FEATURE
with his wife, Laura (Mary Tyler Moore) and their son. Laura, a stay–at-home mom who sometimes yearned for her former career as a dancer, seemed happy to host cocktail parties for friends and her husband’s colleagues, but she longed for more alone time with Rob, who was also, in a sense, married to his job. But the tone was whimsical, full of pratfalls and one-liners and memorable characters. Whimsical doesn’t begin to describe the 1967 movie musical “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.” Ambitious young win- dow-washer J. Pierrepont Finch strives to climb the corporate ladder of the building he’s been peering into. Watching it today can be cringe-wor- thy: At one point, secretaries launch into the song “A Secretary Is Not a Thing,” noting that “Her pad is to write in and not spend the night in,” along with a few hip shimmies. Cheery and raunchy, the film still gives viewers a feel for the office culture and what passed for humor at the time. Finch, who makes his way up to vice president in charge of advertising, is played by Robert Morse, who 40 years later would portray elder statesman Bertram Cooper in “Mad Men,” which is set in the advertising world of the “How to Succeed . . .” era. Pivot to 1970, and it’s a new world. “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” broke barriers, bringing 30- year-old divorcee Mary Richards into the offices of a Minneapolis TV station — not as a secretary, but as an associate news producer. Enter the in- dependent, career-focused woman, surrounded not only by men — her boss, veteran newsman Lou Grant (Ed Asner), pompous news anchor Ted Baxter (Ted Knight) and deskmate Murray (Gavin MacLeod), but also a group of female peers, including her free-spirited friend Rhoda (Valerie Harper) and Sue Anne Nivens (Betty White), the flirtatious host of the “Happy Homemaker” show. In “9 to 5,” a trio of vengeful, undervalued sec- retaries (played by Jane Fonda, Dolly Parton and Lily Tomlin) bring fury on their lecherous boss (Dabney Coleman), symbolically bringing down the corporate patriarchy. The ends to which the women go — kidnapping the boss, taking over the office — are outrageous. But their situation is not far from that of the secretaries of “How to Succeed in Business . . .” in the ’60s. In “Wall Street” (1987) “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.” That’s mogul Gordon Gekko’s mantra, which he not only lives by but also ingrains into the minds of his minions, including
young protege Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen), whose life is swiftly upended. The movie, and Michael Douglas’s portrayal of the villainous Gekko, was an alarming inside look into the slate of ’80s corporate misdeeds that they’d only heard about from the outside. And it was a chilling view. Director Oliver Stone never meant to present Gekko as a hero. But he was that for young guys hitting the stock market in the late ’90s, just before the dotcom bubble burst. A horde of rowdy 20-something guys riding high on ambition and testosterone populates the 2000 film “Boiler Room.” They bring in millions by selling nonexistent stocks to hapless targets, celebrating nightly with beer-fueled viewings of —what else — “Wall Street,” with the boys taking turns to quote, verbatim, every piece of dialogue in that movie. They were living the corporate dream . . . until the federal raids that ended their burgeoning careers. The angst-ridden lives of cubicle-dwellers inspired Mike Judge’s 1999 comedy “Office Space.” Judge had done his time in that world, and maybe that’s why the movie resonated so well, with viewers actually rooting for a trio of would-be corporate criminals. However, the movie is less about their devious plan and more about inane workplace culture. It’s now a cult classic satire piece about a nonsensical office life where pointless cover sheets on reports override any meaningful purpose, smarmy managers control hapless drones and souls are actively crushed — in the most hilarious way. In “The Devil Wears Prada” (2006), young journalism grad Andy (Anne Hathaway) has big dreams of a career of crafting topical, thought-pro- voking pieces in high-end magazines. Instead, she finds herself working as an assistant to the editor of major fashion magazine Runway. At first she resists, but in time she becomes identical to her expensively styled coworkers and chained to her phone to satisfy every last ridiculous whim of her boss, Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep), the icy, all-powerful editor and leading villain of the film. Priestly rivaled any villainous male of movies past; a simple stare or understated word could signal the end of a career. In the end, Andy sees Miranda as a pioneer who turned a fashion magazine into a global empire. Miranda, for all her eloquent hurling of insults, respects Andy’s talent, work ethic and determination to stick to her original dreams. Andy walks away a changed person — but still herself.
Harbert Business, Fall 2022 45
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