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WHAT MEN WANT Women In The Workplace Films – We Are Movie Geeks

Movies

WHAT MEN WANT Women In The Workplace Films

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Taraji P. Henson in What Men Want from Paramount Pictures and Paramount Players. © 2018 Paramount Players, A Division of Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.

Women throughout the years have always been a force to be reckoned in business, big and small. Hollywood has portrayed women past, present and future as an integral part of the workforce. Audiences have witnessed up on the big screen the struggles and triumphs of characters such as Sally Field in NORMA RAE, Goldie Hawn in SWING SHIFT and Lt. Ellen in Ripley in the ALIEN series.

Now comes the latest movie from director Adam Shankman (HAIRSPRAY)  – WHAT MEN WANT.

Ali Davis (Taraji P. Henson) is a successful sports agent who’s constantly boxed out by her male colleagues. When Ali is passed up for a well-deserved promotion, she questions what else she needs to do to succeed in a man’s world… until she gains the ability to hear men’s thoughts! With her newfound power, Ali looks to outsmart her colleagues as she races to sign the next basketball superstar, but the lengths she has to go to will put her relationship with her best friends and a potential new love interest (Aldis Hodge) to the test. WHAT MEN WANT is the latest comedy from producers Will Packer and James Lopez (GIRLS TRIP), co-starring Tracy Morgan, Richard Roundtree, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Josh Brener, Tamala Jones, Phoebe Robinson, Max Greenfield, Jason Jones, Brian Bosworth, Chris Witaske and Erykah Badu.

In WAMG’s review, Cate Marquis says WHAT MEN WANT, “is a gal pal popcorn comedy with more laughs than you might expect from its silly Hollywood fantasy premise, largely thanks to Taraji P. Hensen and a hard-working supporting cast.”

WHAT MEN WANT opens Friday, Feb. 8 and the women of WAMG (Cate Marquis, Melissa Thompson and Michelle Hannett) present to you our list of our favorite films about Women In The Workforce.

The Devil Wears Prada (2006) Cate

comedy/drama

Anne Hathaway plays a struggling journalist who reluctantly takes a job as an assistant to the powerhouse publisher of a fashion magazine, played by Meryl Streep, who eats assistants for breakfast, in a kind of mentoring trial by fire. Streep’s character is rumored to be based on the fierce Anna Wintour of Vogue Magazine. Hathaway’s character is not a fashionista and she feels like the job is a poor fit, even a step back for her career. Yet despite the mismatch, her experience demonstrates any job may offer lessons for that career you really want. Anyone who has had to work for a demanding, distant boss can identify.

Erin Brockovich (2000) Cate

fact-based drama

Erin Brockovich is the overlooked secretary, a mother with little education, but she proves to be the one with the real brains, in this fact-based story. Julia Roberts plays a legal secretary, who turns sleuth, then crusading attorney, in this true-story based inspirational film, which won an Oscar for Roberts. The real Erin Brockovich refused to accept the hopelessness of families being poisoned by chemical pollutants in their water, just as she refused to accept the career path society thought best suited her. An underdog story of transformation, this one demonstrates the power of persistence, asking questions, and facing down the powerful instead of taking no for an answer.

His Girl Friday (1940) Cate

comedy/romance

In Howard Hawks’ classic screwball comedy, Rosalind Russell plays star newspaper reporter Hildy Johnson, a part re-written from the originally male role in “Front Page.” Don’t be fooled by the set-up – in the 1940s, it was assumed what every woman wanted was to get married – but this subversive little comedy undermines that idea with a dynamic, wise-cracking Rosalind Russell at the top of her game. After years as the paper’s top reporter, Hildy has fallen in love and thinks she wants to get married, which then meant staying home and having kids. Her irritating editor – and ex-husband – Cary Grant is not convinced that’s what she really wants, and gives her one last juicy assignment, hoping the veteran ace reporter will re-discover her love of getting the scoop and that she isn’t yet ready to give up her career. A look at working women in another era, when they were expected to chose family or career.

Working Girl (1988)  

Tess McGill is smart, gorgeous and struggling. Her life seems to have become an endless round of Staten Island Ferry commutes, lecherous bosses and low pay. However, she’s determined to use her brains and talent to pull herself out of the secretarial pool and into the upper echelons of New York’s brokerage industry. Before long, Tess realizes that she’s in combat zone, and that she’ll have to use commando tactics if she wants to survive. Mike Nicholos’ WORKING GIRL is a comedy-drama that takes the sweet, but street-smart Tess (Melanie Griffith) on the trip up that treacherous corporate ladder. Harrison Ford plays Jack Trainer, a white collar Prince Charming who becomes Tess’ ally, and Sigourney Weaver is her high-powered boss.

