Line #47 Film/AnOfficerAndAGentleman


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4	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/officer_and_a_gentleman_xlg.jpg]]
5	[[caption-width-right:350:''[[Music/JoeCocker Love lift us up where we belong\
6	Where the eagles fly\
7	On a mountain high]]'']]
8	->''"You know something, you ain't nothing special. You got no manners, you treat women like whores and if you ask me you got no chance of being no officer."''
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10	A 1982 romantic drama directed by Creator/TaylorHackford, starring Creator/RichardGere, Creator/DebraWinger, Creator/DavidKeith, Creator/LouisGossettJr, and Creator/DavidCaruso.
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12	Zack Mayo (Gere) is an orphaned loner who grows up to be an emotionally isolated opportunist after his mother commits suicide and his father ignores him. After graduating from college, he joins the Navy in hopes of becoming an aviator, and enters officer's training under the tutelage of DrillSergeantNasty Emil Foley (Gossett). Despite being warned about the local girls who are looking for potential officers to marry, Zack and his friend Sid Worley (Keith) begin to date two local girls, Paula Pokrifki (Winger) and Lynette Pomeroy (Lisa Blount). Along the way, Zack learns the importance of friends and colleagues.
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14	Earned a Best Supporting Actor UsefulNotes/AcademyAward and Golden Globe for Gossett...who, it should be noted, had to beat out his co-star Keith, who had also been nominated for the latter award.
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16	Despite the name, the movie is ''not'' the {{Trope Namer\|s}} for the OfficerAndAGentleman trope.
17
18	----
19	!!This work provides examples of:
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21	* TheAce: Deconstructed. Mayo leaps every hurdle--from the obstacle course to shining belt buckles--with ease. But he falls far short of Foley's standards for character, who makes it clear he'd rather pass the girl who can't make it over the climbing wall than the ethically elastic Mayo.
22	* ArtisticLicenseMilitary:
23	** As a general rule, Gunnery Sergeant Foley should be referred to by that rank, or by the accepted informal shorthand "Gunny." In Navy OCS, however, the proper term of address for a drill instructor of any rank is "Sergeant Instructor." The movie gets it wrong in either case by referring to him as simply "Sergeant."
24	** The location of Aviation Officer Candidate School is wrong. Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, where this movie is set, is in actuality, just a base for anti-submarine patrol airplanes such as the P-3 Orion. Navy OCS is in Newport Rhode Island now, and during that time, the aviation OCS was at Naval Air Station Pensacola in UsefulNotes/{{Florida}}.
25	** Casey /Seeger would at that time, never been allowed to fly jets, like she wanted to. Women were excluded from flying combat aircraft and serving onboard ships, so Casey would have been relegated to shore based helicopters or patrol planes.
26	%%* AutoErotica
27	* TheBabyTrap: A central point of the film. The cadets are clearly warned about how the local women want to marry an officer to escape their blue-collar lives, and aren't afraid of using TheBabyTrap to do so.
28	-->"Sergeant Foley, can't you see,\
29	A Puget Deb is after me!\
30	Please don't let 'em catch my tail,\
31	I'd be better off in the country jail!\
32	My mom was a deb, my grandma too;\
33	That's all them gals know how to do!"
34	** Subverted when [[spoiler:Lynette fakes being pregnant so that Sid will marry her. She confesses to the hoax when he resigns from the Navy to do so, which she didn't want.]]
35	* BarBrawl: Subverted. Despite the obvious tensions, the brawl doesn't happen until everyone is outside, and it ends after one well-timed roundhouse kick.
36	* {{Bowdlerise}}: Sgt. Foley's cadence during the cadets' training ("...Puget debs...") was dubbed over an earlier real-life Marine cadence about napalming children. However, this is averted in most of the UK Channel 4/More4 airings of the film while they currently have the rights; the "napalm sticks to kids" variant is retained. (in 2013)
37	* ColorblindCasting: Sgt. Foley was originally written as a short white Southerner.
