1. Human Emotions and Human
Rights: The Narrative Structure in
the Selected American Films
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Dr.Jayshree Singh, Udaipur
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2. Theme of the paper
• The research study in my paper attempts to
focus on the self-perception and the right
perspective of human existence. These are the
attributes of expressions, emotions and
experiences. They involve the values of dignity
and desire to live healthily and happily. These
are the inherent and natural rights.
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3. Constraints
• But in the system of social hierarchies,
patriarchal conventional structure and in the
capitalist economy, these human values are
suppressed, oppressed, exploited and
marginalized. The effects fall upon women’s
lives, children and on the ecological balance
between man and nature.
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4. Components
• The study also investigates that selfinquiry, self-knowledge; self-awareness and
self-enhancement are the necessary
ingredients for ecological and environmental
balance and to live life with dignity.
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5. Challenges in the theme
• the dream of utopian human rights society is
interrogated in the selected films,
• the study of the films questions the forbidden
areas, prohibited spaces through the signs and
signifiers relationship,
• to examine the universal and unhistorical
contexts that construct emotions of selfdignity and self-enhancement in the cultural
process of human condition.
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6. The Characters of the Film Erin
Brockovich
• Erin Brockovich (Julia
Roberts) the damsel in
distress depicts
feminization of
poverty but she is a
strong woman in
man’s world.
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7. Ed Masry (Albert Finney)
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He is the blood
sucking, back
stabbing, scum-bag
attorney. He is one of the
prominent figure to
surface the corporate
mismanagement of the
environment with the
paralegal help and
toughness of Erin
Brockovich.
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8. George (Aaron Eckhart),
He is the neighbor of Erin
and the smooth biker
dude, who loves to be
with kids and play the role
of affectionate caretaker
as well as the he is the
reinforcement to Erin’s
crusade to seek justice for
victims against Chromium
contamination.
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9. Donna Jensen (Marg Helenberger)
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She is the proposed seller
of the land to PG&E
Company. Her
expressions
metaphorically
symbolises the
unawareness of the
common people towards
the rights for natural
resources that comes
under the property rights.
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10. The PG&E Company
• The company was
accused of
contamination water
supply by Hexavalent
Chromium. The
company then sold land
to Donna Jensen and it
again proposed to
purchase it from Donna
Jenson in $66, 500. The
objection against it, the
emission of chemicals
pollute the
groundwater resources.
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11. Hinkley’s Desert town
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The non-human character of
the film i.e. the wasteland is the
core of subjective discourse in
the filmic text. The PG&E
Company due to its emission of
Hexavalent Chromium polluted
the drinking water supplies and
caused
health hazards. The PG&E
Company was given the clean
up and abatement order by the
Hinkley Town’s Regional Water
Board. But no penalty imposed
on its
Dr.Jayshree Singh, Udaipur Chromium contamination.
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12. Characters of the Film- The Color
Purple Celie Johnson (Whoopi
Goldberg) in the film evokes
sensitivity of human nature
that symbolically expresses
the sorrow, loneliness,
ignorance and darkness on
one hand and on the other
side joys of contentment,
simplicity, togetherness and
winning the hardships.
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13. Nettie (
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Akosua Busia)
Celie’s closest companion and
younger sister. She is the brightest
hope of her dark life. Nettie fled
away from her father’s house and
then Celie’s husband, threw her out.
The reason she was the object of
lustful gaze. Nettie got befriended
with a missionary couple, went to
South Africa. She came to know that
the missionary couple who used to
have two adopted kids, they were
her sister’s Celie Kids. She looked
after them as aunt and got them
back to her sister, when reunion of
the family occurred. Her character
always rendered a moral support to
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Celie.

14. Mr. Albert (Danny Glover)
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He projects disregard for
the identity of women
among the black
community people; his
image suggests maleoriented hierarchical
code of living for
women. He is unaware
of his strengths. He used
all his energy in primitive
and savage manner.
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15. Sophia (Oprah Winfrey)
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Her character shows that the human
nature is sensitive to the human
tumult, anger, squalor, oppression..
