In Hollywood terms, one of the most admirable things a woman can do is to become a single mother. The best example of this is Erin Brockovich. In this film, Roberts plays a twice divorced mother of three. She struggles to find a job and is constantly going on about how hard her life is. “I don't need pity, I need a paycheck. And I've looked. But when you've spent the past six years raising babies its real hard to find somebody who pays worth a damn...” On the DVD Roberts is quoted as saying that single mothers, “...are the heroes of our time.” As if there were never single mothers before.
I am not going to diminish just how difficult it is to raise children, and I am certainly not trying to insult any widowed mother, but this film makes Brockovich a hero just by her virtue of making bad decisions. She is not a victim of society but a victim of her own lousy choices. It never mentions any government assistance that Brockovich received. It leads you to believe that she did everything without ever getting a dime from an ex husband or the government. How do I know if she did or didn't? Because this movie is so eager to make Erin Brockovich a saint that had she actually done it all without any government handout the plot would have made sure to make all kinds of references to that.
Erin Brockovich pushes her way into a job at a Law Firm and stumbles across a case that is not getting much attention. She investigates the case of a big business contaminating an entire community's water supply. She is successful at her job by virtue of not taking “no” for an answer and her willingness to flirt with someone, while wearing her streetwalker looking clothes, to get her way. She became very personable to the victims, treating them with respect. They were able to trust her in ways that they never could a suit wearing lawyer. Brockovich is an admirable character, but it has nothing to do with her being a single mother. She learned on the job and helped to right a huge wrong. “Look, I don't know shit about shit but I know right from wrong!” She yells at one point.
No doubt Brockovich had some emotional investment in this case, but the final scene of the movie knocks Brockovich light years from sainthood. From the 300 and some million dollar settlement, she took home a 2 million dollar bonus, plus her normal salary. A true hero would not financially benefit from the death and disease of hundreds of people. Her accepting that check makes her just as bad as the business that was polluting the water in the first place. That business made money while poisoning people. Brockovich made money because they were poisoned. She benefited from their misfortune. Some of the families poisoned by that business received less than she did from the settlement when the money was divided up.
Erin Brockovich, wants you to see her as a courageous, hard working single mother, motivated by doing the right thing. I saw her as someone who made several poor decisions in her life and then became an enthusiastic opportunist when she saw a way of making good money for herself and her kids. It was only that the path to that money involved her getting personal with a bunch of unfortunate people that looked at her admirably.
