Okay, watch carefully. I'm about to throw all your arguments upside down.
"She said it best when she told George that people quit talking when she walks in a room to see if she has anything to say. I'm not saying she didn't care about the plaintiffs in the case, but she cared more about herself, being important and looking good."
It's about respect. That she's found something that's meaningful in her life and drives her. Before it was about just getting enough money to pay the bills, now it's that she's found something that she's not only passionate about, but is so good at that people rely on her and look up to her. It's important to her, so having a man look up at her and make her pick between him or the job, she explains it's more than that. She's made something of herself and is helping others and asking her to give that up isn't an option.
"She didn't care that Ed thought she should dress more appropriately."
So just because her attire is unconventional, makes other employees uncomfortable, and causes people to have a fixed judgment of who she is based on what she wears she should change her clothes? I saw her defiance as a retaliation to the fact that her clothes are irrelevant to her work no matter what anyone says. Besides, those clothes are who she is. How is choosing to not conform to the "appropriate" standards of the workplace selfish? Is it unprofessional? Yes. But how does that perpetuate your argument that she's selfish?
"She didn't care that George was being left home to raise her kids."
I agree it was unfair, but by the time he started to reach the boiling point she had long had enough money to put her kids in a daycare or with a babysitter. She wasn't depending on him to take care of her kids and not caring. In the beginning, yes she was dependent on him. However, I don't think being stuck with the kids is what upset him, it's that she was neglecting him and that for six months she hadn't even been sweet to him or done anything nice to deserve the earrings.
"She didn't care when Ed said he was going to have to take out a 2nd mortgage on his house. Remember her reply? "So?" She didn't care whether Ed was inconvenienced or devastated financially, which was a possibility in this case because the outcome early on was not known for sure. Erin had never worked hard in her life...and had no idea what it was like for someone like Ed to work his entire life to accumulate a life savings...and to have a case like this jeopardize that lifetime of work. Nope..she just wanted what she wanted. "
Both of them were losing things from this case. It's not about how it will affect their personal lives, it's about what's right. What PG&E did to those people wasn't fair and they shouldn't get away with it because Erin was losing her kids and boyfriend and because Ed would be under financial strain. If you want something you have to risk it. And after all that risk, Ed got 40% of I believe 200 million dollars? And your right, "she just wanted what she wanted". How selfish of her to want to pursue a case to get justice and compensation for families devastated by PG&E's lying and scheming. You're right, when the actions of the higher ups of companies like PG&E come to light, it makes it so much clearer of how selfish Erin is. Thank you for clarifying that poignant argument.
"She wanted to play with the big kids even though she did not go to school and go through the same life experiences the big kids did, i.e., she was a lawyer wannabe but couldn't accept the fact that she didn't have an education and wasn't on the same level as they."
So just because her resume isn't as impressive as the lawyers she's dealing with or didn't get a Harvard education she should not only be treated as an insubordinate and talked down upon, but willingly take it? She wanted to be treated like an equal because she is. She got to play with the big kids for a reason. She's the one that uncovered what PG&E was trying to sweep under the carpet. She's the one that got the files and evidence needed for the case. She's the one that could hold her own against intimidating lawyers. There are some things college can't teach you that Erin learned. She never let on that she understood all the legal terms and action, but she's smart, outspoken, and driven. She deserved to be where she is.
"She was offensive to those who had put in the time to be lawyers so they could play with the big kids. And, while I'm on that subject, if she had the "600" phone numbers in her head, did it ever occur to her that she SHOULD perhaps put them in the files? No..because this was one more way she could control the situation. Only she had the info...what if she got killed or hurt badly? The info wouldn't have been in the file, and someone would have had to start over on it. She didn't care. She felt this kept her in the drivers seat."
