There’s something uniquely American about Norma Rae—and by that, I mean its ability to confuse a mediocre domestic drama with an underdog story of “working-class revolution.” It’s a film that takes a soggy ham sandwich of blue-collar angst, sprinkles on some union propaganda, and serves it on a lunch tray of feminist martyrdom. For reasons known only to Hollywood and the Academy, it earned Sally Field an Oscar and an undeserved pedestal in America’s cinematic Hall of Grit.
Let’s be honest: Norma Rae isn’t about Norma Rae. It’s about Reuben Warshowsky, a fast-talking, big-city union organizer who shows up like a carpetbagger at a Southern textile mill and decides to poke the redneck hornet’s nest for fun. Played with smug detachment by Ron Leibman, Reuben strolls in with his rolled-up sleeves, armed with a clipboard, a Brooklyn accent, and just enough sanctimony to make Jesus flinch. He lights a fire under Norma, gets her fired, gets her yelled at, and gets out before the smoke clears. The message? Be brave. Stand tall. And make sure someone else cleans up the mess.
Norma Rae, played by Sally Field, is a single mother with more grit than grace, fighting for something bigger than herself—which is to say, a cause she doesn’t really understand, championed by people who don’t really understand her. Her life is a depressing cocktail of economic hardship, half-finished thoughts, and men with names like “Sonny.” She works a factory job, has no health insurance, and her husband wears shirts that haven’t been washed since Elvis died. But we’re told she’s special because she holds up a cardboard sign that says “UNION” while getting escorted out of the building. Powerful. Moving. Heroic. Also: wildly ineffective.
The subtext is loud enough to drown out the textile looms. Norma’s marriage is treated like a detour on her road to feminist sainthood. Her husband Sonny—who appears to be both underemployed and overmatched—serves as little more than a dirt-smeared Greek chorus muttering, “You’ve changed.” And he’s right. Norma’s not fighting for love, family, or even her job. She’s fighting for The Movement. Which one? That depends on the scene: sometimes it’s feminism, sometimes labor organizing, and sometimes it’s just Field trying to win an Oscar by yelling.
What makes the film unintentionally hilarious is its condescending portrait of the American South. This isn’t Southern Gothic—it’s Southern Cartoon. Everyone talks like they’ve been hit in the head with a steel pipe and dresses like they just walked out of a Duck Dynasty-themed Goodwill. The factory scenes reek of polyester and sweat, and not once does the film seem interested in portraying these people as more than a backdrop for Norma’s awakening. The locals are suspicious, slow-witted, and often hostile—clearly in need of a messiah. Enter Reuben, a union Jesus with a New York accent and zero charisma, preaching the gospel of collective bargaining to folks who’d just rather fish.
And let’s talk about those politics. Norma Rae is not a film—it’s a pamphlet. A well-lit, Oscar-baiting, union-endorsed pamphlet. It plays like something you’d be forced to watch during orientation at the AFL-CIO. There’s no subtlety, no nuance, no suggestion that maybe—just maybe—the very unions glorified here would later bloat into the same bureaucracies they were designed to fight. We never see the long-term impact of the strike. The factory doesn’t miraculously pay more. Lives aren’t dramatically improved. But hey—Norma gets to walk away knowing she “stood up.” The rest of the town? Probably out of work in five years.
It’s fitting that the film ends with Reuben leaving town. Like a union ghost, he drifts in, stirs the pot, and disappears before the bitter coffee is even served. Norma, now jobless, heads home to raise kids in a town where she’s simultaneously a hero and a cautionary tale. Her husband’s still confused, her father’s dead, and the textile mill probably replaced her with a machine by 1981. But she had the moment, dammit.
Field gives it her all—and she deserves credit for that. But Norma Rae is less a story and more a setup. It lionizes martyrdom while ignoring results. It weaponizes working-class struggle to deliver a message tailor-made for liberal guilt. It’s a film that tells poor people what to feel, while letting coastal elites pat themselves on the back for financing “their” revolution.
If Norma Rae were a slogan, it would be: Get inspired. Get fired. Get over it.
Rating: 1 out of 5 faded union buttons.
