'9to5: The Story of a Revolution': Fascinating chronicle of women's rights activism


By AGENCY
Jane Fonda, Dolly Parton and Lily Tomlin in the film '9 to 5' where they play three working women who live out their fantasies of getting even with and overthrowing of the company's sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot of a boss. Filepic

Midway through Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar's stirring documentary 9to5: The Story of a Movement, Jane Fonda briefly appears as the film's most famous talking head. Remembering the time they were making the hit 1980 comedy 9 to 5 inspired by various stories of workplace sexism collected from the period's fed-up administrative women, Fonda jokingly retells one particular vivid fantasy a female clerical worker had of killing her male supervisor - apparently, an all-too-common daydream among similarly ill-treated secretaries of the time. It goes something like mincing the boss in a coffee bean grinder and making drip coffee out of him.

As hilariously out-there as this imaginary revenge scenario might sound - so over-the-top that it couldn't be included in the Hollywood film with the iconic Dolly Parton song - it isn't hard to empathise with this employee's long-standing grievance deep down, thanks to all the narrative heavy-lifting co-directors Reichert and Bognar do in the lead-up to that scene.

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women , gender , harassment , equality

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