[00:16] Meg: Welcome to Desperately Seeking the 80s. I am Meg.

[00:18] Jessica: And I'm Jessica. And Meg and I have been friends since 1982. We got through middle school and high school together here in New York City,

[00:26] Meg: where we still live and where we podcast about New York city in the 80s. I do ripped from the headlines, and

[00:32] Jessica: I do pop culture.

[00:34] Meg: So we just saw each other. We're. We should explain. We're recording kind of back to back because of crazy scheduling stuff. I have to go out of town. And then also, we were lucky enough to squeeze in a fun play night last night, which was so nice.

[00:53] Jessica: It was so lovely. So the name of the place, I keep on thinking, like, drive in, drift in, drift in, drift in.

[01:00] Meg: And it's on. It's like, it's so crazy. If you grew up in New York city in the 70s and 80s, the idea that there would be an outdoor, pleasant place to eat on the west side highway is insanity. Yeah.

[01:18] Jessica: It's. It's disorienting.

[01:20] Meg: It's like, where are we?

[01:21] Jessica: It's like, it's on Pier 15. I'm like, Whoa, with the hookers. Okay.

[01:28] Meg: And it was really, really beautiful. I kept thinking like, we were in the opening of Three's Company. Santa Monica, Venice beach, whatever.

[01:37] Jessica: Yeah. We were at the Regal Beagle. It was amazing.

[01:40] Meg: It was beautiful. And we watched the sunset, and we had a couple of bears and some bars, and we had really plump shrimp.

[01:49] Jessica: They were quite plump.

[01:51] Meg: Yeah.

[01:51] Jessica: Yes.

[01:52] Meg: Jumbo.

[01:52] Jessica: Jumbo, indeed. And a crab dip that was perfectly fine.

[01:56] Meg: And we paid $5 for extra Ritz.

[02:02] Jessica: $3.

[02:02] Meg: Was it three or five?

[02:04] Jessica: Three. I promise you, it was burned in my brain because I was like, really?

[02:08] Meg: And we didn't have one of them. Or five extra Ritz crackers.

[02:13] Jessica: Yeah. Three for five. Wow.

[02:15] Meg: And we didn't even eat them.

[02:17] Jessica: I was. I thought it was a good idea to put them in my purse until you dissuaded me because.

[02:21] Meg: Well, because they weren't paper napkins. You would have had to steal a napkin.

[02:25] Jessica: Well, you know, I think worse things have happened on the west side Hu. Highway.

[02:28] Meg: You don't want to stick crackers in your purse.

[02:31] Jessica: No, I didn't. And I. I. It didn't happen.

[02:34] Meg: But then we took a lovely walk through the West Village. We did a beautiful night.

[02:41] Jessica: Yeah. And the people watching was very good. Amazingly, no. Truly crazy people, it seems.

[02:49] Meg: Did I remember? I don't think so.

[02:51] Jessica: No. Not until I tried to go to the bathroom and when it was dark out finally. And I was like, oh, we should

[02:56] Meg: say this about the drift in. They don't have a bathroom, so you have to use the park public bathroom. Which frankly, as I kept saying to Jessica, I'm like, you've been in how many frigging dive bars in your life? You can handle a public bathroom?

[03:12] Jessica: It's not the public bathroom. It's a park public bathroom. It seems to me that it's more public than a normal. Which doesn't make any sense. I understand that.

[03:24] Meg: I mean, it was clean.

[03:26] Jessica: Ish. Clean enough. I was so happy that I spent a lot of the summer on a bicycle because my thighs held me in a hover above that seat without any shaking or quaking. That was a hover of pure excellence. So, yeah, that's a downside. So, you know, if you are a beer drinker or a drinker of water or anything else, just go forewarned.

[03:57] Meg: And I would go back. I thought it was on a lovely night.

[04:01] Jessica: It's hard to beat on a lovely night. It was, it was, it was genuinely beautiful. And because I can't ever accept the first table that has been offered, I got us a great table.

[04:18] Meg: What I had to admit to Jessica yesterday, I was actually a little bit late. Not on purpose, but I have in the past intentionally been a little bit late because Jessica always switches tables and I just leave that to her. I don't need to be there when

[04:34] Jessica: that happens, but I always get the table I want.

[04:37] Meg: It was a perfect table.

[04:39] Jessica: Yeah.

[04:39] Meg: And she liked us.

[04:41] Jessica: Clearly.

[04:41] Meg: You handled it in a way that did not cause any resentment with.

[04:45] Jessica: Nine times out of ten, I do. I admit that there's the outlier that

[04:52] Meg: we have definitely been at a restaurant where that woman hated us.

[04:56] Jessica: And my feeling is you don't hate us, you hate your job.

[05:01] Meg: Both things can be true.

[05:03] Jessica: Nah, I. I refuse to accept that as reality. I think, and this is a lead in to our podcast today.

[05:14] Meg: Yes.

[05:15] Jessica: I think that when a group of women or two women come in together, they don't get the best service. They're not going to be given the best table. It's assumed they're not going to make a ruckus. And as a result, habitually given the shit table that nobody wants, which in my estimation is near the bathroom, near the station where all of the silverware and glasses and all that is, or right near whatever the register. It's not a register anymore, but wherever they have their, you know, taking reservations and like getting the point of sale, handheld things, any place where that's going on is garbage because you don't have an experience at all. Your experience is, well, this is what it's like to work here and sit in a bathroom eating escargot. Like, ugh, no.

[06:12] Meg: And now you're gonna make me a little paranoid, and I'm gonna think that.

[06:17] Jessica: But I'm right.

[06:18] Meg: I. I'll. Look, I'm going to a restaurant tomorrow. We shall see. Oh, but I'm going with a man.

