#office space movie

[haveyouseenthismovie-poll]

[animusrox]

Office Space (1999) dir. Mike Judge

[morlock-holmes]

I will spare the OP of that post on movies about stifling office life more of my ranting because I respect them, but I have more to say about Office Space.

Office Space does not depict a "9 to 5" job, this is a major plot point in the movie:

This is a white collar job where all the workers are constantly subjected to crunch time and seven day work weeks while, at the same time, they spend hours on utterly pointless tasks like changing the cover sheets on reports.

They are subjected to countless tiny indignities for more than half of their waking hours; Milton prefers a different brand of stapler to the one that the company uses and it gets repossessed by the boss.

I have more than one white collar, office job working mutual who has posted about how intolerable such jobs are and how they have worked to escape them.

Movies like Office Space are about the tyranny of the boss; the way that he can subject you to a million tiny little indignities while simultaneously demanding that you pretend that you are happy to work there and see yourself as part of the team that is really actually looking out for you:

What the movie is also about, (and you can definitely add Fight Club in here too, and even The Matrix to some extent) is the psychological effect of spending an enormous chunk of your life enduring these kinds of repeated small indignities and dissatisfactions because, logically and objectively, the pay you are receiving for them is more than enough compensation and the danger of attempting to respond to them and maintain your dignity is not worth it. That's objective fact, and to believe otherwise constitutes a kind of delusion.

The protagonists in both Fight Club and Office Space have simultaneously internalized this to the point where they hold themselves back from any kind of rebellion as impossible, and, at the same time, remain unable to actually believe it; the movies are about what happens when that internal contradiction can no longer be maintained and you reach a breaking point.

PS - I think it is a bit of a "theory of mind" failure to imagine that Hollywood people make movies about petty internal politics, backbiting and insincere friendliness because they like living in Hollywood so much and don't experience that kind of thing there.

[astralbondpro]

Office Space (1999) // Dir. Mike Judge

[thriftysubversion]

[ontheidiotbox]

[vintage-tigre]

What would you say you do here?

[oldinterneticons]

[therogue704]

Follow up to this post

[victusinveritas]

[pricelessreviews]

[mindless-cinematic-trash]

[animusrox]

7 COMFORT MOVIES (in no particular order) ↳ tagged by @ethan-hawke (thanks sav! I love doing these)

tagging: @talesfromthecrypts, @classichorrorblog, @zombooyah, @anthonysperkins, @losthavenmine, @rogerdeakinsdp, @tessas-thompson, @ayo-edebiri, @nessa007, @pascow, @waymond-wang, @anderwater, @gresit, @acecroft, @feodor-dostoevsky, @bladesrunner, @thequantumranger, @luke-skywalker, and anyone else who is reading this!

[cinemaworm]

“PC Load Letter? What the fuck does that mean!?”

Office Space (1999) / dir. Mike Judge

[redlettermediathings]

Floppy dong.

[icewindandboringhorror]

It's always interesting to hear about people's weird/unexpected "alternate life paths". Like, something that you could have done with your life, a job you almost took, a school you almost went to, etc - that was still actually realistic enough that it could have happened, but NOW it seems to not suit your current personality.

Like for example, I currently hate advertising (how manipulative it is, brands trying to be 'relatable', social media amplifying it to an obnoxious extreme, etc.) so much that even seeing a little ad before a youtube video is grating to even witness, but there was a point in time where I was genuinely seriously considering going into marketing/making commercials as a career lol. Or like, I have a relative who was very inclined to be a pastor when they were younger, even though today they're a super strong atheist, etc. etc.