‘Working Girl’ Is ‘White Feminism: The Movie’

Written by Robin Hitchcock.

Is there a German word for the discomfort of an adult re-watching something they loved as a child and harshly realizing its flaws?

I felt that watching Working Girl last night. This movie was MY JAM in my youth, paving the way for a lifetime of having “Let the River Run” stuck in my head every time I’m called upon to wear “work clothes” (for someone who writes for the Internet and does comedy, this is not often). My husband, who had never seen it, kept saying “I can see why Baby Robin loved this.” I mean, it’s a feminist twist on Pygmalion where the girl not only remolds HERSELF but chooses high-powered businesslady as her new form. A high-powered businesslady who wears pretty dresses. And gets to screw Harrison Ford. Growing up, Working Girl was my fairytale of choice.

But now, as a grown-up with years of feminist training, I see that Working Girl is essentially White Feminism: The Movie. Chantelle Monique’s previous Bitch Flicks piece on Working Girl hits the nail on the head: “Even though Working Girl seems like a harmless romantic drama, its female representation is firmly rooted in classism and sexism.”

Our hero, Tess McGill (Melanie Griffith, in one of those hypercharismatic undeniably star-making performances), pulls herself up from her working class Staten Island roots to make it in the “man’s world” of business (ambiguous movie-world business, where words like “mergers and acquisitions” and “arbitrage” are thrown around in front of stock tickers and computer monitors but the actual work being done is never clearly illustrated). Working Girl is a product of its time, when feminism meant a white lady achieving all the power and success normally reserved for white men.

And what’s worse, the anti-feminist backlash of the 1980s is paradoxically woven throughout. See, Tess isn’t like the other women who’ve made it in business, she’s a “real woman.” When love interest Jack Trainer (Harrison Ford) first spots her at a corporate mixer where she’s decked out in a sparkly black cocktail dress, he tells her, “You’re the only woman I’ve seen at one of these things who dresses like a woman, not like a woman thinks a man would dress if he was a woman.” Uninhibited by valium and tequila, Tess responds, “I have a head for business and a bod for sin.” It isn’t Tess’s particular brand of lipstick feminism that bothers me so much as it is the putting down of other women who’ve eschewed standards of feminine beauty and sex appeal. It’s another aspect of Working Girl claiming progressivism while reinforcing the status quo.

Tess’s makeover into Business Barbie also involves a lot of unfortunate class issues. She chops off her gloriously teased 80s mullet (“If you want to be taken seriously, you need serious hair”), drops her gaudy costume jewelry, and stops wearing sneakers during her commute. Tess’s transformation comes about while she’s Single White Femaling her high class Wellesley grad boss Katherine (Sigourney Weaver), whose job she’s fraudulently taken on while Katherine recuperates from a skiing accident. Tess also borrows the absent Katherine’s clothes, deluxe apartment, and we eventually find out, boyfriend. She even practices imitating Katherine’s upper class accent while listening to her dictation. Madeover Tess is contrasted against her best friend, Cyn (Joan Cusack), and the rest of the secretarial pool, who keep their teased hair and peacock eyeshadow. Once again, we’re meant to admire Tess for not being like the other girls, advancing the sexist trope of the Exceptional Woman.

Tess is also portrayed as superior to her boss, Katherine, who becomes the villain of the piece by passing off one of Tess’s ideas as her own. This deception makes Katherine a cutthroat bitch who will do anything to get ahead. Meanwhile, the ethics of Tess passing off Katherine’s entire LIFE as her own are barely questioned. And Tess’s questionable moves to get ahead (notably, crashing a wedding to get face time with a business prospect) are just spunk and moxie.

So what makes Katherine the bad guy? Is it her privilege? Then why is Tess celebrated for shedding her working class trappings? Is it Katherine’s ego? How does a purportedly feminist movie justify punishing a woman for being proud of what she’s accomplished? Or is it simply that pitting women against each other is more palatable to Hollywood? Katherine first presents herself as a mentor, and wouldn’t that have been a better feminist message? (This compares unfavorably to another one of my favorite lady-frauds-her-way-to-the-top-of-the-corporate-ladder movies, Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, where Joanna Cassidy’s Rose supports Christina Applegate’s secretly teenage assistant from start to finish.)

This piece has pained me to write. I can’t quite let go of my love for Working Girl, even though the problems with its purported feminism are now abundantly clear to me. I guess it will just have to be another one of my problematic faves.

Robin Hitchcock is a writer based in Pittsburgh who would totally wear sneakers on her commute to an office job if she had one (potential employers take note!).