Cuevas Week 1

    

 "Employee of The Month's" Fatal Flaw

Well, ladies and gentlemen, today marks the end of our winter break (technically yesterday, but today we actually had to get out of bed to complete the school day.) Ah, I miss it already. Since we couldn't really go anywhere, I'm sure many of us chose to spend our days inside watching movies. I, being one of those people, watched a movie over the break that fueled me with enough anger to write a blog post about it. That movie was called Employee of the Month.

Now, some of you might have had the same reaction my boyfriend did: “What? Are you kidding? You didn't like that movie? Are you okay, mentally?” Of course, that's a fair reaction. However, it isn't that I hated the movie as a whole. I actually really enjoyed it, but the main character, Zack, is what ruined this movie.

Okay, quick movie summary, my deepest apologies for any spoilers. Zack is a box boy at a grocery store called Super Club. His whole ‘thing’ is being the cool, laid back worker, who has pretty much designed his days at Super Club to work in his favor. He and a few of his friends created their own lounge hidden in storage, and they basically spend their days at work hanging out and having fun. Zack seems super likable at this point. His arch-nemesis is a guy named Vince, who dedicated his life to being Employee of The Month every month. He is an extremely hard worker who, despite being the villain of the story, actually deserves this title for the work he puts in. Here is where I start to hate Zack. 

A new, beautiful cashier comes to the store and it is exposed that her transfer was due to her relationship with her old job’s Employee of the Month. Zack suddenly decides that he needs to become the employee of the month to win her over. He does this by essentially running the lives of his friends and his enemy, Vince. Now there are two problems with this. The first is Zack’s selfishness and how it affected his friends. To gain praise from his boss, he sold them out, got rid of their lounge, got his close friend-  who is a single father- fired, and all-around became an unrecognizable person and a shell of a friend. 

The second reason is something I like to call the “Sharpay/Gabriella Phenomenon.” We all remember High School Musical, where Sharpay practiced and prepared her entire life to star in the school musical and it was taken from her by Gabriella who barely auditioned and had never performed before. No hate to Gabriella- she was an amazing character with a voice like an angel- but we have to admit that Sharpay was more deserving of the role given her endless hard work. The same thing happens in Employee of the Month. Vince needs to win this last month in order to set a record of consecutive wins- and earn himself a new car. But, Zack swoops in and completes mediocre tasks to best him- even after finding out the girl still likes him when he isn’t Employee of the Month. That's right, even after he realizes he doesn't need to work for that anymore, he continues to torture Vince- even stealing and selling his car and ruining his friendship with his best friend. 

I enjoyed the movie, but Zack was not a role model main character. He was unnecessarily mean, selfish, and undeserving of the praise he gained.