Anyway, I think there were really three female types shown.

Seeger: Female working hard to reach her goals herself.
Lynette: Who has no intention of doing anything but marrying up.

The third type, Paula, is the female character with an arc. She starts out going with the flow of the other girls her age. She wants an escape from her life and Lynette makes it sound so glamorous to marry into travel and better money and comfort. It’s a fantasy. Her reality is that her family expects her to work at the factory to help support the family, her step-father resents her and she spends every day watching her mother suffer in an unhappy marriage, largely because she was pregnant with Paula and Paula feels guilty. She falls for Zach, truly, but now is faced with using him (and she sees the effect of that through Lynnette’s example) or realizing that the only way to change her life is to do things on her own terms. If that starts with letting him go and staying in the factory until she can figure out what to do next, then that’s what she’ll do. Her life is now her own.

Paula is likable in that she grows and realizes she had to change, just like Zach did. Two sides of the same coin.

Sigh…I think I’ve watched this movie too much.
Dee

Like you, I saw this movie for the first time, years after it was released. Like others who have commented, I understood the truth of what women faced in the late 70’s-early ’80’s and marvel at Paula’s independence and plan of action, at that time, as portrayed in this movie. It inspired many women to reaffirm their personal power at that time – though it’s glossed over in the movie.

What struck me the most about this movie, when it was filmed, is it was also one of the most honest military movies at the time. This is the movie that paved the way for Full Metal Jacket and Saving Private Ryan. Until Officer and a Gentleman, military movies were mainly WWII propaganda-pro military- stunts. These went the way of the dodo bird when Vietnam news footage hit the airwaves. Until a few decades later.

I applaud this movie for showing a truth, regarding American women – at that time – but it was really Lou Gosset Jr.’s character, and the relationship between him and Zack, that explored a different side of military life and the alpha male characterization.

When you watch this movie again, rethink what history and truths may be waiting in the wings. Paula had her plan, goal, objective. She had her history, and exceptional mother. But it was all those thing that made her, a young woman in turbulent times, who the viewer knew, as she set the Navy cap on her head, was going to be a woman who could handle – the ultimate Alpha male, who had just been transformed…

That’s the secret behind a good romance novel, that lands on the readers – keeper shelves.

Please see The Cotton Club and tell me you don’t like Richard Gere!! He and Diane Lane had fab chemistry in that.

Anyway.

Sorry. I lost control of myself for a minute. . .

My own father told me that college wasn’t for me, even though I was a good student, because I was just going to get married, get pregnant, and quit anyway..

gee Dad, thanks… I married at 30… (and in the meantime went to college evenings and weekends around working 3 jobs at a time..) A lot of the attitude of this film, was from two different social classes looking at each other…

btw, I hated this movie when it came out, because it depressed the hell out of me.. I wasn’t good looking enough to go hang out at officers bars looking for husband material… (oh, and I never liked Richard Gere as an actor either)

I don’t think the film was so much about the women refusing to do things for themselves as it was that they were stuck in dead-end jobs and not encouraged by anyone to pursue their own academic dreams. For them seemingly the ONLY way out was to marry an officer. Of course that wasn‘t true, but as others have said 1982 was in many ways a different world for women in regards to attitudes towards them in many professions.

I guess I am surprised that anyone didn’t know Louis Gossett, Jr. won an Oscar for his role. I remember that as being a big deal at the time. Debra Winger was also nominated. She is a wonderful actress (my favorite movie of hers is Leap of Faith, love her chemistry with Liam Neeson).

The thing about Paula is that you knew from the beginning she was saving money to get out of town by herself. She didn’t need to marry an officer candidate to do so. For me that’s why the ending works. Yes, he does come and “rescue” her, but she was perfectly capable of rescuing herself.

In the director commentary on the DVD Taylor Hackford talks about how the studio didn’t feel the ending scene would work and did not want them to shoot it. Yet that scene is probably the most famous scene of the movie. Sure, it is fantasy, but it is also a romantic and satisfying fantasy.

