"Fuck Uncle Sam, man! They give the fuckin'
politicians a break! Agnew and them don't pay shit. Working man's gotta pay every goddamn thing!"
politicians a break! Agnew and them don't pay shit. Working man's gotta pay every goddamn thing!"
"That's exactly what the company wants – to keep you on their line. They'll do anything to keep you on their line. They pit the lifers against the new boys, the old against the young, the Black against the white – everybody to keep us in our place."
— Sam "Smokey" James
A 1978 American crime drama film directed by Paul Schrader, who also cowrote the screenplay with his brother Leonard.
Harvey Keitel, Richard Pryor and Yaphet Kotto play three Detroit auto plant workers who stumble upon corruption in their labor union, which earns them the wrath of union bigwigs.
Tropes appearing in Blue Collar include:
- An Aesop: Labor unions can be, and sometimes are, as corrupt as any business or government.
- Bad Boss: "Dogshit" Miller the foreman is hated by everyone in the auto plant.
- Blues Rock: Jack Nitzche’s memorable score.
- Bolivian Army Ending: One of the most depressing ever seen in western cinema: Jerry and Zeke lunge murderously at each other while cops and their coworkers try to pull them apart; as Jerry pulls his hand free and swings a hammer at Zeke, the screen freezes, and we hear Smokey's speech earlier in the movie about union corruption before the credits roll over a static image of the two former friends fighting.
- Celebrity Paradox: Good Times can be seen on a television. Chip Fields (Caroline) played Penny's mother on the show.
- Cluster F-Bomb: Perhaps fitting for a movie about crusty, gritty auto workers, Blue Collar is filled to the brim with profanity, including over a hundred uses of the word fuck. Nitzsche’s musical intro drops the first of them less than thirty seconds into the picture. While this might seem standard or even tame by The New '10s standards, repeatedly featuring that kind of language in a movie that's supposed to be about ordinary people (rather than soldiers, hippies or rock stars) was not taken for granted in the 1970s.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Smokey's demise in the factory - he's locked into a room with mechanized paint sprayers with no ventilation and slowly suffocates from the fumes.
- Downer Ending: Jerry throws the English language's most infamous slur at Zeke during the climactic scene; this insult, combined with Zeke calling him a Polack in response, underlines the breakdown of their friendship as the union has successfully torn them apart. Not to mention the fact that their mutual friend Smokey was murdered by the union.
- Embarrassing Nickname: Dogshit Miller, the foreman.
- Faux Affably Evil: Eddie Johnson, the boss of the local union chapter.
- Grey-and-Grey Morality: Bordering on Black-and-Grey Morality – yes, the three protagonists are criminals, but they commit the robbery out of economic desperation. And they are up against a relentlessly corrupt and (eventually) murderous union leadership that does little if anything to help its members.
- Karma Houdini: None of the union officials (or underlings) responsible for Smokey's murder are ever brought to justice. However, this could be a case of a Karma Houdini Warranty, since Jerry has decided to cooperate with the FBI and testify against the union.
- My God, What Have I Done??: Zeke on the overpass, coming to terms with Smokey’s murder.
- N-Word Privileges: The only characters to use the N-word in the film are Black men like Zeke and Smokey, until the end when Jerry repeatedly throws at Zeke, underlining the corrupt union's success in breaking their friendship up.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Smokey delivers one to two of the union thugs who came to beat Jerry’s kids up. Can retroactively double as
Heartwarming in Hindsight - Politically Incorrect Villain: Union rep Clarence Brown has a reputation among both black and white workers for taking white workers’ complaints more seriously than black workers’ complaints. Something of an Informed Ability since we only hear details from Zeke related to off-screen issues with his locker, but the company’s workers take it seriously enough that Johnson offers to send Brown to Toledo and gives Zeke his job in exchange for his silence about the loan-sharking.
- Scary Black Man: Smokey, a convicted felon with a muscular, intimidating build, fills this role in a way that very much contrasts with the more level-headed and cerebral Zeke. Subverted in that Smokey is in many instances the most sympathetic of the three characters – for one thing, his quote below the title sums up the whole story.
- Sell-Out: Jerry understandably sees Zeke as this when Zeke agrees to put his differences with the union aside and become their rep, despite the fact that the union had Smokey murdered. Zeke tries to justify his actions by saying that it gives him a chance to reform the union from within, but it's clear that he's just looking out for his own self-interest.
- Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist: While how likable he is compared to the rest of the cast will depend on the viewer, Agent Burrows is a dedicated FBI agent doing his job, and union leadership are in fact up to criminal activity that merits FBI surveillance and intervention.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Zeke, after being promoted to union rep.
- Unions Suck: The whole premise of the film. Zeke remarks that the auto workers union treats its members even worse than the factory bosses treat their workers.
- World of Jerkass: The three main characters are (for the most part) sympathetic if greatly flawed people with rather typical foibles and weaknesses. On the other hand, they seem to be surrounded on all sides by deeply corrupt and brutal people – they're treated like dirt by their employers, and are eventually treated even worse by the union that's supposed to represent their interests.