The human emotions undergo
trauma and intense desire to free
themselves from the forbidden
areas. Such prohibited spaces, if not
meanwhile are constructed with
some auxiliary
support, hope, positive notions of
self-awareness, self-capacity; then
metaphysical depression obstructs
the significance of human existence
in the face of crisis. Yet her bold and
Dr.Jayshree Singh, Udaipur
strong image grants radical voice15

16. Shug Avery (Margaret Avery)
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• She depicts a new wave of
black feminism and a
radical voice to extend the
hope and the sense of selfcentering among the black
women, who have
survived Black maleoriented community‘s
oppressions, violence, abu
ses and injustices. Her
attitude to self-sufficiency
images her character in
man’s world, different
from other normal black
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women.

17. Miss Millie (Dana Ivey)
She is a White American
women symbolizes the
cultural baggage of not
only belonging to
superior and civilized
class, but suggests the
sufferings from
segregation and its
dystopia. She represents
the collective blackness of
whites who expected
blacks to be subservient.
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18. The Film Erin Brockovich (2000):
Women and Ecology at Work
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19. The picture of a modern, chick, middle class woman
in the American patriarchal humanist society.
She is divorced twice and has three kids to rear. Her earlier two husbands
were financially not sound to look after the family and they proved useless
in raising them. The young lady Erin Brockovich is the lone caregiver, yet
not privileged with amenities of financial resources to look after the kids
and deprived of gender specific opportunities. She faced inequity when
she met with an accident on account of the other car’s driver fault. She
lost the case during the trials and could not get her medical treatment
properly. She could not pay the bills as she herself was not insured and
there was no health insurance policy in her name. As she is married and
divorcee, she is granted welfare payments by the federal state, yet these
are not enough to lift her family out of poverty. She lives in public housing.
The film text narrates the story of a woman’s journey to selfsufficiency, self-esteem and self-reliance against the odds of her being
unskilled, half-educated, three kids to feed, to negotiate her home
affairs with the strangers and to win the suffered victims as clients in
large number against the $ 28 billion dollars PG&E Company.
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20. Tension of poverty gets more severe than the adversity
of being single, married, divorced mother of three kids.
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21. Her constraints and encounters
• Her emotional stress is reflected in the shots – she picks up
her kids from the daycare. She is told by the daycare in charge
that she will not be able to look after the kids as she has been
bought a house at some other place by her daughter. She has
no one in the house to take care of her kids, her little baby girl
gets knock down on her head by Erin’s own chin; then the
sudden appearance of coackroach from under the stove spills
the hot water which Erin needs to prepare baby’s food. She
goes through employment newspapers to mark the jobs that
may suit to her ability. She contacts the employers through
her residence phone and through telephone booths. Nobody
considers her necessity. She is short of finances and time to
carry on with the everyday requirements for her children,
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then fuel for her car, and many bills to pay.

22. Breaks gender stereotypical office
norms
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23. On being completely dashed she fights inequity
• She finds tough to tackle the things on conventional and stereotypical way.
So she adopts an exclusive alternative to join the office of the lawyer
without his permission, although she has not recovered from the strain in
her neck. She owes lot of money to him, as he pursued her car crash case
in the court. Her argument with her lawyer shows the reluctance of Ed
Masry to keep her in his office, but she ends the conversation with scoop:
• Ed masry: What makes you think you can walk in there and find what we
need?
• Erin Brockovich: They’re called boobs, Ed.
• Ed Masry: I'd love to help, Erin, but I'm sorry, I have a full staff right
now, so...
Erin Brockovich: Bullshit. If you had a full staff, this office would return a
client's damn phone calls.
Erin: I’m smart, I’m hard working, and I’ll do anything, and I’m not leaving
here without a job-----don’t make me beg.
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24. Counters a stranger
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25. Center of Controversy uncomfort and internal grumbling among
the staff of Ed Masry’s office due to her skimpy and immodest
outfits and conversational style
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26. The gender representation regarding
conduct, conversation and code of dress is shot in the
camera.
Ed Masry: In a law firm you may want to re-think your wardrobe a little.