38	* CombatPragmatist: During an impromptu martial arts bout with the much younger Mayo, Sgt Foley isn't afraid to [[GroinAttack fight dirty]] in order to gain the upper hand.
39	* CPRCleanPrettyReliable:
40	** [[spoiler:It doesn't work though, as Sid was already dead.]]
41	** Sgt. Foley successfully resuscitates a trainee who nearly drowns during the dunker crash-escape simulation.
42	* TheDeterminator: Casey Seeger, who forgoes weekend leave just to do more exercises so she can pass the obstacle course.
43	* DidntThinkThisThrough: Sid resigning from OCS when Lynette insinuates that he knocked her up is actually quite a foolhardy decision. Had he commissioned into the Navy, then married Lynette, his status as a naval officer would have allowed them to live quite comfortably. They would have received free housing, free healthcare, travel allowances, subsidized groceries at the PX, free on base schooling for the kid, access to the Officers Club, not to mention veterans benefits and size able retirement benefits had he made it to twenty years. The kid would even have access to financial aid for college bound military dependents. Lynette [[JerkassHasAPoint wasn't entirely off base]] for yelling at him when he quit.
44	* DrillSergeantNasty: Played to perfection by Louis Gossett Jr.
45	* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler:Sid Worley, who drops out of the program despite nearly finishing because he believes his girl Lynette is pregnant. When she tells him it was a lie and she doesn't want to marry a non-airman, he hangs himself in a motel shower stall.]]
46	* FriendlessnessInsult: Sergeant Foley rubs Mayo's nose in this, prior to the CharacterDevelopment Mayo goes through later in the film. Mayo cares about no one but himself, takes advantage of every loophole and shortcut he can find, and runs a business selling shined boots and belt buckles to the other officer candidates. When Foley catches him, he confines Mayo to the base and gets to work on putting him through the grinder to make him drop out.
47	-->'''Foley''': (Pointing at the other officer candidates who are leaving for weekend liberty while Mayo does push-ups) Say goodbye to your friends, Mayo. Oh, that's right. I forgot. You don't ''have'' any friends. Just ''customers!''
48	* GoldDigger: Lynette. If you had any doubt, you'll know it when Sid proposes and she starts acting like she won the lottery.
49	%%* GoodOlBoy: Sid.
50	* GoodOldFisticuffs: Averted when Zack fights Sgt. Foley [[spoiler:after Sid's suicide]]. While Zack is a skilled fighter who learned streetwise fisticuffs, Foley -- the self-defense instructor with kung fu expertise -- [[GroinAttack eventually defeats him]].
51	* GroinAttack: How Foley defeats Mayo during their fight at the end.
52	* HeroOfAnotherStory: Casey Seeger. You get the feeling that if the camera were to ignore Zack Mayo and start following her around, the movie would be just as entertaining.
53	-->Look over there... look at her. She decided to ''stay'', instead of taking liberty on this weekend. She may not make it through the program, but she's got more ''[[HeartIsAnAwesomePower heart]]'' and ''character'' than you will ''ever'' have! [[{{Bathos}} And stop eyeballing me, boy!]]
54	* HoistByHerOwnPetard: Lynette's baby hoax results in [[spoiler:Sid dropping out of the program]], thus defeating her scheme of marrying an aviator.
55	* HonorBeforeReason: Arguably, Sid Worley, who drops out of the program with only two weeks remaining [[spoiler:when he thinks Lynette is pregnant with his child]].
56	* InherentlyAttractiveProfession: The “Puget Debs” seem to be attracted like flies to naval aviators. One such Deb, Lynette even dumps a cadet because she hinted at a possible pregnancy to trap him, but he responded by quitting OCS to take a safe civilian job to support her.