[06:23] Jessica: Yeah. No, no, no. This is a female discrimination situation, which is a perfect segue into today's watch party.

[06:32] Meg: It sure is.

[06:32] Jessica: Which is nine.

[06:35] Meg: All right, let's jump in. Sometimes I have to admit, when I'm editing Jessica, I hear my voice, the enthusiasm in my voice. I'm like, who are you? Are you, like, the most annoying person in the world?

[07:00] Jessica: Possibly. Why? Because you're excited?

[07:02] Meg: Yeah.

[07:03] Jessica: That's great.

[07:04] Meg: Okay.

[07:05] Jessica: Everyone needs that energy.

[07:06] Meg: All right.

[07:07] Jessica: Wants wet washcloth, diaper energy.

[07:10] Meg: You're absolutely right. I just heard myself at the end of the last segment. I was like, who is that?

[07:16] Jessica: No, you're hyping yourself, man. You're hyping. You've got Riz.

[07:22] Meg: I just recently understood what that meant.

[07:25] Jessica: Charisma.

[07:26] Meg: I see. I didn't. I love it. Great. I might start using it. Be warned.

[07:32] Jessica: By all means you. I encourage all linguistic experimentation.

[07:38] Meg: Why not? So, as you mentioned in your introduction, we are doing a watch party. And, of course, we wanted to do a watch party for a movie that Dolly Parton was in because we love her so much and, you know, maybe to handle the grief, we can move into the fall with just a lot of appreciation.

[08:02] Jessica: Indeed. And we did the research and found that the Dolly Parton movie that has a really good tie to New York City is Rhinestone.

[08:12] Meg: But we were gonna do it. We were gonna take one for the team.

[08:15] Jessica: 1984. Syves Stallone.

[08:17] Meg: Rhinestone. So you didn't have to.

[08:20] Jessica: Exactly. Exactly. The basic plot is, for whatever reason, he's a New York cabbie, clearly rough around the edges, and she has to make him into a country western star.

[08:34] Meg: Or why Unknown.

[08:36] Jessica: Because you can't find it anywhere.

[08:40] Meg: Well, this is true. All I could find were little clips about, like, the most embarrassing moment ever filmed. But we could not find the entire movie, which is very frustrating and sad, until we just went. Maybe this means we can just watch 9 to 5 instead.

[09:00] Jessica: Yeah. And we'll kid ourselves that it's not in Chicago, that it's in New York.

[09:05] Meg: Well, it was in la. Even worse, it was in la.

[09:09] Jessica: Are you sure?

[09:10] Meg: Absolutely.

[09:11] Jessica: Oh, God.

[09:12] Meg: I looked it up. The opening sequence. And let's discuss the opening sequence.

[09:16] Jessica: Okay.

[09:16] Meg: The opening sequence.

[09:17] Jessica: It's a stroke of genius.

[09:20] Meg: So brilliant and it feels so New York with the people walking. I mean, it's. It's choreographed. The walking and the feed and the taxis.

[09:29] Jessica: And the shot is only basically calf down. So it's. And it's only women. There aren't any men. So you have women's lower legs and

[09:40] Meg: shoes, feet and in skirts and.

[09:44] Jessica: And yeah.

[09:45] Meg: No.

[09:46] Jessica: No pants. No slacks.

[09:47] Meg: No, no, no, no.

[09:48] Jessica: You just said slacks, slacks.

[09:50] Meg: No. And the skirts are not straight skirts. They're all full skirts.

[09:56] Jessica: They're a line or circ that hit

[09:59] Meg: right above the ankle. Maybe like a. No, more like six inches above the ankle.

[10:03] Jessica: There were key length and then there were the ones that also are just like a little more than just below the knee, but that perfectly awkward length of 1980. Like, how can you look as stumpy as possible? I know an A line skirt that's three inches below your kneecap.

[10:22] Meg: Seriously. And with these belts. And so the rumps all looked rump slacks and rump. It affect. It was made in 1980.

[10:32] Jessica: I know, but of its time. I'm just saying you've really embraced parlance with costuming. The costuming was phenomenal. But can I just go back for one second about the intro?

[10:44] Meg: Because I have one more important thing to say about the intro, if I may. It was filmed in San Francisco.

[10:51] Jessica: You can't trust anybody because they couldn't

[10:54] Meg: have gotten that many people that kind of thing in la, because in la, people just drive up and, you know, park in the parking garage and go up the elevator. So you're not gonna get all those wonderful people walking in the street, but you can in San Francisco.

[11:08] Jessica: So here's what I love about the opening. And I'm gonna draw a parallel to another movie that we have talked about many times on this podcast. But first, the opening of 9 to 5. I love it so much because without giving a single word, you get. Except for the lyrics, you get so much information. So it opens with a few beats before the song begins. And it's just the credits coming up and the feet moving. And it's just a second and then that starts and it's perfectly timed with the feet. And then the sound that's like the typewriter begins. And in that moment you're like, they're all going to work. Oh, I get it.

[12:00] Meg: I think it actually opens with alarms going off too. All the different alarm clocks.

[12:05] Jessica: It does. And so this energy.

[12:08] Meg: 6, 36, 15, 7, 10. And people are swatting their manual alarm clocks.

[12:18] Jessica: The energy that they create in that opening is perfect. And my feeling is that the pacing of the film begins right there with the pace of that song, the tempo of that song, and it doesn't stop. Which is one of the many reasons that I believe it's such a successful movie.

[12:39] Meg: Completely. And fun fact. So it was Dolly Parton's first movie ever. And we will get into that. And she was 33 years old in a moment.

[12:50] Jessica: Because. Perfect perfection.

