Medlej 1

Hussein Medlej

Academic Paper

2000-word Analysis

November 14, 2019

Feminist Criticism in the Erin Brockovich Movie: The Question of Trouble

Erin Brockovich is a movie produced by Steven Soderbergh in 1999. The movie talks

about the female protagonist, Erin. Erin suffers in the film in all aspects of her life: divorces,

jobless, two children whom she needs to raise, and deals with social problems. At first, she

struggles to find a job for a living. She ends up in a private law firm, and she decides to

investigate a corrupt electricity corporation in southern California. She works with Ed Masry, a

senior in the law firm. Based on a true story, and having Erin as a female protagonist, the movie,

and thus its screenplay, is substance to feminist criticism. In this paper, feminist criticism can

apply to Erin Brockovich in the scope of Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble published in 1990, just

9 years earlier.

In the opening inciting incident of Erin Brockovich, Erin, after been rejected at a job

interview, drives her old car; suddenly, she gets hit by another expensive car. As Erin is under

investigation in the court about the accident, the following excerpt from the script tells in

dialogue the following before shifting to a new scene:

ERIN. He came tearing around the corner, out of control --

DEFENDING LAWYER. An ER doctor who spends his days saving lives was the one

out of control --

ERIN. (erupting) That asshole smashed in my fucking neck!

INT. COURTHOUSE HALLWAY - LATER THAT DAY

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(Erin barrels toward the elevator. Ed trails).

ERIN. ...Open and shut? Open and fucking shut?

ED. Which is exactly the kind of language that lost the case (Grant 6-7).

As stated, Erin faces a patriarchal system that pushes her into the “immanence” that Beauvoir

signifies (Beauvoir 1215).

Furthermore, as the screenplay shows in its shift to the scene of the courthouse hallway,

Erin retorts, “...Open and shut? Open and fucking shut?” Meanwhile, Ed claims to her that this

tense language is what lost the case (Soderbergh 6:42-6:46). In this example, Ed convinces

himself that the reason Erin lost the case is primarily due to the way she is talking, ignoring the

fact that she was subject to the hierarchy of the man who hit her, add into that the developed

level of this social hierarchy knowing that the man who hit appeared to be a wealthy medical

doctor. As Butler references Jacques Lacan by his grounding of phallogocentric systems as a

grounding of feminine identity “through exclusion” (Butler 29). Here, even when Ed’s reasoning

to the loss of the case might not be intentionally against her, what he does is a categorization of

her femininity into the “exclusion” devotion. This devotion is nothing but the prioritization of

men’s “transcendence” at the expense of the “immanence” of women. Butler describes such

implications of the system as “hegemonic prohibitions on sex” (29). Such prohibitions make it

almost impossible for Erin to escape it, at this current situation: the lawyer, Ed, the defending

lawyer, and the medical doctor are all men.

Moreover, this same example grasps attention to Butler’s discourse about socially

constructed gender identities. In her book, Butler considers Foucault’s explanations about the

dualism of gender classification that “this marking [of gender or sex] is the result of a diffuse and

active structuring of the social field,” (Butler 131) which Foucault inscribes as the “vicissitude of
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‘history’” (Butler 130). Accordingly, the reasoning of Ed is a result of a socially constructed

hegemony. In this case, Erin is not able to “exceed the bounds of cultural intelligibility” (29). In

the movie, the jump cut between the scene in the court and the next scene in the hallway

(Soderbergh 4:42-6:43) is by itself an allusion to the depth of this socially constructed devotion.

The film adds more and more embeddedness by the shifting of the space behind Erin. In the first

considered scene, Erin was defending herself in front of the judge in a deep white space behind

her (Soderbergh 6:06-6:40). Even though space was white but out of focus, the next scene shoots

Erin in a shallow, dark space, and this space continues up till the moment when Ed tells her his

reason for the loss of the case (Soderbergh 6:43-6:46). After this moment, in the same scene, a

radical shift occurs when Erin gets into what Butler calls “trouble” (Butler vii). Butler argues that

the feminine subject who cannot escape this intelligibility, can otherwise “expand the

boundaries” of its cultural construction (29). In these means, Erin starts arguing in high tension

with Ed, trying to defend herself against this patriarchy while walking along the hallway

(Soderbergh 6:47-7:05). Erin creates “trouble” by erupting and interrupting with Ed throughout

the dialogue, but she also puts herself “in trouble” (Butler vii), which makes her vulnerable to

repression by the same system. Butler explains that this kind of “trouble is inevitable [in addition

to its] task, [i.e.] how best to make it, what best way to be in it” (Butler vii). This kind of trouble

that Erin makes is involuntarily inevitable because in order to defend herself, she has to create

trouble although this trouble in itself is not a product of her choice to be associated with men, but

it is due to her circumstances to protect herself and her children. To emphasize this trouble more

on screen, Erin and Ed walk in a deep-focus and deep-space background, showing a bright

natural scene with the sunlight behind them. This space gives the protagonist character, Erin, an

authority that highlights her role in “trouble” making. In the film, this trouble continues till they
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stop walking and stand in front of the same deep and open, white space, but in a shallow focus

this time (Soderbergh 7:08-7:15). At this point, Erin tells Ed in a low but tense voice: “Do they

teach lawyers how to apologize? - because you all suck at it” (Grant 8); then, after a pause and a

tense gaze on Ed, she leaves him standing in despair. But, leaving Ed standing in despair in this

bright mise-én-scene shows that Erin has achieved some expansion of what is culturally

constricted.

