Office Space (Mike Judge, 1999) Balance of Power

[NBerry]

Office Space is a movie depicting the situation we all hope that we don’t end up in. It’s the typical alienated corporate America job that seems to eat away at your life. At the very start of the movie the protagonist, Peter, walks up to the front door and pauses for a second knowing the pain of the shock about to come but grabs it anyway. Just as going into work itself is something that hurts him, not physically but mentally. Something that slowly chips away at his sanity everyday he goes in. The office is covered in blues and grays as if creativity is not encouraged among workers but passivity and obedience are praised. The hierarchy of the company is made apparent in many different ways. Selective parking and offices instead of cubicles is part of it but the movie shows the balance of power is related to the angle of the shot. TPS reports are apparently a big deal. Peter’s boss Bill Lombard comes to talk to Peter about his problems on his TPS reports. When Bill is talking to Peter, he is literally and figuratively talking down to Peter. He looks down on him as if he was on his ‘thrown’ or ‘high horse’ to show he has more power. Bill also talks down to him in a manor that would seem purposeful to undermine Peter’s intelligence. Even after Peter says he gets it and there is no problem Bill explains it anyway as if he has some gem of wisdom Peter had not known. The same but opposite is true about the shot from Peter looking at Bill. Bill is standing next to and or even leaning over a person who is sitting. This puts him in a powerful position to bully around people with little resistance. Most of the shots of coworkers talking to each other are level and not angled. This gives a sense of equality among the group.

One of the most pinnacle moments of the movie is when Peter is talking with Michel and Samir about how his high school counselor always asked; if I had a million dollars what would you do? The question just pissed of Michel in his typical masculine overcompensation manor. Samir just didn’t understand the point of the exercise. Peter however said he never had an answer to that question, which meant that his answer is “I would do nothing”. As he says this the camera slowly pans in on his face to show a great epiphany.

F**k’n A! Translation: you’re absolutely right and there’s nothing else I could say about that.

It’s hard to tell if Peter is a hero or an antihero. I guess it depends on your definition. He does not have a regular ideas or values of the modern hero. He does not do any grand spectacular heroics or have a fallowing. But in the end I think he becomes the person we all wish we could be more like. You don’t need the material things to make you happy. If the best things in life are free why do you need a lot of money? All and all I think that the movie has a happy ending. The guy gets the girl, there both happy, and Milton gets what he deservers. There is a kind of “back to square one” feeling at the end of the movie but for some reason people are happier.

[Jtan]

I would give Mike Judge's 1999 film Office Space a more negative reading than, "for some reason people are happier". From the start of the film, we see the characters plodding into their corporate prison Initech and throughout the film we get a sense that people do not "belong" here. Even the sculpture at the entrance of Initech is a square peg going through a round hole. The atmosphere is drab, the people are miserable and management is monotone. Initech is the epitome of human estrangement. All the employees are there to meet their needs (get wages) but they slowly lose their humanity in the process. The male characters all all emasculated by condemnation of TPS reports and "cubicle culture". We are reminded of their emasculation by the motif of toughness and violence which are, ironically, passively displayed throughout the film in the form of hardcore rap music and NAVY SEALS posters. It can be agreed that Michael, Peter, Samir, and Joanna all hate their jobs and feel the "life" slowly being zapped from them every day they go to work. However, at the end of the film are the characters truly happy? Samir and Michael end up working for Initrobe and although it's not Initech, we must ask was it Initech specifically that made them unhappy, or the greater Cubicle Corporation? Joanna quits her job at Chochtkies (sp?) but ends up working at another restaurant next door. Again, we must ask if it was her former place of employment specifically that made her unhappy or the restaurant industry in general? Finally, Peter quits his job at Initech and starts working construction. Earlier in the film, Peter tells the Bobs that his only real motivation for doing work is to not get hassled by his supervisors. However, at the end of the film, as the camera cranes up cross fades into the credits we see a foreman approach Peter and talk to him. Is this another supervisor harassing Peter for standing around and talking instead of working? Are the characters happy or are they simply enjoying a resbit from their former employers? I argue that Judge isn't saying that Initech was the problem, but it's the conditioning and emasculation that office jobs produce that estranges us from our humanity.