[12:52] Meg: Yeah. But she was cast in her first movie role and she agreed to do it as long as she could write the song for it. And then she was inspired by her nails clicking on table, like that kind of acrylic sound.

[13:16] Jessica: Do you know the other movie that it makes me think of? The opening and the Working Girl. Yes, correct.

[13:22] Meg: Which of course we have to do a watch party at Working Girl.

[13:25] Jessica: Very much so. But it's that same like, you know, it's going to be female centric and everyone's going to work and you have this song and it sets the tone perfectly. It tells you what ride you're gonna go on. Because I thought it was Chicago, but then I was convinced it was New York. I just want you to know that even in the opening sequence, I was desperately trying to zoom in on the license plates.

[13:51] Meg: Oh, I mean, they had yellow cabs.

[13:54] Jessica: They had yellow cabs.

[13:54] Meg: I think they actually did try to make it look like New York. I, I do, I.

[13:59] Jessica: Thank you.

[14:00] Meg: I mean, they even showed pigeons and I mean, just all these things that you associate with New York.

[14:07] Jessica: And therein lies my lifelong confusion.

[14:11] Meg: And then we start meeting the cast of characters. We meet Jane Fonda, who's wearing a hat. Oh, I should also say fun fact. You know, she was the producer. Unlisted producer.

[14:28] Jessica: I did not know that of this

[14:29] Meg: movie she had, she wanted, you know, she was very politically active in the women's rights movement. Women's rights movement. Is that what that's called?

[14:41] Jessica: Equal rights?

[14:42] Meg: Equal rights, yes. Women's liberation, yes. All of that.

[14:46] Jessica: I'm, I'm just gonna stand with a raised fist.

[14:48] Meg: You got it. Oh, and Gloria Steinem. Have a moment. So she wanted to make a movie. She wanted to produce a movie that reflected what she cares about, women in the workplace. And she wanted it to be hard hitting. And then she started interviewing women and they all had these crazy revenge fantasies. And she was like, oh, no, this is the movie. This is the movie. Isn't that fun?

[15:21] Jessica: I love that.

[15:22] Meg: Like, let's just have A hoot with this.

[15:25] Jessica: I. It's. It's really a perfect movie.

[15:28] Meg: And I would actually say, knowing now that she cast herself a little against type.

[15:34] Jessica: Yeah, totally against type.

[15:36] Meg: I mean, she's so beautiful and she's got kind of a glamorous aura to her. Maybe because of her voice. She's got a very deep voice and she was playing a goody two shoes. She was playing a recent divorce.

[15:50] Jessica: She was playing an innocent, naive, sheltered woman who is a recent divorcee and had just started to even figure out what it is to look after yourself as an adult.

[16:05] Meg: She had to make money. She had to go back to work. So she was taking an entry level job at a company where Lily Tomlin is a manager and their boss is

[16:19] Jessica: Dabney Coleman in a career defining performance.

[16:25] Meg: My God, is he perfect? Like amazing. I just appreciate so much.

[16:32] Jessica: Not a single soul was miscast, by the way.

[16:35] Meg: Like, it was so beautifully cast.

[16:38] Jessica: Yeah, it was. It was amazing. So anyway, so it's. Lily Tomlin is the man of the. And Dabney Coleman plays the horrible, horrible boss and his secretary, his personal secretary is the much beleaguered Dora Lee played by Dolly Parton.

[16:55] Meg: And so they all have very. They're all coming from different situations. Lily Tomlin is, we eventually find out, is widowed and with mother of teenage boys.

[17:06] Jessica: Correct.

[17:07] Meg: Which is. And single. And Dolly Parton is very happily married. And as we said, Jane Fonda's recent divorce.

[17:17] Jessica: And not only is the hat bad, but the suit. Where did they find that fabric?

[17:23] Meg: I don't know. The costuming was so incredible. I mean, again, I just feel like we're just talking in superlatives. Except that it's true, it's accurate. What about Dolly Parton's dress? The fabric of Dolly Parton's dress, did you notice that?

[17:39] Jessica: Like, 80s. Yeah, the 80s abstract with the pink cinching belt.

[17:45] Meg: My God.

[17:46] Jessica: But what I love about that outfit that Jane Fonda is in is that it is truly terrible. And there's a scene, of course, in the beginning where she's being introduced to the people in the office and she's introduced to Dolly Parton, Dora Lee and the dress they have Dolly in. It's like her breasts are on a shelf. It's just like there's. There's clearly. It's a plot point. And Jane Fonda is introduced to her and her eyes are like saucers and she quickly flicks down to look. And then as she's turning away, she looks down at her own chest.

[18:22] Meg: Good girl.

[18:23] Jessica: And is like, okay, and what was so great about the costuming? I can't believe I caught this. They created or fitted the jacket of her skirt suit so that it was loose in the chest. And so you look down and it's like this empty, sad wallet of a. Of a jacket. And you're like, oh, okay. And what I really liked about it is that not only was it setting up what office politics are, it was setting up how do women treat other women in the workforce, which is something I have definitely struggled with. You know, when I started out with my career, it was not women helping women at all.

[19:10] Meg: Well, this is what's interesting. So at the beginning of the movie, some of the women support each other. And Lily Tomlin is definitely gonna help Jane Fonda on her first day at work, which, as we all know, the first day of work is traumatic indeed, especially in, I mean, the paper. This is a. An office. So you've got the phones and the copying of the paper and the. All the noises and the. When you answer, you've got to put people on hold. I mean, I started having flashbacks to all, you know, we've talked about our temp days. It's like, it's just, you're going to fuck up. Well, the someone is going to yell at you is what's going to happen your first day of work.

