The work I reviewed is the 2000 film based on real story Erin Brockovich. The woman the film is named after is an American activist who fought a gas and oil conglomerate in the Mojave Desert. Brockovich is played by Julia Roberts and the storyline follows her journey as she fights against largescale environmental injustice. Said injustice came namely in the form of groundwater contamination by way of Pacific Gas & Electric between the years of 1954 and 1966. PG&E disposed of a carcinogenic hexavalent chronium in Hinkley’s local water supply leading to a multitude of serious and long-term health conditions in local residents. Brockovich stumbles on a single case and upon doing more research she is completely appalled by the blatant lies and cover-ups by PG&E. The film follows Brockovich along as she meets and gets to know the people in Hinkley affected, forming a connection with each one, with all of the actors in the resulting lawsuit likely regarding her as a friend. Erin Brockovich is widely renowned for her tenacity, passion, and bold nature; all of which are evident in her contributions to the class action suit involving PG&E and Hinkley. The film has a somewhat heroic tone with the ending showing the effects of the $333 million settlement gained, largely in part to Brockovich, marking this particular case as the largest class action settlement in U.S. history (at the time).
The story itself is obviously laced with injustice and has an overall heroic tone as I mentioned. Concepts of othering are extremely relevant as PG&E is a large conglomerate and clearly considered the “little people” to be others. The disregard for something as monumental as local citizen’s health is infuriating, and that theme is continued throughout the course of the film. The director allowed the injustice to drive the plot, but portrayed it from the perspective of the wronged. Predating the Flint Michigan crisis, the film was largely groundbreaking as the general public’s lack of knowledge, as well as of the environmental/public health concerns of big oil and gas, is largely lacking.
Hope Liptak:
Welcome back to yo is this intersectional I’m your host Hope Liptak and today we’ll be talking about the most recent massage parlor shootings in Atlanta, Georgia.
Joe Biden Audio:
I’m gonna make a brief opening statement about a current thing going on in the United States here. And that is the shooting down in Atlanta. Right people were killed seven women, six of Asian American background. And I was just on the telephone briefed by the Attorney General of the United States and Director of the FBI. And the investigation is ongoing. And the question of motivation is still to be determined. But whatever the motivation here, I know that Asian Americans are in very, very concerned because as you know, I’ve been speaking about the brutality against Asian Americans for the last couple months, and I think it is very, very troublesome. And, but I’d make the no connection at this moment for the motivation of what the of the killer, I’m waiting for an answer from, as the investigation proceeds from the FBI, and from the Justice Department. So and that’s, so I’ll have more to say when the investigation is completed.
Hope Liptak:
The injustice in this story is evident, a white man targeting an Asian woman as a result of his own addiction, racism and misogyny. However, there are multiple layers of injustice in this story, which clearly defines this instance as an issue of intersectionality. The media can easily be defined as a catalyst in the discrimination against Asian people in America. The conversation of whether or not these women were sex workers has played the overall conversation of this tragedy since the beginning. And guess what, it doesn’t matter. The over sexualization of these women by Robert long, who’s what led to violence, not a single thing any woman has or has not done to support herself can be justified as reason for injury and certainly not depth. The narrative developed by the media in the wake of this tragedy is laced with overt sexual innuendos and microaggressions towards the Asian community on a broader scale. We have to do better by these women, and we have to do better by all Asians American by all Asian Americans.
Local Atlanta News:
11 alive is where Atlanta speaks, and many of you have expressed outrage over remarks a gunman allegedly made that he was lashing out because of the sex addiction. Six of the victims are Asian women and members of the AAPI community have been adamant that you cannot separate race from what happened and the issues of hyper sexualization of Asian women, loving the lives of Tosh and given shares three women’s perspectives. I’ve definitely experienced the marginalization and sexualization of Asian women in America. Linden works as a diversity Equity and Inclusion manager. So it’s the idea that an Asian woman is a possession to be handed. Mary Morrison is the editor for the journal for gender and social policy and the law at American University. Both say they are heartbroken by the shootings at three metro Atlanta spas and outraged by what the suspect Robert Aaron long allegedly told police but he does claim that it was not racially motivated. He apparently has an issue, what he considers a sex addiction. It can be both an issue of race and sexism and misogyny at the same time.
Hope Liptak:
So how is this specific instance defined as an issue of intersectionality? Well, I’ll tell you, Robert long targeted the specific victims in this hate crime as a result of gender and race, which are two issues that commonly connect in American social structure and social injustices in general. But specifically, here we’re talking about Asian women, which have a history of over sexualization and fetishization in the American media and by the American public in general. These two issues meet in in the middle in regards to his motive.
Atlanta Local News:
Black straight hair, white pale skin, and you know, the slanted eyes that people are sexualizing because essentially, you look like a doll. They say some of it comes from colonialism and wartime prostitution. When I was 13 years old, a self proclaimed a Vietnam veteran, attempted to grope me at a beach club, because he said he had won just like me in Vietnam and as a child, seeing my mother be objectified by men and how she felt the need to laugh at all. Out of fear of physical retribution. Alexandria Pham says this is such an issue. She says parameters even before going on dates. One of the questions that that asked we do ask when I’m meeting someone new, it’s like, we don’t have an agent status to you because nine times out of 10 Unfortunately, they are intrigued because of that. While spas are a big part of Asian culture, the woman talked about the stereotypes associated with the spots in the US, I believe that came about because a lot of sex workers do happen to work in massage parlors. And there is there isn’t Ben direct there is an overlap between the two and it is a legitimate business is just devaluing the hard work that Asian American women have to go through to just be able to survive.
