It takes a movie about how awful the workplace can be to show us how much we need work.
And in one of those cinematic paradoxes that make films so much fun to dissect, the best movies on working life are about women getting hounded from their jobs.
In the grand tradition of “Norma Rae,” “Silkwood,” “Erin Brockovich” and other movies about women fighting to gain ground, “North Country” opened Friday as an eloquent portrayal of people struggling to earn their way in the world. Given the near-universal need to do something useful and get paid for it, it’s amazing how often Hollywood ignores the workplace as a stage for drama.
But when major filmmakers and major stars punch the clock in search of rich material, the results are more than just satisfying stories. They can sound a call to action, offer inspiration for an entire class, or at the very least demand some serious soul-searching from the audience.
“Tough and heroic women in films actually have a very powerful role in showing that women can be heroes as much as men,” said Sherrie Inness, a professor of literature and women’s studies at Miami University of Ohio and author of “Tough Girls: Women Warriors and Wonder Women in Popular Culture.”
Inness likes to cite Sigourney Weaver as Ripley in the “Alien” series as a “working girl,” even if the setting is science fiction.
“It’s the same idea of a woman who ends up having to do this ‘man’s job,’ and ending up being more of a hero than anyone else,”
Inness said. For work and pleasure, she said, she has sat with many groups of women and watched movies, and she argues they have “a direct impact on how women might lead their own lives.”
“North Country” should continue the laudable tradition of Oscar nominations for women in workplace roles. Charlize Theron plays Josey Aimes, a fictional character based solidly on the true case of Minnesota iron miner Lois Jenson. A few years after a court order opened up the traditionally male mines to women, the single mother Jenson took a job and suffered relentless harassment.
That a job can be a grind is nothing new. But “North Country,” “Norma Rae” and “Silkwood” are far from being anti-work polemics. The often overlooked messages of these movies is how much fun work can be, and how much it can change your life – male or female – to be a breadwinner.
For all her beauty, Theron as Aimes revels in the mine country uniform of coveralls, hard hat and thick safety glasses. With her first check, she takes her kids out to a hamburger restaurant and sheds tears of joy, as her son taunts her: “I knew you were going to cry.” Josey doesn’t even mind scouring out the mine’s dust pits with a fire hose, so long as she’s not jumped by abusive co-workers.
In “Silkwood,” Meryl Streep’s fight is not against her colleagues, but against corporate management. She accused Kerr-McGee of sloppy handling that irradiated employees with plutonium, and died in a mysterious car accident.
Still, Streep’s character giggles her way through the work day, trading dirty jokes and weekend plans with her friends. Far from feeling harassed, Karen Silkwood is often the troublemaker, even flashing a breast at one stunned co-worker to make him turn away.
“Norma Rae” is famous for Sally Field standing amid a dust-choked textile factory and shutting down the thunderous looms with a “Union” sign. But the woman whose story the 1979 film was based on later told The Washington Post that the cotton plant was the best job she ever had, despite the dangers. Crystal Lee Sutton said after leaving the plant while the union-management battles raged on, she had to go to work at a fried chicken stand pulling fat from frozen carcasses.
The real Erin Brockovich used her brains, her looks and her resolve to help create a legal landmark that turned into the hit movie “Erin Brockovich.” She then used the hit movie to further her legal and motivational career, and seems to have been smiling ever since.
While all these women faced threats at work, they also used work as a refuge. Single moms certainly want a paycheck from their work, but like other parents, they also find relief there. No mouths to feed, no tears to soothe, and the pleasure of adult conversations – work can feel like an exclusive club at every level of compensation.
Some critics always lie in wait for the “working-girl” movies, arguing they take real-life heroes, make them impossibly glamorous, and dumb down the issues at hand.
But the people in the best position to make charges – those who have studied the original stories – are surprisingly complimentary about the fictionalized movies.
University of Colorado law professor Melissa Hart teaches harassment claims and wrote a paper on the Jenson mining case. Yes, she says, it’s true that Hollywood simplifies characters, invents “smoking-gun” documents, and finds witnesses who miraculously break down on the stand.
When “Erin Brockovich” was nominated for multiple Oscars in 2000, Hart said, there were attacks that the original character had been “cleaned up.”
Lois Jenson was worn down physically and emotionally by the events depicted in “North Country,” Hart said, and became obese. Putting that faithfully on screen “might distract from the merits of her story. Which is another cultural tragedy, but it’s true,” Hart said.
“There’s some artistic license. But film is a very important vehicle for public education,” Hart said. “It cuts through the legal jargon and puts it on a level more people can understand.”
Staff writer Michael Booth can be reached at 303-820-1686 or mbooth@denverpost.com.