Baby Boom (1987) Michelle

J.C. Wiatt (Diane Keaton), a six-figure workaholic management consultant who is also known to her colleagues as the “Tiger Lady,”learns that she has “inherited” an apple-cheeked, 14-month-old girl! No way, José, is J.C. going to keep this career-inhibiting menace–it’s off to the adoption agency. If you are expecting that she will become fond of the kid and change her mind as well as her attitudes about love, romance and life, you are right on course. Naturally, still being somewhat who she is, J.C. will find a way to turn her new beloved asset into some quite nice $$$…when she moves from New York City to Vermont. Kate Jackson appeared as J.C. in the television spin-off of this very funny “Capraesque” comedy.

Hidden Figures (2016)  Michelle

The incredible untold true story of Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) & Mary Jackson (Janelle Monae)—brilliant African-American women working at NASA, who served as the brains behind one of the greatest operations in history: the launch of astronaut John Glenn into orbit. This stunning achievement galvanized the world and inspired generations to dream big. The film received three Oscar nominations (Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress for Spencer).

9 to 5 (1980) Melissa

“I’m no fool. I’ve killed the boss, you think they’re not gonna fire me for a thing like that?”

Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton star in the 1980 classic that encouraged working women everywhere to stand up for themselves in the workplace. When company executive Franklin Hart is caught stealing from the company, his three secretaries seize the opportunity to exact revenge on their “sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot” of a boss. Atta girls!

Legally Blonde (2001) Melissa

Reese Witherspoon stars as Elle Woods, a privileged Beverly Hills sorority girl who follows her popular frat-boy ex-boyfriend to Harvard Law School in order to secure an engagement ring. But her Beverly Hills pedigree is no match for the east coast blue-bloods and Elle must prove that she is much more than her blonde hair and pin-up-girl good looks. With a little help from her friends and a strong female law professor (Holland Taylor), Elle takes the Ivy-League world by storm.

Silkwood (1983) Melissa

The dramatic true story of Karen Silkwood (Oscar-nominated Meryl Streep), a worker at a plutonium processing plant purposefully contaminated, psychologically tortured and possibly murdered to prevent her from exposing worker safety violations at the plant. After threatening to blow the whistle, Silkwood died in a car accident under questionable circumstances. Also turning in an Oscar nominated performance is Cher, as Karen’s co-worker and roommate Dolly.

Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead (1991) Michelle

With no money to pay the family’s bills, Sue Ellen finds work at a fast food restaurant called Clown Dog. Despite a budding relationship with her co-worker named Bryan, she quits because of the obnoxious manager. Sue Ellen then forges a résumé under the guise of a young fashion designer and applies at General Apparel West (GAW), hoping to secure a job as a receptionist. However, Rose Lindsey (Joanna Cassidy), a company executive, finds her résumé so impressive that she offers Sue Ellen a job as an executive assistant, much to the chagrin of Carolyn, a receptionist on Rose’s floor who was initially in line for the job. While having dinner at a restaurant that night, Mrs. Sturak’s car is stolen, forcing Sue Ellen to call in a favor from Bryan to bring them home. Sue Ellen then obtains the keys to her mother’s Volvo, and begins stealing from petty cash at GAW to support the family, intending to return it when she receives her paycheck.

You were rooting for Applegate’s character from the beginning – even when everything falls apart at the end, you hope and see a funny and clever resolution from director Stephen Herek.

Network (1976) Michelle

Best Actress winner Faye Dunaway plays Diana Christensen, who heads Union Broadcasting System’s programming department. It was a bold move back in the day when women we still considered secretaries more than managers.

Did you know for the role of Diana Christensen, writer Paddy Chayefsky thought of Candice Bergen, Ellen Burstyn, and Natalie Wood, while the studio suggested Jane Fonda, with Kay Lenz, Diane Keaton, Marsha Mason and Jill Clayburgh. Dunaway was cast as Diana in September 1975. Director Sidney Lumet told her that he would edit out any attempts on her part to make her character sympathetic and insisted on playing her without any vulnerability.