Erin had a biased view of lawyers. She believes a lot of them are only concerned about the money. She gets upset when Ed teams up with lawyers that weren't there from the start and believes they're only helping now because the case is getting publicity and they laid all the groundwork. She was offended Teresa was saying there were holes in her case and implying she didn't do her job right because of the missing number when in fact she kept track of these things. No it probably didn't occur to her to right them down or didn't matter, but later on she dictates the numbers to a man who puts them in the computers. And they're telephone numbers. They can easily find the person and get them, with or without Erin. That was the point she was making, to not criticize or judge her job performance based on a missing six hundred numbers that were in her head of people that weren't clients, but victims she's come to know and care for. The only time she was in control was when trying to get everyone to sign the forms, which makes sense since she's traveling from person to person. She wasn't controlling the situation, she was simply doing it her way since she's unaware of the formalities and filing ethic of lawyers. Any information she received she shared with Ed. And she wasn't playing lawyer, she was playing a paralegal.
"Her own perception of her value was obvious when she asked Ed, "Did you tell them that" after Ed told her she was important to him on the case. She wanted constant ego-stroking, either from Ed or the plaintiffs to confirm her own perception of her value."
You're completely taking this out of context. "Did you tell them that?" means that just because she doesn't look the lawyer part or have the education, she is an important part of the case and shouldn't be cast aside from decisions and meetings simply because she doesn't measure up to lawyer standards. Ed knows her despite how she dresses and acts and knows she's smart and invested this case. The lawyers that the firm is now working with don't. She doesn't want to be passed on because she IS important to the case, not to inflate her ego or affirm beliefs of importance.
"I found her cussing, screaming rants to be nothing but an additional indication of her instability and short fuse."
Instability? No. Short fuse? Very much so. She was completely together the entire time. She was quick witted, smart, and down to earth the entire movie, although she lacks the demure, composure, and patience of a trained lawyer. The allure of the story is, no lawyer or corporate executive would dress or act like she does yet she holds her own.
Your arguments are very distorted and lack insight. Why don't you surrender your soap box to someone who can develop stronger, legible arguments that don't go out of context?
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fortwenty
14 years ago
lol, don't be so emotional.
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estella2
14 years ago
I think some people find it hard to believe that there are actually good people out there in the world that care about other people....who actually have a heart and want to change the world and bring forth peace and justice. I used to be one of those skeptics.
you look at someone and you think "naw, they can't be doing this because they actually want to help me, there must be some ulterior motive....some personal incentive."
with all the greed in the world today there is a lack of trust and a lot of paranoia. so you nit pick and you grind away at something until you find something that can back up your theory. you begin to see what you want to see, or at least what you expect to see.
it's like a woman who can't trust men and always thinks they must be cheating or have some dark evil secret behind their kinds eyes. so they search for anything they can to prove that they must be cheating or something. they search and search for evidence and find nothing. until one day they see them casually talking to another woman, and so whamo!there is the proof they needed! and so they yell and accuse them of cheating when there was possibly nothing going on except an exchange of words with a female co-worker.but even if they find this out, it doesn't matter. this woman is set on her views of men for whatever reason. perhaps she had been hurt by many men in her past and now she can't see the good in any man. i think sometimes it's the same with other people when it comes to trust. our main heroine Erin Brockovich had her own issues with trust.
the same can be said about the economy. the value of our money is not founded on gold but trust. when we 'the people' have no trust- the economy suffers. people find it hard to believe that erin brockovich didn't just do this for money. Yes, at first, it was undoubtedly for the money to support her children. But then she realized that there was more to law than boston legal and paychecks. she could work for the benefit of man kind. she saw a reflection of herself looking at the people living in Hinkley. she saw a reflection of her children in the kids living in Hinkley. so maybe Erin Brockovich wasn't Mother Teresa, but she saw what everyone needs to see: that we are all residents of a Hinkley. Like the golden rule, treat others as you would like to be treated. This could happen to anyone in any town in the world. Things like this happen everyday. speaking of 'trust'; it's because of greedy leeches like PG&E that people begin to lose trust in things like business and capitalism, which is unfortunate because the principles of these philosophies are actually quite beautiful/inspirational.
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