Working Girl: The Obstacles Within Corporate America

Working Girl: The Obstacles Within Corporate America

Introduction

In the movie Working Girl, the star Tess McGill (Melanie Griffith) is a hard working

woman who is determined to reach the top of the stock market world by hard work. As

she turns 30 she is still stuck in clerical work so when she starts working for Katherine

Parker (Sigourney Weaver) she is glad that Katherine is willing to accept input and ideas

from her. However, when Katherine goes on a skiing trip and breaks her leg she asks

Tess to look after things. With that responsibility Tess simply takes over her office,

her apartment, even her wardrobe. Enraged that her boyfriend is cheating on her, Tess

sets out to do a deal while Katherine is away. She teams up with Jack Trainer (Harrison

Ford) to close the deal before Katherine's return; and the two slowly fall in love little

knowing that Jack is Katherine's boyfriend.

In this movie Corporate America is portrayed the way it is in life. The atmosphere in

corporate America has progressed toward a higher complexity. The education and skills

needed to succeed must be met in order to climb the corporate ladder. Tess strives to

better herself by taking speech class and attending seminars. Tess' knowledge and

ambition also gave her the necessary advantage to enter into an esteemed brokerage firm.

Here she was left with the desire to reach the top of Corporate America. Taking the steps

of going to school and acquiring a degree are key to the rise in Corporate America. In this

movies, knowledge and skill was key to being successful. Without valuable contributions

that Tess made, rising to the top would have taken years. Greed, scandals, favors, and

corruption all take place in Corporate America. At the top of the ladder these evils start.

With ultimate power over everyone below, co-workers are at the executive’s mercy.

People in this world are greedy and will do anything to be powerful and successful.

Theoretically if you are honest, truthful, and work hard then you will be rewarded.

Sometimes this isn’t always the case; in Working Girl the morals and ethics that Tess

practiced made her a good choice for promotion. Many things effect promotions

including hard work. Sometimes to cheat the system, rising up depends on the people you

know not what you know. Tess overcame the corruption that surrounded her. She stuck

up for her ideas and was free to express her impressing ideas. Tess’ boss told her that

only she could make it happen and she did.

Because of greed or favors foul relationships happen within an office more than one

would think. Tess had to deal with many sexual harassment instances such as her male

boss trying to seduce her. Tess, needing a better job, was easy game for powerful

executives looking for favors. Harassment such as these happen numerous times

throughout the movie. The truth is that it does happen more than you would think in the

workplace. Recently however, new laws have been made