Erin Brockovich, Corporate Ethics, and Deviant Behavior
This paper examines the 2000 film Erin Brockovich as a lens for analyzing corporate deviance and ethics. After summarizing the true story of Erin Brockovich's investigation into Pacific Gas and Electricity's (PG&E) contamination of Hinkley, California's water supply with hexavalent chromium, the paper analyzes the dynamics between the prosecuting legal team and the corporation. It then applies William Glasser's Choice Theory to explain why PG&E's executives chose deliberate, white-collar criminal behavior, and connects those choices to Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development. The paper argues that PG&E's conduct represents a calculated prioritization of corporate profit over community welfare and basic ethical responsibility.
- Introduction: Film overview and paper's analytical objectives
- The Story of Erin Brockovich: Narrative summary of the PG&E contamination case
- David and Goliath: Erin, Ed, and Corporate Power: Individual vs. corporation dynamics and moral contrast
- Corporate Deviance and Glasser's Choice Theory: Applying Choice Theory to PG&E's criminal decisions
- Conclusion: Glasser's five needs and corporate moral failure
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper grounds its theoretical analysis in a concrete, well-known real-world case, making abstract concepts like Choice Theory and moral development immediately relatable.
- Screenplay excerpts are used strategically to illustrate character dynamics and reinforce analytical points, lending authenticity and narrative texture to the argument.
- The paper explicitly justifies its choice of theory — explaining why a psychology-based framework suits white-collar crime better than a sociological or economic one — demonstrating strong critical reasoning.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates applied theoretical analysis: it selects a specific behavioral theory (Glasser's Choice Theory) and justifies that selection based on the nature of the crime before applying it. This move — theory selection as a reasoned argument, not a default assumption — is a hallmark of upper-level social science writing.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with an introduction framing the film and its analytical purpose, followed by a narrative summary of the case using direct script quotations. A transitional "David and Goliath" section connects the story to broader themes of corporate power and individual resistance. The analysis then turns to Glasser's Choice Theory applied to PG&E's criminal conduct. The paper ends with a discussion of Kohlberg's moral development framework, though this section appears truncated in the source.
Introduction
Erin Brockovich, a film released in 2000, is a dramatization of a true story about a woman who became a legal assistant through sheer force of personality. After discovering evidence that people were being poisoned by toxins from a Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) plant, she nearly single-handedly brought a successful lawsuit against the company ("IMDB," 2011). The film provides a verstehen — a filtered, empathetic understanding — of the bitter contest between injured citizens and a large corporation with deep pockets ("IMDB," 2011). This paper briefly summarizes the story, then analyzes the position of the prosecuting legal team, and finally discusses corporate deviance through the lens of Glasser's Choice Theory and its relationship to Kohlberg's theory of morality.
The story takes place in 1993. Following the loss of a personal injury lawsuit, Erin Brockovich asks her attorney, Edward L. Masry, to help her find a job to compensate for the loss ("IMDB," 2011). The attorney hires Erin as a file clerk, and she earnestly tries to get a handle on the work:
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