[19:56] Jessica: And the other thing that is inescapable is that they really put together a set that is like an office. So the scene opens and you see that it's just a sea of desks with people in these low level positions who are typing. They're not even on the phones, only like the next level up have phones. The first thought I had was you were all replaced by AI, every single one of you. And then I was looking at the technology, which is absolutely. Like, in a million years, I never thought that I would watch this movie and be like, oh, how droll. The technology is hilarious. But this, the size of the Xerox

[20:42] Meg: machine is, oh, monstrous, monstrous jinx. And then it turns into a monster.

[20:48] Jessica: Yes.

[20:49] Meg: When Jane Fonda messes it up. But also, I want to mention. So the guy from the mailroom is a black man, and Lily Tomlin introduces him to Jane Fonda. And he was like, are you kidding me? I've been here for frigging forever. And now she just walks in off the street. So I feel like Jane Fonda was also putting in other politics in terms of race.

[21:15] Jessica: Well, and also she got the job because the man who hired her in HR told Lily Tomlin look, take her on in your department. She just got divorced. She's like, she needs help. That was so out of keeping with everything else in the film, but also this kind of like, paternalistic, like, I'm the one who's gonna actually let you live. Do you know what I mean? That was part of that feeling.

[21:47] Meg: And it comes around at the end of the movie, too. I feel like the race relations. But early on, one of. I felt like there were people of color in this movie in a way that you don't necessarily see people of color. And they used the movies in the 80s.

[22:05] Jessica: Maria Delgado.

[22:06] Meg: Exactly. Yes.

[22:07] Jessica: Maria Delgado, who made a whole thing about her.

[22:10] Meg: She gets fired because she has conflict with her kid going to school.

[22:16] Jessica: No, no, no. She was fired because she was talking about salaries in the bathroom. And evil Roz, who is definitely a woman who does not like other women. Roz busts her to Mr. Hart.

[22:31] Meg: You know what I wrote down? Roz is like Natalie Harp.

[22:35] Jessica: Oh, my God, totally.

[22:36] Meg: Right. But she's just trying to.

[22:38] Jessica: Much older.

[22:38] Meg: Yeah. Yeah.

[22:39] Jessica: But she's.

[22:40] Meg: She's trying to suck up to the boss. Yeah, by undercutting. Exactly.

[22:44] Jessica: And, like, openly reporting on, like. Everyone knows that she's the snitch on everything.

[22:50] Meg: So Lily Tomlin, she's kind of the person on the floor that everyone is looking to. She's, you know, she. She's running things. She's obviously very popular. She does her job very well.

[23:03] Jessica: And she's waiting for a promotion.

[23:04] Meg: And she's waiting for a promotion. And she's the perfect person to take care of Jane Fonda on her first day. But all those women who get along so well and support each other and. And, you know, catch up on stuff in the bathroom because that's the safe place to talk. They don't like Dolly Parton, and the reason they don't like Dolly Parton is because they think she is sleeping with the boss.

[23:34] Jessica: Well, they think that because he explicitly told them. Yeah, so that's another thing. So about women politics in the workforce, you've got the woman who doesn't belong, and, oh, you were a pampered princess, but now you have to work. There's the woman who is besmirched by the boss, and it's the stuff that they establish at the beginning of the film that he has done to her is so insane in the world of sexual harassment. She says at one point, oh, well, you know, I guess the next time that you invite me to a conference, it's up to me to figure out that There really is a conference.

[24:20] Meg: Right. So he's doing just crazy sexual harassment stuff, which we can say is crazy, but to be honest, like, people get called out on it now, but that's kind of a recent development.

[24:32] Jessica: Oh, no, I don't think it's crazy because it was 1980. I'm saying it's just wild, awful.

[24:38] Meg: And the way that she handles it, that's the other really important thing. So you've got this workplace environment that is just toxic. It's awful. They're being spoken to by their boss just in the most disrespectful form.

[24:54] Jessica: Everything from you're my girl to shut up, fuck you.

[24:58] Meg: And how each of those women deal with it because they don't have a choice because they have to have this job.

[25:06] Jessica: Well, it also shows, though, the rank, because Lily Tomlin does speak back to

[25:10] Meg: him just a hair, to be honest. She doesn't snap back.

[25:15] Jessica: No, no. And she does what she's told, but she makes it clear that she doesn't want to.

[25:20] Meg: She has boundaries.

[25:22] Jessica: Exactly. And Jane Fonda's character is terrified and she's flabbergasted.

[25:27] Meg: She's never seen anything like this. So through her eyes, we see how it's re. I mean, not that we wouldn't know how bad it is, but she's truly shocked. She's the newbie and she's like, what have I walked into? This is awful.

[25:42] Jessica: And Dolly Parton pulls off the perfect, long suffering, turn the other cheek. Just keep going back, try again the next day. Sweet.

[25:53] Meg: Have you ever. I. I've never been a Dolly Parton like that. I've always, like, ended up storming out or saying something that gets me in trouble. I've never. She's just so politic. She's so beautifully politic.

[26:08] Jessica: No, you. I think you know that. That would not be my.

[26:11] Meg: I know. So weren't you impressed?

[26:13] Jessica: I. Yes, but I also was like, how utterly horrifying that she was an expert at dealing with being tackled to the ground in her boss's office. So anyway, the whole premise of this movie, after it has been established that this is a complete and utter shit show and that women are in this horrible ghetto where they have no voice, they can't change their circumstances. It's a nightmare. And we see a little bit about their home lives and Lily Tomlin, who we know is a widow, she's with her teenage son and she's complaining and he's like, mom, just take a joint. I'm gonna put a joint. And she. And she's like, no, don't talk about that. No, no. And then she's like, slip it in my purse. So the three women wind up having. You're gonna say. I think you're gonna say why they wound up in. In cahoots together.

