Chapter 4: Rosie the Riveter Goes to Hollywood: Film: Swing Shift (1984) 

Rosie the Riveter goes to Hollywood

Swing Shift (Demme, 1984) is both a romantic comedy and a female buddy movie about the women who went to work in factories during World War II to fill the sudden demand for workers in industries once staffed exclusively by men. The movie covers four years on the home front, including Jack’s discovery of Kay’s affair with Lucky, which, admirably, does not turn the movie into a melodrama; the indiscretion is chalked up to changes brought on by the war, and the couple resumes their loving marriage after V-E Day. The heart of the movie does not turn out to be any male-female relationship; rather, the movie centers on the growth of and special bonds among these “Rosie the Riveters,” who come to see themselves differently and clearly have mixed feelings about their return to domestic life at war’s end.