Mon 5 May 2008
Our readers love stories about Bethany McLean ‘92 and her central role in uncovering suspect accounting at Enron. Consider this 2002 op-ed column from Maureen Dowd.
Hollywood is trying to figure out how to turn Enron into a TV movie.
How do they take all the stuff about ”the contingent nature of existing restricted forward contracts” and ‘’share-settled costless collar arrangements,” jettison it like the math in ”A Beautiful Mind,” and juice it up?
Enron is such a mind-numbing black hole, even for financial analysts, that if you tried to explain all the perfidious permutations, you’d never come out the other end.A movie executive asked Lowell Bergman, the former ”60 Minutes” producer who is now an investigative reporter for The Times and ”Frontline,” for the most cinematic way to frame the story. (Mr. Bergman had the ultimate Hollywood experience of being played by Al Pacino in another corporate greed-and-corruption saga, ”The Insider.”)
”It’s about the women up against the men,” he replied.
Before you know it, Enron will be Erined, as in Brockovich. Texas good ol’ girl, fast-talking, salt-of-the-earth whistle-blower Sherron Watkins will be Renee Zellweger in a Shoshanna Lonstein bustier. The adorable and intrepid Fortune reporter Bethany McLean, the first journalist to sound an alarm about Enron’s accounting practices, will be look-alike Alicia Silverstone.
…
Some [Enron executives?] privately trashed Ms. Lynch as ”an idiot” and coveted Ms. McLean, calling her ”a looker who doesn’t know anything.” But when they realized the women were on to them, the company that intimidated competitors, suppliers and utilities tried to oust Ms. Lynch from her job and discredit Ms. McLean and kill her article.
Which Enron insider said that? Or is Dowd talking about her vision for the movie?
May 5th, 2008 at 7:04 am
Zellweger ain’t zoftik enough. I nominate the Hayek broad - va-va-voom.
May 5th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
“…the Hayek broad…” Frank, really?
That would be accomplished actor, director, singer, and producer Selma Hayek who is much more than a broad, zoftik/zaftig or otherwise.
May 5th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
At the time and place where I was raised she remains a broad largely because of the va-va-voom factor, her other possible virtues notwithstanding - except that in my boyhood neighborhood they never heard of “notwithstanding”. Furthermore Hollywood knows that my assessment is spot on.
May 5th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Selma Hayek. OK, that makes some sense. I couldn’t figure out why Frank thought Friedrich Hayek could pull off playing Bethany McLean ;)
May 5th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Unfortunately, Hollywood does favor the…uh …”standing” virtues more than the “notwithstanding”. Although, to give some credit …it is changing…slowly.
That said, Hayek (amazing though she is) would be the wrong choice for McLean.
I say, put in a call to Mary Louise Parker.
May 5th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Mary Louise Parker is too sylph-like for us red-blooded American males. We insist on something pneumatic but for “serious” motion picture purposes not comedically pneumatic as Pamela Anderson is - voila the Hayek broad.