[27:13] Meg: Yeah. Before we get there, I just also wanted to mention that we meet Mr. Hart, Dabney Coleman's wife, who could very easily have also been kind of negative character, like Roz is. Who's such. Who's. The office suck up. But the wife is just like. She just doesn't know what's going on. And she's so nice to Dolly Parton. And I was grateful that they made the character like that because we don't need that element in there. We don't need a jealous wife in there.

[27:47] Jessica: No, it was just.

[27:48] Meg: You know what I mean? I think it was a very interesting choice.

[27:51] Jessica: They had a stock character of a clueless wife, so I don't think that was necessarily a tour de force. But if they had made her jealous, that would have been a whole plot point that would have been extraneous. Like, it's not useful. But, you know, she was kind of.

[28:07] Meg: I think she's his poor missile.

[28:09] Jessica: Yes, she. I don't know. I feel sorry for Missy.

[28:11] Meg: Well, of course. Who doesn't?

[28:13] Jessica: I'm just saying. It's all. Yeah.

[28:15] Meg: And then she becomes very important further on in the. Indeed she does. Oh, one thing. Did you catch the Italian slur?

[28:22] Jessica: Oh, I certainly did.

[28:23] Meg: What? I was like, where did that come from?

[28:26] Jessica: Yeah, yeah, it was. It was, yeah. Not a common slur. I don't. I don't think I've ever heard anyone use it as a genuine slur. Like, it's just one of those things that, you know, that people used to say, but it was so jarring.

[28:47] Meg: It was jarring. No, no, it was jarring. One other thing before we move on. I have a memory when I, you know, was little and saw this movie of my mother saying how beautiful she thought Dolly Parton was. Isn't that interesting? It, like, really hit me that my mother thought Dolly Parton was so beautiful. Because I looked at her, I think, and I thought of her as more like a cartoon character with the big hair and the big boobs. But my mother saw her face. She's got such a beautiful face. I remember her telling me that. And also On Golden Pond came out just a couple years after that. And I remember my mother being blown away by how beautiful Jane Fonda was in On Golden Pond.

[29:31] Jessica: Interesting.

[29:32] Meg: So when My mother complimented women. I took note.

[29:36] Jessica: Very, very interesting. So the way that these women get together is they all wind up having a terrible situation happen that is in keeping with their, you know, established problems in the office. And they all wind up at Charlie's, the bar down the stairs. Charlie's bar. And Violet, which is Lily Tomlin, invites them back to her house in the suburbs.

[30:00] Meg: And they clarify that Dolly Parton is not having sex with the boss and that she's been lied about.

[30:07] Jessica: Right. And they wind up at Lily Tomlin's place. And they. And I. This made me laugh so hard. She's like, let's have an old fashioned pot party. I was like, oh, that's cute. So they get high as kites.

[30:20] Meg: Yeah. And the. And the three grievances are that Lily Tomlin didn't get the promotion that she was promised and some guy who she trained got the job instead. Dolly Parton, sexually harassed, is being sexually harassed and found out that he was saying that. And she's like, that's why you guys don't like me. So that's a big revelation. And Jane Fonda got just yelled at mercilessly.

[30:45] Jessica: Well, I thought what was interesting is that when in the first scene, when she meets him, she's horrified that there's a deer head on his wall. And when she starts the film, she is the deer in headlights.

[30:58] Meg: So true.

[30:59] Jessica: So she identifies with the deer. And she is kind of like. Her grievance is kind of like, fuck bullies. That's how I. I wrapped that up in my head. That was her thing.

[31:13] Meg: And we have met her husband, who she has recently divorced. Oh, no.

[31:18] Jessica: Who recently left her for his secretary.

[31:21] Meg: For his secretary. And he's wearing a tracksuit, which was with a chain. Oh, my God. I mean, I. Again, the comb over. Do you remember those guys? I remember those guys.

[31:32] Jessica: And he was.

[31:32] Meg: He had a flashy, forced men walking around in tracksuits who thought they looked hip because they had just, you know, divorced their first wives. It was a thing.

[31:44] Jessica: You know what it reminds me of? I don't know if I've ever told you this story, but I know, I know. I have talked about how I saw Larry King in LA when I was staying in Beverly Hills. He was shuffling across the street to get to a deli, and I was laughing my head off because he was wearing jeans. I mean, this is Larry King. He was the shape of a shrimp. A shrimp shuffling across the street. And he was wearing. And he barely had any mass to his legs or ass at all. Like, it was just like two empty pencils inside jeans. And the jeans were elaborately bedazzled.

[32:26] Meg: Oh, my God.

[32:27] Jessica: On the back. And I was dying. Oh, my God. Because I was like. I think it was sixth at that point. Wife said, larry, this'll be good. You'll look hip. So that's. That's how I see that.

[32:42] Meg: That's hysterical. One more fun fact that I read about is that when Jane Fonda was envisioning this movie, she was watching a lot of movies from the 30s and 40s, so she was really interested in the. Rosalind Russell, his girlfriend.

[33:01] Jessica: That's what I called you earlier today. The way you were speaking, I was like, what are you, Rosalind Russ?

[33:06] Meg: Isn't that honey? There you go. And film noir. And so she. She had all of those movies in her mind when she was trying to figure out what was this movie that she was going to make or produce. Now we're gonna get into the kind of psychedelic part of this very amazing, great movie when these women get stoned. They each have revenge fantasies. And each of the revenge fantasies is like a classic movie. So we've got Jane Fonda's. Is the film noir.

[33:41] Jessica: Yes.

[33:42] Meg: And she gives us the first time we hear this incredible line. Sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot.

