Mary Newton is the new girl in the office. The big boss takes her in to meet Ed Asner who needs a hand in his department–bad. He’s mighty glad to meet Mary until she walks into the room. Oh my God, she’s colored! Ed’s not the only one who gives Mary the cold shoulder. Kit, the boss’ secretary decides she doesn’t want to work with the colored girl, and threatens to quit. We assume she is not just feigning racism to cover up for the fact that she is sick of the boss yelling when she arrives a little late for work, “You’d better hurry, my coffee’s getting cold!”
Fortunately the men have everything under control, and are able to wrangle the girls into accepting the new girl. This is good because it is Mary’s dream to work in a secretarial pool, where she can gaze up admiringly at the glass ceiling instead of having to scrub it.
August 17, 2007 at 4:39 pm
I loved this.
Ma’s speech made me all teary even.
August 17, 2007 at 10:14 pm
Yes, I thought about Ma’s speech a number of times this week. The part where she says “… or when she has her own kids, she’s going to have to watch them get hurt and cry, and be afraid. And, she’ll always wonder if she couldn’t have suffered it for them, and maybe made their lives a little easier”, helped me through this difficult time my son’s been having.
Looking back on my post, I feel my remarks are awfully cynical, and mocking of this film. It really is good, and it carries a good message with a commons sense approach.
Thanks for commenting, Lola.