I started to count the number of references to Erin Brockovich's breasts in Austin Bunn's biographicalessay on her work in the New York Times1 Sunday Magazine ("Erin Brockovich, The Brand," April 28,2002). Unfortunately, I got distracted and lost count after about a dozen. Brockovich, of course, is theparalegal who helped fight Pacific Power & Gas (PG&E) in the late 1990s and was immortalized by themovie that bears her name and starred the chirpy Julia Roberts.
But if you picked up the article to learn about Brockovich's methodology and activist philosophy, you wereshit out of luck. This was about tits. And Brockovich was all-too-willing to play along. How many activists,for example, would take a journalist on a clothes-shopping spree while being followed for a feature story?Brockovich, for one. In fact, the shopping spree come about after a trip to a bar for a "cranberry andvodka" (their first stop) and well before they got around to visiting "victims."
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The smitten Bunn, even donning a name fit for the piece, couldn't keep his mind of Brockovich's breasts,bellybutton, and waistline long enough to provide much else about her life. Brockovich, after finding wealthand fame from her successful case against PG&E, is apparently still out there fighting the "badguys," but Bunn could care a less about such trivial matters.
Here's Bunn's third paragraph of his essay, describing their trip to the clothing store:
"When she glides in, nearly an hour late, she heads immediately to the dressing room. She throws on apair of blatantly age-inappropriate, low-slung denim pants and models them in the mirror. For most, this wouldbe a private moment, but not for Brockovich. She pulls up her shirt and suspiciously eyes her miraculouswaistline. She wants to know if the jeans reveal too much skin. 'I don't like my bellybutton showing,' shesays. 'I really don't.' She looks magnificent in everything here, which makes choosing hard. 'When I havevodkas-and-cranberries, I come home with all kinds of stuff,' she says, twisting her hair into curlers thathave been warmed for her. 'I tell my husband, 'Don't let me shop when I've been drinking.'"
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But then Bunn lets it all hang out when he springs this bit of verbiage on his readers: "We're used toour crusaders rejecting style and sexuality for high seriousness, as if they were mutually exclusive. ButBrockovich demands to be taken seriously with her Armani suits and her breast implants (and in some cases,yes, her bellybutton showing)."
Brockovich, of course, loves it. She even jumps at the chance to describe herself as "Ralph Nader withcleavage."
Welcome to the world of celebrity activists, where we're all just a tit job away from victory.
(Michael Colby is the editor of Wild Matters and welcomescomments at mcolby@wildmatters.org)
