As of this sixth film, the budgeted costs were about $20 million, while the six films grossed more than $131 million (domestically).)Although Mildred""s maternal sacrifice is portrayed as noble, some have claimed that the film is cautionary and anti-feminist, with Mildred presented as a typical 1940""s post-war housewife whose ""American dream-fulfilling"" role-switching movement from suburban, middle-class home-maker to divorced, successful business entrepreneur (restaurant-chain owner) results in corruptive, destructive disaster (both financial and personal).There are many opposing and conflicting forces being balanced: the individual vs.the power of big business, the populist little people in the peaceful country vs.the chaotic metropolitan city, good vs.evil, and innocent idealism vs.hardened cynicism.A "Cinderella" romance subplot involves a deceitful, hard-edged, and sardonic female newspaper reporter who falls in love with the newly-rich, guileless fortune inheritor while getting an "inside story" and making fun of him in her newspaper...eye-shadow, mascara, lipstick, rouge...and then perfume, the spray kind.And then get this.In the middle of the Triboro Bridge - and this woman is beautiful - she changes her pantyhose!...I jump in the back seat and I whip it out and I said, you know what this is?...If she says, ""It""s love,"" you know, I""m gonna f--- her brains out.She goes wild, you know.And she said, ""It""s the greatest single experience of my life."" And she gave me a two hundred dollar tip and her phone number in Acapulco.While the other cabbies are talking, Travis becomes lost in his own world, and then describes their dangerous work environment with "pretty rough customers" and the latest threat - a knife-wielding crazy madman who cut up another cabbie at 122nd Street:Travis: I turned on the radio, some fleet driver from Bell just got all cut up.