative, but unfortunately one of the things I realised was that it was only sporadically as good as I remember; the vivid energy of people exploring a new way of making a show without the restraints of traditional television also led them down some dead ends, and they never really came together to cook up something great outside of Caboose.
Indeed, a lot of the show’s worst tendencies – which come up a lot in this finale – is that it often takes itself too seriously, without the grounding of something of substance to keep it afloat. You can compare it to Futurama, which it shares a lot of personality with, which had some deeper thoughts on existence to float into occasionally and a lot of real-world science and history to dick about with, or with Always Sunny, which has just as much regular-dude energy but also smartly kept within its lane of Just Being Funny.
Like, one of the best parts of this episode is when O’Malley starts jumping from character to character, giving us glimpses of each of them elevated to Supervillain, with my favourite being Grif (who is too lazy to take over the world) but the brilliant punchline of ending on Church, who is exactly the same, to his confusion. Which is funny! Too frequently, the show felt like it needed to Have Something To Say but without the necessary element of, like, having something to say. So I’m not really interested in pushing through further than my nostalgia.
Although I do want to stress that when it got ambitious with its comedy, it was spectacular; I still hold onto the time-travelling Church arc (which gets a little nod here, when we get an explanation for the yellow Church amongst the regular ones) and particular the comic sublime of “FUCK! THIS! HORSE! SHIT!”. Church is definitely one of the all-time comic foils, being the only guy attempting to push the story forward and increasingly losing his shit about it.
Cavalcade, Best Picture Winner 1933
This is my first exposure to anything Noel Coward. It’s lightly funny, and a take on World War One as something damaging to society; the story overall is about modernity imposing itself on a very conservative family over the course of thirty years, as alcohol and war take its toll on them. It’s also kind of dull and listless, though I was touched by watching the father/son relationship as they grow from parent/child to friends who can relate to each other. It’s also interesting to me that three fifths of the BP winners so far are directly about the war in some way; we’re still six winners away from the Second World War to descend upon us.
The Practice, “The Making of a Trial Lawyer” – Our newest addition to the cast overcomes her doubts and her tendency to freeze up, and prevents a summary judgment in her suit of a town for running soccer programs for kids. I really am not sure why suddenly we got not one but two new young attorneys, especially since from week to week there is not enough story for the whole cast. (As I noted, David E. Kelley is somewhat ahead of the curve in questioning kids playing soccer and learning to head the ball, though the suggestion of “wear a helmet” would be proved insufficient.) Meanwhile, Bobby represents a long ago client who was wrongly convicted and is now suing the state for damages. Of course he wins, but the story is less about holding the state accountable for its wrongful prosecution and more about Bobby holding himself accountable. Dylan McDermott is once again excellent. Where has this version of him been for five years?
MASH, “The Nurses” – It’s Margaret vs her nurses, one of whom is restricted to quarters and whose new soldier hubby has just shown up for a night. This is an important episode, because it really goes a long way to establish that Margaret is trying to strike a balance between her commitment to the Army and her humanity. But it’s not really a good episode because of the level of contrivance, and because we never saw any of these nurses before and never see them again. It’s really strange how little desire there was to have any sort of regular supporting cast of nurses beside Ginger in the first three seasons and Kellye on and off over the years. The guest nurses include Linda Kelsey, later a regular on Lou Grant, and Mary Jo Catlett, a TV familiar face who is now best as Mrs. Puff on Spongebob. The visiting newlywed soldier is Gregory Harrison, who would return to the MASH Universe as Dr. Gonzo Gates on Trapper John, MD.
Live music via Zoom – The quarterly long distance filk concerts included a friend whose voice has got a bit ragged over the years but whose guitar craft is still impressive. He writes his own stuff but he’s at his best covering rock classics, and his take on “Hurt” – very much in the Johnny Cash mode – is great. (He also mentioned once seeing Trent Reznor and David Bowie perform the song together. I want footage of that!)
Woo, live virtual music! I believe that footage is out there, having heard their live version, and it’s good stuff. Bowie’s doing baritone harmony and the counterpoint works unbelievably well.
Easy to find in like three seconds, in fact. Really interesting version, and yes about the harmony.
The Pitt, S2E10 – Appreciated that the “cliffhanger” last episode which would have resulted in a big helicopter crash on ER or Grey’s ends up with only two trauma cases, everybody else is dead or merely trickling in. The leg scene is blackly hilarious and its easy to see Ogilvie leaving the ER where Joy seems in her element.
Garcia despite being a dick is correct to assert her boundaries and about Santos stewing over Langdon. One commenter observed that the quality which makes Santos a brave and forthright person, the kind who rightly turns in a fellow doctor for stealing drugs, also might be what makes her off-putting to the rest of the team. Mel’s reaction to her sister having a boyfriend (and thus the UTI) is very funny.
Robbie isn’t even aware of his obvious death wish; his fellow biker warns him that getting on your motorcycle after a twelve hour shift is stupid and dangerous. Men would rather work in the ER and die in a bike crash than go to therapy! McKay has been on the back burner a lot this season but the whole arc with this poor terminally ill woman is devastating. (“Cancer sucks.” Yes, yes it does.)
