The Associate

The Associate is a 1996 American comedy film directed by Donald Petrie and written by Nick Thiel. It stars Whoopi Goldberg, Dianne Wiest, Eli Wallach, Tim Daly, and Bebe Neuwirth, alongside Austin Pendleton and Lainie Kazan. Plot Investment banker Laurel Ayres is a smart and single woman trying to make it up the Wall Street corporate ladder, until one day she finds out that she is being passed over for a promotion because of her gender. Unable to face the fact that her less intelligent male protege, Frank Peterson, has now become her boss, she quits and tries to start up her own company only to find out that the male dominated world of Wall Street is not interested in taking an African American woman seriously, and thus is forced to create a fictional white man, Robert S. Cutty (inspired by a bottle of Cutty Sark) to legitimize her talents and make her professionally relevant in said world. Ayres does extensive research into the cultural and performative codes of the culture she seeks to impersonate. Ayres' financial wisdom is joined by the intelligent and computer-savvy secretary Sally Dugan, who also was not properly recognized for her talents. Together, they are able to become the most successful independent stockbrokers in the world while helping a struggling high-tech computer company stay afloat. However, the ruse eventually runs into problems because Cutty is still getting credit for Ayres' great ideas, while competing firms and tabloid journalists are willing to do anything in order to bring the wealthy and elusive Cutty into the public and on their side. Ayres is forced to recruit her best friend (who works at a nightclub as a female impersonator) to craft a Marlon Brando-inspired mask disguise so she can appear as "Cutty" and fool the naysayers; when that fails, she and Dugan decide to kill Cutty only to be charged with his murder. Frank uncovers the ruse and blackmails the two women so he can be Cutty's front man.