Though it was a comedy, it accurately captured everything we hated about white-collar work in corporate modern America. Here’s everything you need to know about the film Office Space.
Produced and written by Matt Beat. All images and video used under fair use guidelines.
Music credits:
"Spookster" by Wayne Jones
"Mission Start" by The Brothers Records
Sources used:
birthmoviesdeath.com/2017/04/...
mentalfloss.com/article/61686/...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_...
www.bbc.com/capital/story/2019...
ew.com/movies/2019/01/11/offi...
www.imdb.com/title/tt0151804/
• It Feels Good to Be a ...
web.archive.org/web/2017063007...
www.rottentomatoes.com/m/offi...
truthout.org/articles/work-su...
Photo credits:
David Geller
Ian Smith
Tanka v
Pimkie
Alterna2
Donny Doyle
James Caws
Georges Biard
Darlene Phan
Matthew Wedgwood
Office Space is your quintessential cult classic. Its cult following has only grown in recent years and permeated American culture. Several parts of the film have turned into memes. The film changed the meaning of “TPS report.” Now, people think of pointless, tedious paperwork when they think of TPS reports. The PC LOAD LETTER error message also got a new meaning thanks to this movie- people now associate it with any confusing, vague message from a computer.
The famous printer destroying scene has been parodied numerous times since, including in this 2016 election campaign ad by Ted Cruz, which attacked Hillary Clinton after her email controversy.
Another great example of the film’s impact is seen through that red Swingline stapler that Milton so coveted. Ever since its release, the actor who played Milton, Stephen Root, has said he consistently gets people asking him to sign their red Swingline staplers, and actually, those red Swingline staplers didn’t even exist until more than three years after the film’s release. The Swingline staple in the film was spray painted red. So this is reality imitating art, because if it weren’t for the movie, Swingline would never had made those red staplers later on.
Office Space helped the modern workplace become a genre in art. Although the comic strip Dilbert had already been around, it became more popular after Office Space. In 2001, the BBC launched The Office and it was hit. The American version was an even bigger hit a few years later. Because of how dreadful the workplace environment was portrayed in the film, there has been a noticeable trend for companies to break away from many of the features seen in it. Of course, Mike Judge later made fun of those trends later with his show Silicon Valley.
John Altschuler, a frequent collaborator with Mike Judge over the years, said “(Office Space) spoke to a generation in a way that few movies have. Nobody does this kind of material. It’s all about the weirdness of real people in real life.” 20 years later, Office Space still resonates as a film that accurately critiques and pokes fun at the corporate work environment and gets us thinking about having a fulfilling career and balancing work and the rest of our lives. I don’t care what kind of work you do or don’t do- it’s simply not possible to not relate to this film, and that’s why it will likely still resonate 20 years from now.
February 19th will be the 20th anniversary of this film coming out. While I absolutely love making these videos, boy do they make me feel old sometimes. I’d love to know your thoughts about the film in the comments below. Also, what other film would you like to see explained in a similar fashion? Let me know in the comments below. Also be sure to check out similar videos I did for The Truman Show and School of Rock. Thanks for watching everybody.