Enron Company
The film titled “The Crooked E: The Unshredded Truth About Enron” is a 2003 CBS retelling of the story of Enron based on Brian Cruver’s book, Anatomy of Greed. It tells the story of the rise and fall of Enron from the perspective of Brian Cruver – a young but promising salesman looking for a quick and easy career and initially enamored with Enron’s gloss and riches (Zaniello, 2018). The tale follows with him becoming a prized employee in the bankruptcy protection department, living an expensive life, surrounded by expensive cars, and beautiful women, while attending extravagant parties.
As the story goes on, Cruver becomes more and more disillusioned with how Enron earns its money, noting the shady operations in the accounting department that is one story above. The crash and the subsequent dismissal from the company catch the main character as well as thousands of others off-guard, completely breaking the rose-tinted lenses and awakening them to the reality of working in Enron (Mercado, 2011). The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the mistakes made in the film, highlight possible misrepresentations, and analyze the intro and outro sequences.
About the Company
Enron was a Texas-based company that dealt with electricity, natural gas, wood, pulp, and paper. It grew to be one of the most prominent US companies that employed over 29,000 personnel and were well-known for its exorbitant reported revenues (Paulsen, 2002). It is most famous today for the Enron Scandal of 2001 when it was revealed that the company engaged in wide-scale corruption and accounting machinations (Paulsen, 2002). The scandal took a political turn due to the company’s close ties to the governing parties, as deregulation laws allowed the company to operate outside of federal and state oversight (Bhaskar et al., 2019). Some of the infamous moments of the crisis included charges of earnings misrepresentation, faking energy crises, and embezzlement by high Enron officials. The scandal resulted in the bankruptcy of the corporation as well as other parties involved, such as the auditing companies that participated in the fraud. As a result, the entire company was dissolved, thousands lost their jobs, and Enron shareholders reported a 74-billion-dollar loss (Paulsen, 2002). Many individuals lost their pensions and savings, their reputations severely undermined through incriminated complicity in the events. Jeff Skilling (CEO) was imprisoned for 24 years, while ex-CEO Kenneth Lay died before being sent to prison (Bhaskar et al., 2019). The Enron crisis was one of the focal points during George Bush Jr.’s presidency.
Mistakes Made in the Movie
The movie features various storytelling mistakes featured throughout its entire length. One of the biggest complaints is the fact that they utilize too many “Greed is good” cliches to portray the realities of Enron’s collapse, instead opting for a generic satire that could be applied to any corporation (Mercado, 2011). The good first half of the movie is dedicated to that, after which it attempts to swerve towards the topic of actual collapse (Mercado, 2011). The main actor playing Brian Cruver (Christian Kane) did not seem to be able to display the range of motion required for such a complex character, though he did manage to convincingly present a wide-eyed young employee willing to take everything from life (Zaniello, 2019). In terms of factual inaccuracies, it was difficult to tell whether certain elements were factual mistakes or purposeful misinterpretations. They will be discussed in the next part of the paper.
Misrepresentations of Enron
Misrepresentations of Enron in the film are many and can usually be split into two categories – hyperbolizing the issues and problems the company did indeed have or misrepresentations by omission. The latter was caused by the constraints of the screen time as well as the fact that the book the producers had to work with was not meant to be turned into a film. Some of the misinterpretations of Enron are as follows: First, the film completely downplayed the connections Enron had with Bill Clinton and George Bush (Zaniello, 2019). Second, it misrepresented women working in the corporation – while there were strip dancers hired as “secretaries,” not every woman in the office was a strip worker (Zaniello, 2019). Finally, the cult of personality in Enron was misrepresented in some elements and over-represented in others.
Analysis of the Intro and the Outro
The intro to the film was relatively weak, as it followed the standard cliché, where everything seemed to be alright and cloudless, with no storm approaching. It was trying to demonstrate the idyllic atmosphere and existence of childhood innocence before it was lost and corrupted by Enron (Mercado, 2011). The starting hook does not engage the audience, and without the title, it would be difficult to figure out what the film is about. The outro featured a static shot of a man running and telling the epilogue to the viewers (Mercado, 2011). It was much stronger in that regard, as it broke the fourth wall and spoke to the audience directly, summarizing the last bits of Enron’s existence and what happened to the main character afterward. Overall, the film sought to provoke a sense of disgust and revulsion while telling a classic story about greed. It could have been a much stronger presentation had it been a tale about Enron rather than a love story between the main hero and his girlfriend/wife, with Enron’s collapse as the background for it all.
References
Bhaskar, K., Flower, J., & Sellers, R. (2019). Financial failures and scandals: From Enron to Carillion. Routledge.
Eckhaus, E., & Sheaffer, Z. (2018). Managerial hubris detection: The case of Enron. Risk Management, 20(4), 304-325.
Mercado, N. (2011). The crooked E – The unshredded truth about Enron [Video]. Youtube. Web.
Paulsen, S. (2002). Workers lose jobs, health care and savings at Enron.Web.
Zaniello, T. (2018). The Cinema of Globalization. Cornell University Press.