[A. Dickinson]

Its hard to tell if Peter Gibbons is a hero or not. The whole time I was watching the film I got this sense that I can appreciate his want and desire to do what he wants to do and love, but at the same time I couldnt disagree more with how he went about doing it. For example when he was in the car with his girlfriend and he was explaining the whole process to her she kept saying it was wrong and it didnt feel right. Peter replies with "No Initech is wrong! they're an evil, life sucking corporation!" That got me thinking that no one forced Peter to work there, he could have left at anytime and gotten another job. Instead though he stuck with it and complained all the time and when he didnt get what he wanted he went on a blame run. His girlfriend even told him "Its not like im about to go and start taking cash from the register!"

I think if I were to pick a hero out of this film it would be Tom Simcouski. although his character was kind of a loser for the most part he made a point when he was talking to peter at the barbecue. He tells Peter that "if you hang in long enough, good things do happen." I like this point he makes: hes telling peter to just hold on and be persistent, something my generation I believe lacks. Peter wants his money now and he wants to obtain it with little to no work. I cant give credence to Peter being a hero, his morals are far too lazy and in a sense cowardice, he wont go out and get what he wants through hard work like any respectable person would. Instead he sits on his ass expecting it to fall right into his lap. Thats personally someone i wouldnt want to look up to.

[khaney]

I agree with NBerry in so much as Office Space is a movie that depicts the “situation we all hope that we don’t end up in,” and that it demonstrates a corporate culture where we are alienated. However, I believe that the message of Office Space goes beyond merely critiquing the American corporate culture, but actually critiques Western culture and society as a whole. In my opinion, Office Space is a film that attempts to demonstrate that the modern world is a place where humans are not free agents, and suffer because of it. Within the film, we find a cast of mentally unstable characters that seem to suffer from psychological disorders ranging from anxiety to manic depression. I believe this is because they have been reduced by the system that they take part in to nothing more than tools. Take Peter for example. Through examining his hatred of his job we see the film clearly trying to demonstrate society’s power of removing agency in two ways. Firstly, though Peter never states why he dislikes his job, we can figure it out through merely examining one of the first scenes in the movie. When questioned about the cover letter on his TPS report, we see one of the few examples in the movie of a character trying to take accountability for his own actions. Peter says multiple times that it was his mistake that the cover was wrong. However, we find, that Peter’s accepting of fault is not even recognized. The set of managers whom question him, never acknowledge his apology, but rather proceed to ask whether he got the memo (sent by someone else), and repeat that he should proceed taking the actions prescribed by them. This demonstrates that the company culture Peter lives in actually smashes attempts at free agency, rather than fostering it. We are lead to believe that people in the world not only are not their own persons, but are also reprimanded or ignored when they try to be.

The second way Peter’s hatred of his job demonstrates Office Space’s preoccupation with society’s power to remove people’s ability to act as agents is through his attempts to deal with his spite. Rather than actually quit his job, or confront his bosses or even attempt to discover why he hates his job, Peter sees a hypnotherapist. He attempts to have someone else relieve his tensions for him. However, even after leaving the hypnotherapist, and deciding he didn’t want to work anymore, Peter did not actually take action. He did not quit his job, rather, he attempted to let the problem fix its self through doing less work than he was doing before. In the end, Peter actually finds himself in a place he likes, not because he acts on his own, but rather, because someone else’s action, results in a positive for him.

In the end, I think that Office Space is trying to warn us against the complacency that takes place within it. Even with Peter ending up in a “happy place” in the end, do to mere luck, we still find the other characters are suffering from their own neuroticisms. Office Space is a film that warns us against a brave new world, where we no longer our own masters, but rather, are products of the system that enslaves us.