[33:49] Jessica: Yes, that is.

[33:50] Meg: Which comes back.

[33:51] Jessica: Oh, yes. It's just a slew of words for Dabney Coleman.

[33:55] Meg: Yes. Which he doesn't deny, by the way.

[33:58] Jessica: He doesn't care.

[33:58] Meg: He's like, yes, honestly.

[34:00] Jessica: Feels very relevant.

[34:02] Meg: It sure does. Like, he. He doubles down on it. It's like.

[34:07] Jessica: Like, what are you gonna do to me?

[34:08] Meg: Right.

[34:09] Jessica: True.

[34:10] Meg: So no, she got that.

[34:12] Jessica: And she. The noir, it's in black and white, and she is a hunter, and she's hunting him in the office. And eventually his head replaces the deer head in his office. Lily Tomlin is Snow White. Literally is Snow White with the animated animals and birds and all of that. And she's so sick of making coffee for this asshole. And he always wants skinny and sweet, and she makes it. And instead of skinny and sweet, she has a ring that has a compartment. And she puts poison in it and gives him the coffee. Still sweet as can be. He realizes he's been poisoned. And then she launches him out the window.

[34:56] Meg: Right. So that's the Disney movie.

[34:58] Jessica: Right.

[34:58] Meg: And then Dolly Parton is the western. Is the western. And she lassos him.

[35:06] Jessica: She sexually harasses him.

[35:08] Meg: Oh, she sure does.

[35:09] Jessica: And then Hogties. Lassos him and hogties him. And Basically, you know, has dominated him completely. So the next day they're in the office, and Lily Tomlin is talking about how she had to go to the grocery and she did all these things. And they're all.

[35:25] Meg: By the way, they're in a great mood. Cause they had so much fun with each other. And they're like, hi, let's go have lunch together. Oh, I can't today. But maybe later this week. Everyone's in a fantastic mood because they bonded. Yes.

[35:38] Jessica: And so now this is basically the second half of the film begins where Lily Tomlin is in a rush and she pulls stuff out of her locker. She's making the coffee for Mr. Hart. And the box that she had purchased of Rat Poison for her home looks exactly like the box for Skinny and Sweet. And she is convinced that she has made him poisoned coffee. So now each of the fantasies comes to life, every single one of them. So she. Oh, my God, what am I gonna do? The reality is he never drinks the coffee. So we never know if she poisoned him or not. He falls out of the chair. The. The. The chair that has fun. You know, it's functioning poorly. Like it's a. A recliner.

[36:27] Meg: It's a very tight script.

[36:31] Jessica: Yes.

[36:31] Meg: It's incredible how, if I may say, you don't see movies with such tight scripts.

[36:38] Jessica: Well, that's what I was saying about the pace. Like they. They establish a rhythm with that song in the beginning. And that rhythm is the rhythm of the speech and it is the pacing of the film. And you can only do that when the script is that tight.

[36:55] Meg: And, you know, when he falls back in the chair, hits his head. That doesn't come out of nowhere. The chair's been broken. From the beginning of the movie. That seed has been planted. And there's so many seeds like that that come back. I mean, somebody, whoever was the script supervisor. Brilliant.

[37:14] Jessica: Well. And the writer a.

[37:16] Meg: Well, sure, but you've got to have a script supervisor who's checking all that continuity stuff that is so important.

[37:22] Jessica: There are many, many terrible plot hole movies that we're just being asked, like, just suspend disbelief and get you right.

[37:29] Meg: There was none of that in this. Everything was just tight, tight, tight, tight, tight.

[37:33] Jessica: Even to the point where. And I'm gonna just bring this up. I'm gonna rush through this very quickly. They find him passed out on the floor from having hit his head. The ambulance comes. Doralee calls the ambulance. Lily Tomlin is convinced that he's dead because she poisoned him. They all wind up in the hospital. She's running around dressed like a doctor. She's gonna get his corpse and get it out of the hospital and hide it. And they're all in the car screaming and running around.

[38:03] Meg: What about all the Italians that come into the hospital? More Italians?

[38:08] Jessica: Well, it's because they were setting it up as a mob thing because he was a stool pigeon. The one that actually does get killed.

[38:16] Meg: True.

[38:16] Jessica: And so anyway. So they steal a body. Exactly. They steal a body. They think it's him because they're going to hide the evidence of the murder, when in fact, it's someone entirely different. It's this stool pigeon. And they're like, well, we have to bring the body back. So they figure out how to do that. And they go into work the next day, and Mr. Hart is there, and he's like, you're in big, big, deep trouble.

[38:42] Meg: Now, hold on. I want to say a couple things about all of that that happened in the hospital. First of all, screwball comedy or Hitchcock. I was like, what is the vibe here? Both applied and both worked.

[38:56] Jessica: Yes.

[38:57] Meg: That's a very interesting balance.

[38:59] Jessica: It's a trick to pull off. Yeah.

[39:01] Meg: And it was just a subtle thing, but when their car, like, they have a bit of an accident with the car and it gets dented and it's pushing up against the.

[39:15] Jessica: The fenders. Pushing up against the wheel.

[39:17] Meg: Right. And they fixed it. Yeah, without any, like, oh, I wonder if I have a crowbar. It's like, the crowbar's in the back. It was just, I think, another sort of gender moment.

[39:29] Jessica: Yes, I agree with you entirely. So they go to work. There he is. He's threatening them, and they freak out. And Mr. Hart is with Doralee. And this is when the first fantasy comes to life. So he's running after her. He's in.

[39:49] Meg: Oh.

[39:49] Jessica: He sexually harasses her again. Right. Oh, it's the phone cord. It's the phone cord. So she pushes him into a chair and hog ties him with a phone cord.

