YMMV / 9 to 5

• Harsher in Hindsight: The very title of the movie, based on how employees worked from 9-5 with a paid hour or half hour lunch, can feel harsher in recent years (especially given the focus on getting better working conditions in the second act) after many American employers began changing the regular workday to 8-5, without paid lunch breaks.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • One segment parodies Disney. 35 years later, through Disney's purchase of 20th Century Fox, Disney now owns this film.
  • Robert Hart watches Days of Our Lives in captivity. A year later, Dabney Coleman would play a soap opera actor in Tootsie.
• Moe: Doralee. Dolly Parton fills her with some great Country Mouse sweetness and sad confusion about why people dislike her.
• Special Effects Failure: When Hart spins his head in Violet's fantasy after drinking poisoned coffee, you can tell that the same shot of him moving his head quickly is repeated several times.
• Unintentional Period Piece:
  • The premise of the film is addressing difficulties women face now that they've just recently entered the workplace en masse. While the trials of women in the workplace is still quite relevant, their presence in the workplace is no longer novel.
  • Similarly, Hart telling Violet that she was passed over for a promotion due to her gender would result in a visit to HR at best, and a lawsuit at worst nowadays^note at least if he were stupid enough to admit it so openly; women not getting promotions due to their gender, but having little or no proof, is sadly still relevant.
  • Office technology is obviously dated. The photocopier (still called a "Xerox" in this time and place) takes up an entire room and almost requires a degree in engineering to operate properly. There's a glaring lack of personal computers aside from the rare terminal that accesses a mainframe in favor of typewriters and dictation machines. Secretaries use pre-headset shoulder cradles for telephone receivers. Within 5 to 7 years of this film's release, the secretarial typing pool would be gone from almost every large business.
• Values Resonance:
  • Many of the reforms the secretaries introduce, such as adjustable hours, decorating cubicles, and less formal dress codes, have been adopted by most businesses since the film. A lot of businesses have even dumped the time clock.
  • The "equal pay" dispute also remains a key issue today, many women are passed over for raises or promotions for no reason other than that they are women. The only difference is that today the people doing the passing over are rarely as blatant and open about it as Hart is.
  • The film addresses sexual harassment in the workplace at a time when the issue was only just starting to receive public attention. Since the #MeToo movement, it's never been more relevant.
• The Woobie:
  • Doralee is the nicest person on Earth, but since the office thinks she's sleeping with Hart, she gets treated like crap.
  • Judy is naïve and starting out in the working world after her husband left her. Hart gives her a hard time about struggling with the copy machine despite the fact that she never worked before.
  • Frank’s wife. She’s naïve (not realizing Hart gifting Doralee as a sign of adultery) but genuinely sweet to everyone. It’s heavily implied that Frank is only with her for her money and connections, yet she loves him anyway despite the fact that he treats her badly.

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