[M. Renolds]

I agree: Peter Gibbons hates his job. This is not a unique situation, both within the world of the film and without; it is doubtful that even the abhorrent Lumbergh enjoys interacting with people who he strongly believes to be his inferiors in every way. Peter, however, appears to be more sensitive. His friends are simply grateful for job security. Michael Bolton even manages to find solace (of a sort) in his car during the daily commute, provided that a transient isn’t within view. Peter’s own commute is wrought with frustration and disappointment, and the quality of the day is only going to deteriorate. When Peter tells his hypnotist that “every day is the worst day of his life,” his situation and his psyche are made very clear.

One could resort to cliché scolding and suggest that Peter taste a bit of true suffering before he decides that his life is not worth living. The transient who frightens Bolton during the latter’s commute, the busboys who we do not even see in the various restaurants, the unseen and of course unthanked janitors who keep Peter’s lamented cage clean and sanitary…all of these “drones,” the true “expendable cogs” of daily life – the ones who by Bolton’s insistence keep the world running smoothly by doing jobs that no one would ever wish for – are the ones who deserve to complain. Even they should count their blessings: by resorting to another cliché one could point out that these people are not dying in wars and are not the victims of genocide and true oppression, examples of which were all readily available in the late 1990s, provided that people were reading the news rather than watching breast exams or plotting to overthrow the “evil” corporation that holds them hostage by offering them wages.

So Peter and his cohorts may not be the true ‘expendable cogs.’ It is true that they may not keep their jobs at their current company when the need to economize rears its head, but there will always be another identical job available if they are willing to admit that their lives are not as terrible as they could be. As for Peter (who is incapable of tolerating his current life but must be dehumanized to the point of hypnosis before he is able to do anything about it), our bitter mastermind becomes a construction worker with his neighbor. It is doubtful that he will find fulfillment here: while it is true that he may now work in his beloved outdoors, he has become an even more dehumanized worker – the manual laborer who must do exactly what he is told by a supervisor who probably couldn’t properly wield a pickaxe if his very soul depended on it. No doubt Peter will soon return to his feelings of disillusioned underappreciation, no matter how masculine his new job may be. It is indeed doubtful that he will ever find true happiness by finding the perfect job. Very few people do. He may, however, learn one day to find fulfillment in a form that is not paired with a paycheck. He may simply require a bit of help from a psychologist – one who does not rely on hypnosis – for that to happen.

[aslack]

I must agree to an extent with you NBerry, there is a definite hierarchy of power that is evident but I feel that this hierarchy is upset when Peter seizes the day. Peter takes the control of his life back because he hated his life and choose to go fishing, not come in to work, not talk to his boss, and inevitable steal the money from the company he hated so much. Peter represented all that we want to be in life, in control of it all, our lives and the world we live in. I would also say that through-out the movie the power shifts as everything becomes more and more chaotic at Initech: the Bob’s begin to fire people, the money gets stolen, Milton’s desk gets moved AGAIN, there was bound to be power shift because numbers always overrule singular power symbols. In the end Peter found his passion, or something that made him happy; Milton seized the day immensely, and burned the building down; Samir and Michael found other jobs; and finally Bill got his precious Porsche ruined and his business burned up in flames.

Fuckin’ A this movie tells us all the follow our passions and seize the day, cause in the end all we have is ourselves, so seize the day.

[N Dyer]

I agree. It is hard to decide whether or not Peter Gibbons is a hero. In the beginning of the film he has no spine. He merely sits in his cubical staring off into the distance procrastinating. But procrastinating what? Is he really just avoiding doing work or is he avoiding living his life? I think that it is the latter. Throughout the movie we see a change in Peter Gibbons as his life starts to turn around. He acquires a good girl friend, he stands up to his boss; in general he starts to really live his life.

But that doesn’t really make him the hero of the movie, does it? He just quit trying. So what exactly makes a hero in this movie? Perhaps the strength to stay around like the rest of the characters have makes them heroes. Or it could it be working day in and day out at a corporation that most despise, with little or no complaint, in the hopes that they would soon be promoted after twenty years?

Although, at the end of the film it seems as though Peter has had an epiphany of what life really is about. It’s not working every day, including the weekends somewhere that you hate. It’s the simpler things in life, like enjoying every day, having good friends, and loving life.