Evil Dead: The Musical – there’s a whole slightly muddy version of the closing Off-Broadway night on YouTube and it’s so damn fun. The guy playing Ash especially is, heh, killing it, and the whole cast is very in on the joke here as they should be. “Now you’ll have a bit part…in hell.”
Live Music – got to finally see a proper show by one of my favourite songwriters, Jens Lekman. I’ve seen him once before but he was ill then and played a very abbreviated set before cancelling the next couple of dates completely. This time he was in full health and on top of his game and it was wonderful. The first half of the set came from his recent album which is a concept album based on his side-gig as a wedding singer, and the band were dressed up accordingly. Great stuff that made me really appreciate the ambition of the album, which inevitably I haven’t spent as much time with as the “classics” but definitely has moments that rank among his best work. Then the band ditched the wedding costumes for a second set from the back catalogue which was even better, and there was still time for an encore that was just Jens with an acoustic guitar which really got me right in the emotions. Lovely stuff.
Twin Peaks, season 2 episode 2 – one of the Lynchiest episodes of the whole show I reckon, the creamed corn scene with Mrs. Tremond and her grandson (played by Lynch’s son) is tremendously unsettling without it really being clear exactly why, and there are so many weird touches like Harry and Cooper’s visit to see Ronette being held up by their inability to figure out the bedside stools. This episode also has James performing his song with Maddy and Donna which is a source of great delight to me and, presumably, everyone. Also some incredible scenes with Albert, Major Briggs and Margaret – great episode.
Seinfeld, S7: “The Wink” – one of those episodes where the setup is just a little too stupid for the jokes to really pay off, even if it’s still consistently funny. Jerry declares an intention to eat healthily and this leads to George getting his immediate superior fired and Elaine getting chased through the street by dogs. Mostly good stuff but the health kick stuff just doesn’t really feel like it makes sense and the guest stars don’t get a lot to work with.
Predator: Killer of Killers – I would probably like this more if the animation wasn’t so horrendous. It’s flat with no color, definition or depth, it’s stiff and jerky. But the story was better than it had any right to be. An anthology set in three separate eras – Viking times, Edo period Japan and WWII. Each era’s finest warriors defeat several Predators that come to Earth. Each is taken to Predaton for a battle royale pitted against each other but also the “Grendel King” of Predators. The characters are broad strokes only defined by their circumstances. Some good development of the mythology and world building on Predaton with plenty of Easter eggs. The action is good, very violent and makes use of each milieu – water, earth, air – but the poor animation took some willpower to finish.
What did we play?
Hollow Knight on Nintendo Switch
After getting the King’s Brand I came across the Colosseum of Fools. LOL, Zote ate shit. I opted not to try it yet, so I’ll come back to it after I read up about it.
I went to the south of the map to use the Brand and open up The Abyss. Holy fuck that shit was unnerving. I went slow because there was no way I was just jumping blind into that, but it was still nerve-wracking. The funny part is a bit later where you find a pool filled with ugly, angry motherfuckers, so you climb up a tower and end up turning on a big light. I went back down and saw that the light turned everyone at the pool away and I realized the game wanted to go into the pool. I did it, but not before saying “fuck off”.
I got the Cloaked Shade, and I went back to Fog Canyon and used it to get the map, the lack of which had been bothering me for hours. I used it open the Teacher’s Archives, and I made it into the areas. Great, this thing has Metroids now. Will pick up there next week.
So you didn’t beat Uumuu yet? I think there’s a way to get there before you get the Shade Cloak, although it may be more complicated.
I tried a lot of things to get to Uumuu (and more importantly, the map maker) without the Shade Cloak, but nothing worked. I tried to beat Uumuu a few times, but I was running late, so I’ll get around to it during the week.
I’m pretty sure you can’t get to the Map Maker (Cornifer, I think) without it. You can definitely get to Uumuu without it, but it may require another power you may not have (that you could get, but I haven’t seen you mention).
Some of the places you need that power to get to you can sequence break, but they require speedrunner levels of precision. (I’ve never done it, and I’ve put in an embarrassing amount of time into HK.)
MIO: Memories in Orbit – Beat the game for the basic ending, because I didn’t know the boss I was fighting was the final boss. There was an area I hadn’t been above Metropolis and I assumed the game would end there. Nope, that’s just a secret boss I could have gotten to a long time ago if I’d gone back to the room with the secret entrance any time remotely soon.
I’ve gotten to the point where I’m using a few guides to clean up for 100%, because I do want all the achievements and I did and find get so much on my own already, which is cool. I even found the super-secret area for the true ending on my own last week! Then I got in the boss fight and immediately got rocked so I figured I should wait.
I’m only missing a couple of things in the regular game now, and one is an item collection (apparently I haven’t gotten all of the old cores, although I’m not even sure which ones I’m missing), and the other is a lore thing (so I have to find where a character is now).
Anyway, fun game!
Year of the Month update!
This March, you can write about any of these movies, albums, books, TV, etc. from 1980.
TBD: Ruck Cohlchez: Underwater Moonlight
Mar. 16th: Tristan J Nankervis: 9 to 5
Mar. 19th: John Bruni: Gaucho
Mar. 23rd: Bridgett Taylor: Magnum PI
And next month, you can write about any of these movies, albums, books, etc. from 1949.
April. 9th: Cori Domschot: I Was a Male War Bride
Apr. 16th: Cori Domschot: On the Town