Henceforth, throughout the whole movie, images of Erin as a vulnerable and confused

female protagonist lists her as “‘male identified’ or ‘unenlightened’” (Butler 30). Moreover,

Butler thinks that it is believed that a “‘female’ no longer appears to be a stable notion, its

meaning is as troubled and unfixed as ‘woman’” (Butler ix). Conflicting these identifications,

Butler proposes that “we might develop a notion of sexuality constructed in terms of power that

replay and redistribute” the roles of sexes through the “subverting operations” of what is

considered “natural” and “original” (30-31).

Nevertheless, what counts as approving to Butler’s theory is that Erin, although a female,

she has children to take care of, she searches for jobs, she admits them to a babysitter, and she

takes the duty to take them into trips. All these acts and others are key proof to Erin’s

performative gender. Butler states that the “gender reality is created through sustained social

performances . . . outside the restricting frames” (141). These performances of Erin are more

oriented towards masculinity, which are inevitable for Erin’s social circumstances in order for

her to survive with her children. One plot point in the movie reveals her boyfriend, George, who,

for some time before they separate, stays at home and takes care for the children. In this case,

even the performative role of George is altered towards femininity, and this proves Butler’s

theory as varied. But, still, as Butler suggests, “genders are incredible” (141). Butler explains
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that this is “a source of mystery and unknowability,” which is also considered “as trouble” in

itself (vii). The incredibility of Erin’s gender is, therefore, valid too because we cannot yet

consider her as a male.

Erin, as the male gaze object, is apparent in the middle of the movie. Erin leaves her car

in an exterior scene, wearing a white mini skirt and a red lace-up top (Soderbergh 32:17-32:37).

As the “the bored desk clerk,” Scott sees Erin from the window of his office, “He jumps up, to

help her,” as she struggles with opening the door (Grant 35). Before Scott jumps, he opens his

mouth as he sees her from outside, and then starts doing his her and checking his appearance

before he welcomes her. A sign of sexual arousal appears on Scott. Knowing that the color red

comes in association with lust and passion and that Erin’s look stimulates Scott, the latter

becomes a laudable “object” of a laudability for Scott’s male gaze. Butler points out that “on

Irigaray’s reading, Beauvoir’s claim that woman ‘is sex’ is reversed to mean that woman is not

the sex she is designated to be, but, rather, the masculine sex encore (and en corps) parading in

the mode of otherness” (12). The encounter between them reverses this “otherness” where the

male desire culminates in the utmost potentiality that he becomes no more the subject of

androcentrism, but instead takes a feminine stand in abdicating his expected hegemonic role.

However, this expectation comes in parallel with the spectator’s expectations that Erin will not

be able to achieve her want: she has been struggling lately in the film.

Moreover, to bolster this deceiving sexual trick that Erin works to access the archive, she

behaves in an attractive manner, which abets Scott’s arousal. To explain this, ironically, with

Butler’s terms, “[the] phallogocentric mode of signifying the female sex perpetually reproduces

phantasms of its own self-amplifying desire” (13). In the case of Erin, the “sex encore (and en

copse)” that represents her body-revealing looks throughout the entire movie, stands strong her
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masculine performance as she gets her want to enter the archives room. She has put Scott in the

situation of this vulnerable feminine man who lets Erin break his privacy by entering the room at

the end. Erin introduces that she is looking for the records, then she exchanges a smile with Scott

and then leans on the desk. She lowers her voice, which is more adoring for Scott and asks for

access. As Scott leans too emotionally, he shows a misperceived attraction of love towards Erin.

All the conversation on the desk between the two happens in a shot-reverse-shot shooting, but at

the moment, Scott agrees to let Erin in: “Oh, heck yeah, come on back” (Soderbergh 33:26).

Meanwhile, the over-the-shoulder frame on Scott shakes, emphasizing his surprise and joy in

meeting Erin, knowing that it is their first meeting. The joy appears well on Scott’s face: the

wrinkled forehead, excited eyes, and the open, smiling mouth, which all turn suddenly to a

neutral expression with a bit of uncertainty to express love. His uncertainty lets him place one of

his hands on his belt level, a sign of attracting Erin while keeping the other on the desk. But

because of Erin’s encouraging behavior, Scott has the confidence to ask her: “Are you married?”

(Soderbergh 33:39). When she whispers her answer with “not anymore,” Scott’s face gets back

to its happy expression, which is too a sign of falling in love with her.

All of this leads Erin at the end to enter the archives. Scott leads her in, but to proceed more with

this opportunity, she goes on with her deception for Scott; she tells him that she likes his pants

and the archive room. All this scene proves valid that the whole conversation is pretentious just

for Erin to get her character’s want: investigate the archives. In this scene, masculine Erin adds

more perplexity to her feminine body, which indeed leads to the conclusion that she is incredibly

genderless.

In conclusion, Erin Brockovich considers a story plot about legal issues without forgetting

to employ a feminist criticism on its protagonist, Erin. The movie highlights the vulnerability of
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female Erin to exclusion by phallogocentrism. It also proves the social construction of female

identity in a historical “vicissitude,” and how this female tries to escape this patriarchy through

the inevitability of making troubles, which is associated with the confusion and instability of her

character. But Erin also tries to expand and reorient her socially intelligible identity through

constant performative acts, which orient her character towards masculinity although the concept

of gender is still incredible. Erin Brockovich holds other elements of feminist criticism. To list

another, woman as object is also predominant all the time in the film.
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Works Cited

Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. Routledge, 1990.

De Beauvoir, Simone. "The Second Sex." The Norton Anthology of Theory Criticism, edited by

Vincent B. Leitch. W. W. Norton & Company, 2018, 1211-1221.

Grant, Susannah. Erin Brockovich. Shooting draft, 1999.

Soderbergh, Steven, director. Erin Brockovich. UNIVERSAL STUDIOS and COLUMBIA

PICTURES INDUSTRIES, INC., 2000.