57	* KarmaHoudini: Sid's girlfriend, Lynette. [[spoiler:She lies to Sid about being pregnant, setting off a chain of events that leads to Sid's suicide. Yet by the end of the movie, she appears no worse for wear, whose only repercussion, apart from a brief TheReasonYouSuckSpeech, is to cheer Paula as she's being carried off in Zack's arms.]]
58	** Subverted since [[spoiler:Lynette's cheer of Paula in the end is bittersweet as she realizes that she is never leaving her dismal factory life]].
59	* LadyAndKnight: The story was in part conceived as a modernized version of the knight in shining armor. Mayo rides a motorcycle not a horse, but all in white he rescues Paula from the drudgery of factory work.
60	* LikeParentLikeSpouse: Paula confesses to Zack that she loves him because he reminds her of her [[spoiler:biological]] father, a Navy aviator.
61	%%* MilitaryAcademy
62	* MilitaryBrat: Zack Mayo and Sid Worley.
63	%%* TheMusical: Coming next November, in Japan, staged by the Creator/TakarazukaRevue.
64	%% Refer to a specific date rather than "next November".
65	* MySiblingWillLiveThroughMe: Sid is driven to succeed for the sake of his older brother, who was killed in combat.
66	* NoOneGetsLeftBehind: Played mildly when Casey, in her final run of the obstacle course, ''still'' can't make the rope-climb wall she needs to pass the test. Zack abandons his attempt at breaking the course record to return and yell encouragement at her until she climbs it.
67	* NotSoDifferentRemark: Lynette attempts to use this when Paula calls her out for faking a pregnancy, which ultimately leads to [[spoiler:Sid's suicide]], stating that Paula is trying to do the same thing to Zack. Except Paula isn't.
68	* ParentalAbandonment: When Zack moves in with his father in the Philippines after his mother's death, his Dad explicitly tells him that he won't "do the daddy stuff" and leaves Zack to raise himself above a brothel.
69	* PunctuatedForEmphasis: Foley delivers literally all of his dialogue this way.
70	* QuittingToGetMarried: David Keith's character (Sid Worley) is an naval officer candidate who has a fling with one of the town girls (as candidates often do) named Lynette; she reports that she is pregnant in order to [[TheBabyTrap get him to marry her]], but then he quits the navy to marry her. Lynette had wanted to be a navy officer's wife, so she dumps him (and informs him that she wasn't pregnant after all). He hangs himself.
71	* ScaryBlackMan: Sgt. Foley, part and parcel of his DrillSergeantNasty role. A case of TruthInTelevision: While doing research, screenwriter Douglas Stewart found out that all of the top drill instructors at Pensacola were African-American, which inspired the casting of Louis Gossett Jr.
72	** Gossett had good training; the military adviser for the film was Creator/RLeeErmey.
73	** Averted ([[{{Blackface}} for good reason, in this case]]) in the Creator/TakarazukaRevue version, [[http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lagtrb7pvs1qduvu8o1_500.jpg with Kaname Ouki as Foley.]]
74	%%* SirSwearsALot: Foley.
75	* TheScrounger: Zack, who does a brisk business selling polished boots and belt buckles for his comrades to pass inspection.
76	-->"Wave good-bye to your buddies, Mayonnaise! Oh, I forgot. You don't have any buddies, do you? Only customers!"
77	* TheSquadette: Casey Seeger, the only woman in Zack's class of candidates.
78	** Actually, she's not the only female. There are a few extremely brief shots of a couple of other females, but they have no lines and are in the blink and you'll miss it category.
79	* TrainingFromHell: Zack gets this personally from Sgt. Foley after he's busted for selling inspection-approved boots and buckles.
80	* WellDoneSonGuy: Casey, who wants to be a female naval aviator and win the approval of her father. She gets a HeroicBSOD when Sgt. Foley exposes her weakness and [[WhatTheHellHero calls her out]] on it.
81	-->You're one of those girls who couldn't get enough of daddy's attention because he really wanted a ''son!''
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Context Film / AnOfficerAndAGentleman