[40:00] Meg: And he's laughing and thinks it's so cute, and he's not very seriously. And then he can't get free.

[40:06] Jessica: Right.

[40:06] Meg: The fact that he found out that they had this crazy thing that happened last night, he's going to use that to sexually harass Dolly Parton. Now she's gonna have to have sex with him.

[40:20] Jessica: Exactly. That's what it is. And she is like, I'm done. So she does that. And then Violet and Judy come in and they're like, shit. And they're all in it. He knows that they're all in it. So now they, as a trio, have to figure out how to keep Mr. Hart silent and how are they going to wind up getting out of the problem. So they take him to his home, to his own home, because they know that his wife is on this Italian cruise.

[40:51] Meg: Italian.

[40:51] Jessica: Italian. It's very weird. And they. And this is another tight script callback. They get him set up with dog collars and chains and handcuffs, and he's. He's tied, he's tethered to a garage door opener, which is what Lily Tomlin has learned how to put together in the scene where her son offers the joint.

[41:19] Meg: So.

[41:19] Jessica: And that's so again, yes, great script. And what ensues is many back and forths of them finding him, trying to figure out a way to get out. And every time they just hit the garage door opener and he goes right up to the top and swings around.

[41:40] Meg: And he is a comic genius, that man. He was amazing, funny. He's trapped in this house and so he starts watching soap operas, which is

[41:53] Jessica: another really engrossing Days of Our Lives.

[41:56] Meg: Another sort of gendered thing. And while he's gone, see, this is why they have to keep him. They're going to release him as soon as they get all the evidence to prove that he's been embezzling, embezzling from the company. So, but they're, wait, you know, typical 80s. You can't just pull it up on the computer.

[42:16] Jessica: They have to wait six weeks.

[42:17] Meg: They have to wait six weeks for

[42:19] Jessica: the file to be sent. Right.

[42:22] Meg: So they just have to keep him there for six weeks, no problem.

[42:25] Jessica: No, that's nothing.

[42:27] Meg: That's nothing at all. In the meantime, they're running the office. And while they're running the office, Dolly Parton is signing his signature to things. And they are like, well, while we're in charge, we might as well just like make things better. And they make everything so much better. And they're all things that now I think we absolutely take for granted that at the time you had to go to work at nine and you left work at five, unless you had to stay late. But they decide that you can do a half shift, a half shift, you can share your job with somebody else if you want to take mornings and the other person takes the afternoons. I mean, it's just like, oh, right, because women have children, right?

[43:12] Jessica: There's daycare in the office. They change everything to look colorful and comfortable and pretty and comfortable.

[43:19] Meg: And orange.

[43:20] Jessica: And orange. Orange.

[43:21] Meg: And I thought that was very interesting, why they thought orange was so much better than what it was before.

[43:26] Jessica: Vibrant.

[43:26] Meg: It's true.

[43:27] Jessica: It's vibrant. And there's even a character who. I mean, she's unforgettable. Who is the office. The office alcoholic.

[43:35] Meg: She's the office.

[43:37] Jessica: Every time there's a scene where each of the women in the beginning, like, they storm out furious to go to Charlie's. And she goes, attic girl.

[43:46] Meg: Yeah, she says it like three times

[43:48] Jessica: exactly the same way. Attic girl. And they even put together, essentially, an Alcoholics Anonymous for the office.

[43:56] Meg: And she looks incredible. Not drinking.

[44:00] Jessica: I'm not a lush anymore.

[44:01] Meg: Life is better.

[44:03] Jessica: Life is better because the women are in charge. And we find out that productivity has gone up 20%. However, here's the thing. Missy comes back home.

[44:14] Meg: Missy is the wife.

[44:15] Jessica: Missy comes back home.

[44:16] Meg: She comes home a little early, and she discovers him. And he tells her that he's doing some sort of exercise program. We don't see this happen, but she lets him loose. She lets him loose.

[44:30] Jessica: And not only does she let him loose, but in the next scene, Violet, the three women find out the reason they knew that he was embezzling is there was a warehouse where there was supposed to be all of this product, and it was empty. And so they had put two and two together, and they knew he was selling it and pocketing the money. They went and looked at the warehouse right before they went back to work. It's full. They know their whole plan is to expose him.

[44:58] Meg: Is now it's over. He's. He's covered his ass. He's had an opportunity to cover his own ass.

[45:03] Jessica: And what they did. Back to working. Girl. Is the deus ex machina that comes in to save everything. Is this big CEO man who people rarely see. Exactly. Rarely see. He's like, oh, he's so important.

[45:19] Meg: He looks like Colonel Sanders.

[45:20] Jessica: He looks like Colonel Sanders. It's very weird.

[45:23] Meg: And it occurs to. When he comes in, suddenly, Dabney Coleman, who's been like, I'm the head honcho, suddenly, he's really like, kiss, asshole.

[45:32] Jessica: Beta.

[45:33] Meg: He's very beta. And it's like, every boss has a boss.

[45:38] Jessica: So he comes in and he's thrilled. He says, 20% productivity up. You can do whatever you want. And you have the sinking feeling. And then he's like, and I have a whole new office that I'm opening, and it needs a man like you in Brazil.

[45:57] Meg: But did you catch this when he said, of course you did. But when he said, this is wonderful. This is incredible. Congratulations, Dabney Coleman, for having all These wonderful ideas. And Dabney Coleman is like, oh, thanks. Yes. I'm so good at my job. And he's so good at his job, he's gonna send him to Brazil. But did you hear him whisper?

[46:15] Jessica: Like, he's like, everything's great, but don't give equal pay.

[46:18] Meg: Yeah. All that equal pay thing, that's not gonna. Gonna. Yeah, it's not gonna work. Right. Because it doesn't.

