As promised, I'm presenting a movie series, leading off tomorrow with Erin Brockovich. The idea for the series is based on my paper, Film and Firms. I lead with Erin Brockovich because, first, it illustrates the general ill repute in which corporations are held and, second, it invites thinking about why corporations do what they do -- a subject covered by other films in the series.
I really have no idea how much interest this is going to generate. I'm not requiring attendance, but I am promoting it in class and publicizing it to the entire University.
Here's something I'm going to email to my business associations students today. I will begin with the excerpt from my article dealing with Erin Brockovich. I then follow with this. Comments invited!
Notes
1. Erin Brockovich cost $51 million and earned $125 in the US during the summer of its release. Julia Roberts earned $22.5 million for the role and the Academy Award for best actress. The movie was nominated for four other Oscars.
2. Both Ed Masry and Erin Brockovich appear in the restaurant scene early in the film – Ed as a customer behind Erin, and the real Erin as the waitress.
3. As noted in the excerpt above, there have been many stories raising questions about the backstory of Erin Brockovich. Here’s a summary of Michael Fumento’s op ed on Erin Brockovich in the Wall Street Journal, March 28, 2000 at A30:
The Enviromental Protection Agency links chromium 6 only to cancer of the lung and septum. This suggests that it is a carcinogen only when inhaled. Cancers are associated with the production rather than the use of the compound. The EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System said in 1998 that no data suggests chromium 6 “is carcinogenic by the oral route of exposure." No ill health effects have been found in studies of communities located next to landfills packed with chromium 6. A January 2000 report from Glasgow, Scotland, found "no increased risk of congenital abnormalities, lung cancer, or a range of other diseases." A study of residents exposed to chromium 6 in a New Jersey landfill estimated that "the plausible incremental cancer risk to individuals at residential sites would be substantially less than 1 in 1,000,000." A study evaluating almost 52,000 workers at three PG&E plants over 25 years, including at Hinkley, found the same cancer rates and lower death rates than in the general California population. Rodents getting 25 parts per million doses of chromium 6 and dogs getting 11.2 ppm displayed no ill effects. The level in Hinkley's water was never higher than .58 ppm. Much of this evidence came in after the $333 million settlement in the movie.
4. Here’s a summary of response by Erin Brockovich and others in an April 6, 2000 Letter to the Editor, Wall Street Journal at A23:
Chromium 6 kills has been labeled as a human carcinogen by the EPA, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), and the state of California. PG&E's documents concede that "the material is toxic." California no longer permits its use even in cooling towers. The EPA, IARC and many other medical researchers agree that Chromium 6 can cause injury as a result of ingestion and dermal exposure. PG&E measured concentrations as high as 20 parts per million. Fumento’s charge that "no one agent could possibly have caused more than a handful of the symptoms described" “blithely ignores . . . the testimony of medical experts and scientists, and interviews with the workers who inhaled Chromium 6.” Fumento relies on William Blot, a paid "expert" for PG&E and a study of PG&E workers funded by PG&E. Unlike PG&E workers, Hinkley residents used Chromium 6-laced water daily. Many animal studies establish chromium 6’s toxicity. Although Fumento says the studies "came in after the settlement," Chromium 6 has been studied for more than a century.
Questions
1. Did you come away from the movie convinced that the company had done wrong and that Masry and Erin B had performed a beneficial service? If so, why did you reach those conclusions?
2. How might the basic story have been slanted more toward the company with equivalent dramatic effect?
3. Do the filmmakers have any obligation to give the company’s side of the story?
4. What is the company’s side?
5. Why do you think the company’s employees did what they did?
6. How do you suppose films like this might affect public debates concerning, among other things, regulation of corporate misconduct and trial lawyers?
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