If you click on the link, it goes to a post I wrote about her a while back.

I love An Officer and a Genleman as social aritifact. Like Where The Boys Are, The Trouble With Angels, and A Summer Place, it’s shows The Way Things Were — for men as well as women.

And I’ve always thought Richard Gere was a wonderful actor, but that’s just me. He was fantastic in Cotton Club.

**sigh***

what bothered me about the movie is that I had a hard time LIKING Paula as a result.

Boy, am I with you on that one.

I think I came across as snottier than I intended, Scarlett. Sorry about that. I was thinking about the girls around bases and my disgust with what I’ve seen (I used to live in apartments a couple of miles from a big sub base) came out in my language. It wasn’t directed at you/your opinion–or wasn’t intended that way, at least.

Lisa Hendrix: I’m completely aware of this. I never said anything about not believing that there were people like Paula and Lynette in the world. I know plenty of women like that.

But what bothered me about the movie is that I had a hard time LIKING Paula as a result. I wanted to “root” for Paula and Zack, but since I saw Paula as sort of pathetic for just waiting around for some man to marry her to save her from her crappy life, it did lessen my enjoyment of the movie. She wasn’t much better than Lynette, which Lynette even says to her at one point.

I still like the movie, but I wanted to like Paula more than I did. I thought the movie tried to portray her as “smart” and “plucky” (at least compared to Lynette) but she didn’t come across that way to me. I can’t fault the movie for its “accuracy” either, but the audience is supposed to be cheering for Zack and Paula at the end. I thought Zack could do better.

I also really enjoyed the documentary; it struck a lot of truthful notes about women “of a certain age” in the theatre. I was glad to see Debra Winger come out of retirement to play somebody’s mom — anyone who caught Jessica Lange or Faye Dunaway in their recent Lifetime movies also got to see fine actresses in roles not at the center of the story! /tangent

It bothered me that these women didn’t seem to think of doing it for themselves
….Paula and Lynette act as if they are SO desperate to get out of that town and their dead-end jobs, but the ONLY way they can think of is to seduce and trap some Navy pilot into marriage.

Hate to break it to you, but not all women are enlightened enough to try to do lift themselves ‘up where they belong.’ Even now, 27 years later, there are still plenty of women around bases who see military men (esp. future officers) as the way out of their dead-end lives. Just like there are buckles bunnies who think rodeo cowboys are the way out of the trailer park, or siliconed blondes who think snagging a rich husband is the best way out of wherever it is that produces Barbie wannabes (watch an episode of Millionaire Matchmaker if you don’t think so).

That sort of female drives me nuts, too, but I can’t fault O&G for portraying them with a certain uncomfortable accuracy.

*I only got out a few years ago so I’m speaking from a semi-current point of view, not the 1980’s*

It bothered me that these women didn’t seem to think of doing it for themselves.

Things were very different back then…women were still voicing the need for rights and equality. And we dealt with sexual harassment in the workplace without support of law. We had to overcome the preference of males in institutes of higher learning, excluding the ‘female’ accredited vocations such as nursing. Lenders would not allow loans and banks would not give credit to a single woman. I can vouch for all of this, although it may have been quite different in the USA at the time. Gloria Steinem didn’t think so.

Lest we forget, the acceptance of women has been a journey made over the last century and only gained real momentum in the latter years. A good marriage in those days was a viable means of changing a woman’s life and providing for her children. Perhaps this film is a measure for women to recognise how far we’ve come.

This was my big problem with this film as well. Paula and Lynette act as if they are SO desperate to get out of that town and their dead-end jobs, but the ONLY way they can think of is to seduce and trap some Navy pilot into marriage.

Uh, women *did* go to college in the early 80s. Loans and grants did exist to help working class people go to college. Lynette was no brain-trust, sure, but Paula was supposed to be reasonably smart. She couldn’t go to community college and move to Seattle to get a good job? Why not? Who was stopping her?

Other than that, though, it’s still a good movie. The ending is pure cheese but it gets me every time. Way to go, Paula. ::sniff::

Poor Sid. :(