[46:23] Jessica: Well, it never did.

[46:24] Meg: Right.

[46:25] Jessica: So he is instantly dispatched. And to your point, he. He doesn't actually have any control. Every boss has a boss. He's declawed instantly. And then, you know, as movies tended to do at the time, it was like, I think just like two years earlier, they did it with Animal House. I was gonna say Animal House ending. Yeah, that eat. You find out that Lily Tomlin gets promoted to take Dabney Coleman's job. Judy falls in love with the Xerox repairman and marries him, and Doralee goes off to become a country western singer. This movie, what I thought was really interesting. So now let's go back for a second because we've gone through this. What happened? Here's the plot. The stuff that we noticed about, you know, women's rights and what's changed and what hasn't. And when Dolly Parton died, it was impossible to be on any kind of social media and not see an endless flood of responses to her death. And what I saw over and over again that really touched me was that it was women roughly our age saying, this was the movie that taught me what feminism is. And I thought Mission Accomplished. I didn't know it was Jane Fonda, but Mission Accomplished. It hits every single point. And it's done in a way where you can't say it's unreasonable because everything is a success. And it's not fantasy. The only fantasy is killing Franklin Hart. It was really touching. And it was just, honestly, like, doesn't feel dated so many women. Well, and that was the other thing I was going to say, so dramatically sad that it doesn't feel dated.

[48:16] Meg: I mean, really, except for the Italian slur, everything else feels very current.

[48:21] Jessica: I love that you were just so fixated on the. On the Italian slur. I mean, it was not good, but, yeah, it was. It was weird.

[48:29] Meg: It was weird.

[48:30] Jessica: I was like, jane, are you sure this is the Hill you're gonna die on? Okay.

[48:34] Meg: And Lily Tomlin, do you remember when you saw it? Oh, God.

[48:40] Jessica: I remember having seen it very young. I don't remember where I saw it.

[48:44] Meg: I remember, like, I Said, I remember thinking of, you know, Dolly Parton as, like, a cartoon character. I didn't think too much about Jane Fonda. She seemed a little nondescript to me. But I remember thinking Lily Tomlin was so funny. And that was before she had. I looked it up. I thought maybe I had already seen her in her Broadway show. Search for.

[49:09] Jessica: Search for Meaning.

[49:11] Meg: Yeah.

[49:11] Jessica: In the universe.

[49:12] Meg: Search for Signs of Intelligent Life. In the universe. It actually wasn't for another couple years.

[49:17] Jessica: What year did that Was that produced?

[49:19] Meg: 1982.

[49:20] Jessica: Really? Yeah.

[49:21] Meg: Fascinating, right? That must have been the first time I saw her, unless I remembered her from laughing.

[49:27] Jessica: Well, she was laughing and, like.

[49:28] Meg: But I didn't really watch laughing that much.

[49:31] Jessica: That wasn't a rerun. That was popular. You know, there was a little bit of Saturday Night Live doing Edith Ann, the little girl in the giant chair.

[49:41] Meg: Oh, yes.

[49:42] Jessica: And that's the truth. It wasn't necessarily that she was so funny. That struck me. I just was like, well, she's in charge. Shouldn't she be in charge?

[49:53] Meg: When she's walking through the office and she's telling everybody what to do? She's so confident and in her zone. I'm like, it's not easy as an actor to be. To do those kinds of walking and talking.

[50:07] Jessica: But what's so great is that that energy is the same energy. And you see her going down a hallway again when she's wheeling the corpse on the gurney and having a nervous breakdown about it. But she is keeping that, you know, violet energy that she's like, I'm in charge. And this is a corpse that I now am wheeling through a hospital where I have no business being. And this might be the boss that I murdered, but here we are. Let's just get it done.

[50:36] Meg: What would you say the genre of this movie was?

[50:40] Jessica: Comedy.

[50:42] Meg: I looked it up, and they call it screwball comedy, which I thought was interesting, because I wouldn't call it a screwball comedy.

[50:50] Jessica: I don't think I would call anything a screwball comedy. That was after 1939, really.

[50:55] Meg: I mean, isn't sort of Caddyshack kind of a screwball comedy anyway?

[50:59] Jessica: So it's just a term that I thought went out of style.

[51:03] Meg: To me, a screwball comedy is when things like, you know, how Caddyshack is just. It gets so crazy and weird and outrageous. And this just felt much more grounded than that. And also, the performances were incredibly grounded. I mean, they let the script do all the crazy. They actually played it straight. I'm like, smart ladies, good directors.

[51:30] Jessica: It's just, what would you do? What would a normal person do in this absurd situation?

[51:36] Meg: Who told Dolly Parton how to do that? It was the first movie she ever made. It was, like, masterful.

[51:42] Jessica: Yeah, she was perfect.

[51:45] Meg: And again, back to the script. I mean, they wrote it clearly for her in her voice, but how did they know what her voice was? So well done, screenwriters.

[51:57] Jessica: It's so nice when you watch something that you know you loved and it holds up.

[52:03] Meg: Absolutely. I'm so glad that we watched this instead of Rhinestone.

[52:08] Jessica: Rhinestone.

[52:19] Meg: So that was fun.

[52:21] Jessica: I love. I love when we do watch parties. It's my favorite.

[52:24] Meg: It's so fun. And maybe us talking about workplace experiences will inspire some people to send us your stories about your 1980s workplace experiences. Because we are collecting stories. If you record it on your phone and send us the file, I can talk you through it. Just reach out to me on Instagram or through the website, and, yeah, we'll collect all these stories and we'll have a whole episode where people can tell about their experiences in the 80s. Yay, Sam.