Erin: Well as long as I have one ass instead of two I’ll wear what I like if that’s
all right with you. You might want to rethink those ties.
• The filmmaker here captures woman’s expression of her own
subjectivity as an effective galvanized woman, who is not
bothered by the gaze of other’s especially the males.
• The logic of this perspective in the narrative structure is to
base social-cultural context in radical manner that explicates
substantive change in the women mindset, consciousnessraising towards the egoistic perverted attitude of mankind
towards womankind in the workplace and at home.
• The director presents the truth in pleasant disguise, it is for
the spectators to derive the meaning of the production.
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27. What is significant to note the political consequences
of gender difference here? It is the political
objectification of collective fantasies and desire.
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28. The filmmaker indeed adds mise en scene to
connect screen-spectator relationship
The film radically drives on the liberation aspect of mindsets from
duality as regards women. It is this style of dress that got enabled
her to procure details of the records of sale deed and purchase
deal as well as the medical records of Hinkley’s water supply
resources from the Lohatan Regional Water Board at Hinkley’s
desert town. But if we read the true autobiography of the legal
firm advisor Erin Brockovich, it was not true, it is all fabricated in
the film in order to attract the lustful gaze of the viewers towards
the film. But it is important at this juncture to view the image of
women not as site/sight of object of exchange between men, but
it also reflects the society’s choice and the social construction of
women.
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29. details of the records of sale deed and purchase
deal as well as the medical records of Hinkley’s
water supply
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30. It creates a sphere for intellectual and popular
discourse as regards conditioning and control of
women in films.
• If we talk of the women spectators, they are strategically
essentialist to judge the authenticity of the representation of
women in film, because implicitly it is the ‘given order of
things’ of the patriarchal order (Lapsley and
Westlake, 1998, 25). The image of woman in this movie
breaks the gender stereotypical norms of the conventional
portrayal of women as romantically sensual and subjective.
Here the heroine appears as insubordinate and confident to
construct her identity and image. Some critics say that she
used her cleavage to attract and get the records from the
remote office of water board at Hinkley town. On screen it
constructs the affirmation of her awesome sexuality , but it
is the orientation of viewers through film art and industry.
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31. The two females indicate their concern for the
family, for the health and for the environmental
pollution
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32. Through the inquiry of Erin, the film debates the
spectatorship vis-à-vis environmental issues
• Donna Jensen as a common person ignores the intensity of
contamination of drinking water on human body, she is seen
to be worried more about the insurance and pay bills. She
avoids the reality of the Chromium effects and PG & E
company’s corruption in misusing her property rights. At the
same time she is unaware that protection of natural resources
is included in property rights. She like other Hinkley town
people does not want to involve herself in this problematic
issue of materialistic power-plays.
• This film envisions a paradigm shift in the narrative by
positioning the desire and the right to live with dignity. It
vindicates that women, children and nature are the
vulnerable factors to be exploited and misused by men.
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33. emotional outbursts and emotional
pressures on her and on her kids,
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34. New situations and challenges constantly
threatens her emotional strength as mother
They are looked after by a stranger George, because he
loves those sweet kids. Erin in her crusade misses the
first utterance of her baby girl i.e. ‘Mom’. Her son and
daughter get angry at her late night shifts at work, this
consciousness is all the more gets tensed when her
new boy friend leaves her place as he feels that she is
too erratic and personal to the work and the
environmental issue and neglecting all in the family for
the other’s sake. She utters:
• Erin Brockovich: For the first time in my life, I got
people respecting me. Please, don't ask me to give it
up.
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35. overwhelming toughness
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36. Her concern for humanity’s welfare. Her
subjectivity is considered as weak as her female
body.
• There were moments of emotional upheaval and mental
anxiety. But it was her sweat, self-dogged
determination, trash sensibility, passion for justice, outspoken
verbal defenses lead her to effectively handle the business
and homely affairs. With her quirks she counters the
advocates of PG&E Company who wish to wind up the deal of
compensation to less number of victims of Chromium
contamination in few thousand dollars without legal
jurisdiction. Through her resourceful enterprise and
networking, she gets as many as 654 victims as clients against
the company’s irresponsible action towards the common
people’s right to have sustainable natural resources. Later her
boss, who seems baffled at her work, joins in the deal.
