Documentary ‘Still Working 9 to 5’ prompts the conversation around women, work and a faithful way through cultural division
More than four decades after Dolly Parton sang about working “9 to 5” and starred alongside Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin in one of 1980’s biggest films, the workplace issues behind the comedy continue to invite conversation.
This fall, Point Loma Nazarene University will use the cultural legacy of 9 to 5 and the documentary Still Working 9 to 5 to bring together women from different generations and professional backgrounds for a conversation about how the workplace has changed, where challenges remain and how Christians can engage complex cultural questions with both conviction and compassion.
The event, “Stories, Work and the Way Forward,” will kick off PLNU’s Illuminate Speaker & Engagement Series, a yearlong initiative designed to create space for thoughtful conversations around challenging issues in an increasingly polarized culture.
The 1980 film 9 to 5, starring Parton, Fonda, Tomlin and Dabney Coleman, became the year’s No. 1 comedy by wrapping serious workplace issues in humor. Its themes included unequal treatment, harassment and the obstacles women faced as they sought opportunity and advancement in the workplace.
The documentary Still Working 9 to 5 produced by Camille Hardman revisits the film and the cultural movement surrounding it, examining the experiences of women in the workplace then and now. Parton, Fonda and Tomlin are among those featured in the documentary.
At PLNU, clips from the documentary will provide a starting point for a broader discussion featuring women whose careers span journalism, business, banking, public office and economic development.
The event is not about aligning with a particular political position, but instead providing the community the opportunity to seek understanding before judgment, listen to the experiences of others and consider how followers of Christ can respond to stories of injustice with both truth and love.
The approach reflects what PLNU President Kerry Fulcher has described as the Way of Faithful Tension — a commitment rooted in the university’s Wesleyan-Holiness heritage to resist the pressure to reduce complex questions to ideological camps. Instead, PLNU seeks to form a community where people can pursue truth with humility, hold convictions without weaponizing them and recognize the dignity of people even amid disagreement.
The event will bring that approach to a subject that has generated cultural and political debate for generations while grounding the conversation in the experiences of women themselves.
Four women — Barbara Bry, M. Venessa Jackson, Taylor Dunner Woof and Camille Hardman — spanning different generations and industries will engage in conversation on the issues the documentary explores and share their individual experiences in the workplace.
Bry, journalist, public leader who served on the San Diego City Council and founder of Athena San Diego, Run Women Run and the Workplace Equity & Civility Initiative, was at the forefront of the cultural moment represented in film. Jackson spent decades in banking and finance and later transitioned to public service, spending 16 years at San Diego City Hall. Representing a more recent generation in the workforce, Woof is a program director at Capitol Impact, where she works with public, private and philanthropic leaders to strengthen California’s workforce and education systems and expand pathways to opportunity. The producer of Still Working 9 to 5, Hardman, an Australian-born documentary and television producer based in Los Angeles, will share her heart behind the film and what she hopes it will accomplish. The panel will be moderated by Dr. Lindsey Lupo, dean of PLNU’s School of Humanities, Arts and Public Engagement.
Through the Illuminate series, PLNU will continue exploring what it means to move beyond the culture-war playbook and pursue truth and love together in a divided world.
Media contact:
Lora Fleming, AVP of Communications and Public Affairs
619-980-5760
LFleming@pointloma.edu