Hope Liptak
Robert long is accused of a mass shooting in Georgia’s capital. The violence was specifically directed at the Asian community occurring across multiple massage parlors in the area, allegedly long killed eight people, six of which being women of Asian descent. Robert long has a history of addiction issues with sex and pornography targeting targeting the massage parlors because of their assumed sexual nature, as well as his overt over sexualization and fetish fetishization of Asian women.
Sandra Oh
Here with all the organizers, for organizing this, just to give us an opportunity to be together and to stand together and to feel each other. For many of us in our community. This is the first time we are even able to voice our fear and our anger. And I really am so grateful for everyone willing to willing to listen, I’m going to be very, very brief for one minute. I know many of us in our community are very scared. And I understand that. And one way to kind of go through and get through our fear is to reach out to our communities. Reach out everyone here, I will offer I will challenge everyone here. If you see something Will you help me. Understand as Asian Americans, we need to reach out to our sisters and brothers and say, help me and I’m here just for one thing. I have to be Asian. Just wanted to give up an opportunity to be able to shout out
Recently while scrolling through Instagram, I noticed that a lot of my female friends were reposting information and graphics relating to a woman named Sarah Everard. After reading more into the story, it became clear to me that Sarah’s story was a story we had all been told as little girls. A cautionary tale to not walk alone at night, in Sarah’s case one that ended devastatingly at the hands of an alleged UK Police Officer. Sarah Everard was walking home alone in South London last week when she “went missing”. Mangled remains were found days later, eventually being identified as those of Everard. The prime suspect as of now is a South London cop who is currently being questioned on charges of kidnapping and murder. Following Sarah’s disappearance has been an uproar of social media support and countless women sharing their experiences and fears about going out at night. London police released a statement telling women to “try to not go out at night”, which unsurprisingly created even more of an uproar.
There lies the injustice, in the absolute ignorance of a male dominated organization to suggest that women do not go out at night. If, in this case, the cop is the one that abducted Sarah shouldn’t cops be the ones advised to not go out at night? The blatant victim blaming essentially insinuates that if Everard had not been walking at night she would still be here and shows a general lack of respect for women. It is not her fault, nor should any woman have to only leave the house during daylight. The righteousness of a man in a position of authority to dictate what a woman should and should not do, regardless of her status as a victim, is a blatant example of the systemic misogyny that exists within police systems.
Other women have come out publicly sharing stories of sexual assault, rape, and general misogyny they have experienced in the UK. A portion of these stories relate directly to police systems, categorizing misogynistic hate crimes as an institutional level issue. The systemic sexism that exists within the London Police specifically is radically destroying any trust women had in their local cops to keep them safe. In response to this notion, hate crimes driven by misogyny are now illegal in England and Wales and allegedly investigations into 6,000 cases have been reopened. This is definitively a step in the right direction, however, in practice there must be a shift in mentality before women can be free of the violence that is typically associated with men in power and deeply rooted sexism.
Mohsin Hamid’s “The Reluctant Fundamentalist” is the second in his series of novels, set in the late 90’s and early 2000’s. Hamid finds himself in Palo Alto, California at Princeton University, living in the United States for the first time. Hamid grew up in Pakistan and his connection to his home is clear throughout the entire novel. Hamish is living in the states when the Twin Towers are attacked on 9/11 and as a Pakistani man living in the U.S, he consciously notices a social shift as the War on Terror breaks out in the Middle East and Southwest Asia.
The attacks on 9/11 were broadcasted on T.V. screens across the nation, acting as propaganda for Al-Qaeda and instilling a new sense of fear and vulnerability in all Americans who had witnessed the terror first hand. The mentality shift is evident, but it is only a result of deliberate political action that expanded beyond the borders of the United States. For the first time in history, not even a month after September 11, 2001 NATO invoked Article 5 for the first time in history, allowing its’ members to “act collectively in self defense” and launch the attacks on Afghanistan that began multiple years of U.S. involvement in the Middle East. This is considered to have first attacks in the War on Terror. Shortly after, sitting president George Bush publicly declared Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an “axis of evil”. At the time, terrorism was seen as a virus and Americans were certainly trying their hardest to rid the country of anyone who might be associated.
9/11 , the War on Terror, and the resulting social shift showcase the deeply seeded racism within our country for nonwhite citizens. Hamid’s Reluctant Fundamentalist is himself, told in a first-person monologue style. This, in my mind, emphasizes how alone he felt being a brown man in a post 9/11 America.
“The Attacks.” Accessed March 27, 2021. https://www.britannica.com/event/September-11-attacks/The-attacks.
“The Reckoning: America and the World a Decade After 9/11.” The New York Times. The New York Times, September 8, 2011. https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/us/sept-11-reckoning/viewer.html?hp=.