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37. Erin Brockovich: By the way, we had that water brought
in especially for you folks. Came from a well in Hinkley.
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38. [at the meeting with the PG & E lawyers]
•
Ms. Sanchez: Let's be honest here. $20 million dollars is more money than
these people have ever dreamed of.
• Erin Brockovich: Oh see, now that pisses me off. First of all, since the
demur we have more than 400 plaintiffs and... let's be honest, we all know
there are more out there. They may not be the most sophisticated people
but they do know how to divide and $20 million isn't *shit* when you split
it between them. Second of all, these people don't dream about being
rich. They dream about being able to watch their kids swim in a pool
without worrying that they'll have to have a hysterectomy at the age of
twenty. Like Rosa Diaz, a client of ours. Or have their spine deteriorate, like
Stan Blume, another client of ours.
• Erin Brockovich: So before you come back here with another lame ass
offer, I want you to think real hard about what your spine is worth, Mr.
Walker. Or what you might expect someone to pay you for your
uterus, Ms. Sanchez. Then you take out your calculator and you multiply
that number by a hundred. Anything less than that is a waste of our time.
[Ms. Sanchez picks up a glass of water] Udaipur
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39. The film centers around the axes: Erin’s realization of strength
and self-esteem in her work and the realization of disrespect
towards nature and human values. The inter-textual meaning
that nature and woman nurture and care humans, but both are
dominated by men.
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40. the beauty pageant Miss Wichita
• There is parallelism in the text and subtext. One text is embedded in
another text. Erin, who was declared as the beauty pageant Miss
Wichita in her young days, realizes the significance of the words that
she spoke on the stage. She took at that moment the oath to save the
world from environmental disaster and to do service for the welfare of
humanity. She forgets that memorable moment of her life, while being
in family life. The work that she undertakes in law firm to help the
victims reminds her long-forgotten promise.
• The filmmaker coordinates her memory, desire and dignity
with this beautiful symbolism. She leaves no stone unturned
to accomplish her task and her dream. She gets
success, money and esteem all together after her hard work
for the values.
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41. the precondition of human dignity and
ecological harmony in the world.
George as the auxiliary
support shows radical
alternatives to emancipate
both men and women by
way of exercising the full
range of their human
capacities i.e.
love, cooperativeness, trust
and a nurturing emotional
life in general.(Biehl 50)
George, as caretaker of kids
dismantles the logics of
gender stereotypical roles.
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42. Erin Brockovich: NOT PERSONAL! That is my WORK, my
SWEAT, and MY TIME AWAY FROM MY KIDS! IF THAT IS NOT
PERSONAL, I DON'T KNOW WHAT IS!
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Erin Brockovich: Ya know why everyone thinks
that all lawyers are back stabbing, blood
sucking scum bags? cause they are! and I can
not believe you expect me to go out, leave my
kids with strangers and get people to trust you
with THEIR lives while all the while your
screwing me! You know, Ed, it's not about the
number! It's about the way my work is valued in
this firm...
[She looks at the two million dollar bonus
check]
Ed Masry: Like I was saying, I thought that the
number you proposed was inappropriate, so I
increased it.
[Turns to walk away and turns around to her]
Ed Masry: Do they teach beauty queens to
apologize? Because you suck at it!
[Long pause, as Erin looks at the check]
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Erin Brockovich:: Uh, Ed... Uh... thank you...

43. Interrogating personal subjectivity against
universal consciousness
• Human nature and human condition are indeed reflected
by this film, yet the benefits , income along with dignity are
the attractions that have been conversely dealt as the
necessity. The utopia of social-ecological order is based on
human concern and outlook, but the question is : Can
nature and women in this material world be saved from
exploitation? Can they survive man’s greed? The movie
answers a little of this query, that tragedy of natural
resources and commons can be prevented by people
working together and be collectively conscious about the
misuse. The market value cannot sustain longer, unless the
human nature eliminates imbalances against the natural
laws of humanity and nature.
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