And on to the big event of the day, or at least yesterday. I wonder how it is that trial lawyers have managed to have so much more appeal than, say, those who do takeovers? Why doesn't John Edwards look like Gordon Gekko (see Wall Street) to the ordinary man? Why has he so easily taken on the mantle of savior, rather than generating the negative vibes given off by other aggressive rich people?
Of course Edwards has chosen to cast himself in the role of the friend of the common man. But so did Danny De Vito (aka Larry the Liquidator) in Other People's Money. The answer, I think, lies in the very films I'm using as analogies: Filmmakers have consistently chosen to portray capitalists in the most unfavorable possible light, and trial lawyers as the heroes who will save us from these evil people. Think about Ed Masry and his assistant Erin Brockovich, or John Travolta in A Civil Action.
The reason, with many examples, is discussed at length in my recently revised article, Film and Firms. In a nutshell: filmmakers resent the artistic constraints capitalists impose on them, and repeatedly express this resentment in their films. The heroes are the trial lawyers, or journalists, or television cameramen (The China Syndrome) who expose the evil done by capitalists.
John Edwards' political success shows that this distortion is not just innocent fun, but can have real public policy implications. As I say in my recently revised article, "the trial lawyer as hero becomes the trial lawyer as vice president." And possibly president.
Let me emphasize that I am not saying that trial lawyers are evil, or that business executives are saints. Only that reality is much murkier than the image so consistently painted in films.
Comments