The Apartment

1469 Words6 Pages
Following the end of World War II, America established itself as the world’s strongest military power and economic model. The post-war economic boom influenced the large-scale expansion of the middle class. Consumerism became a defining characteristic of American society. It was a time of stability under the newfound principles based off of Keynesian economics. Yet, this prosperity masked the actual divisions in American society. The Red Scare engulfed every aspect of American society, causing conformity and conservatism to become the social norms of the time. As a result, few individuals dared to inspire controversy or differ from the norm. Despite the Hollywood blacklist period, Billy Wilder created The Apartment, a comedy-drama film that…show more content…
Baxter, an insurance office worker, who lends his apartment out to his company managers in hopes of achieving promotions. Complications arise when Baxter falls for elevator operator Fran Kubelik, a mistress of Jeff Sheldrake, Baxter’s superior. The movie ends as Baxter quits the company and enters a romantic relationship with Kubelik. The film is riddled with subtle jabs at the business industry that differs from previous corporation movies. Previously, Hollywood uniformly depicted big businesses as suppliers of a host of benefits. In an era that has witnessed one of the lowest employment rates of all time coupled with extreme economic stability, historians would likely assume that the culture would reflect such stability. However, The Apartment signaled a break in the societal harmony through its subtle jabs at different aspects of big businesses. Wilder’s, The Apartment, suggests that society started to realize that businesses were no longer only a threat to its competition, but now it endangered personal lives as…show more content…
An invasion of privacy is a concept apparent throughout the film. Upon engaging in a conversation with Kubelik, Baxter reveals that he knows an alarming amount of personal information on Kubelik. He outright states that he knows, “all sorts of things about [her],” from her “height, weight, and [her] Social Security number,” to the fact that she, “had [her] appendix out” (The Apartment). Although Kubelik takes a moment to digest Baxter’s words, she brushes it off and asks that the other employees not know about the appendix. Though confronted with an obvious invasion of privacy, Kubelik accepts it as an inevitable part of the workplace and continues on. Personal information floats around so casually that the workers become desensitized to this apparent
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