Johnson & Johnson, Sterling & L.a. Riots: Gatsby Insights

Johnson & Johnson Lawsuits

Johnson & Johnson is the world’s largest health care company. It is also the highest-paid drug company in the world. J&J remains at the top of the Big Pharma list of powerful corporations. It is well known for consumer products like Band-Aids, Johnson’s Baby Powder and Tylenol. Its drugs, devices, and products have led to scandals and lawsuits.

Dictating the pharmaceutical market J&J is really trying to protect their pockets from losing any more money from these lawsuits, like any big company that started out a long time ago. Johnson and Johnson is a company that started out in 1886, since then people have used their products for years, ranging from band-aids to baby powder. This company has been making the same talc powder for years. Sources from The New York Times had said that Johnson & Johnson Executives worried for decades about the backlash of using talc powder, knowing the risk they carried on with operations... It was 2016 when the first lawsuit hit the company, after that they won some cases and lost others, paying in the millions for damages.

With many new competitors rising and Johnson & Johnson are worried about losing money from both the lawsuits and competitors. Johnson & Johnson knew these two things might happen and obtained many lawyers to protect their stocks and pockets from the lawsuits blaming them for their alleged cancer-causing baby powder. This ties into the 'Great Gatsby' because one of the characters has tried their hardest to accumulate and not lose money, even if it meant hurting others for it.

Donald T. Sterling is an American businessman who was the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, a professional basketball franchise of the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1981 to 2014.In April 2014, Mr.Sterling was banned from the NBA for life and fined $2.5 million by the league after private recordings of him making racist comments were made public. In May Sterling's wife Shelly reached an agreement for the Sterling Family Trust to sell the Clippers for $2 billion to Steve Ballmer, which Sterling contested in court. The NBA Board of Governors approved the sale of the Clippers to Ballmer on August 12, 2014. Sterling settled his lawsuit against the NBA in November 2016 and remains active in Los Angeles real estate.

In the novel ‘The Great Gatsby’ a character cheats on his wife with a mistress and is a racist, Mr. Sterling is a reflection of that character who he and his wife paint the perfect picture of a loving couple, but Ms.Sterling ( representing Daisy Buchanan) is just an estranged airhead who thinks nothing of her husband's affair as her husband ( represents Tom Buchanan) cheats on her with his mistress named Maria Vanessa Perez (represents Myrtle Wilson). Mr.Sterling also is a lot like Tom because he is a closet racist meaning he hides being racist but is the opposite of what everyone thought of him.Donald Sterling v The Lakers is a news report of Donald Sterling going after the lakers. Donald Sterling was angry with ‘Magic’ Johnson. Spreading rumors about him which also ties in with hollowness of the upper class.

The L.A Riots

Malaise and Man, When things are already bad and only gets worse. The LA Riots in 1992 affected a lot of people who lived in Los Angeles, How this giant anger by the people started were after news reports about police brutality on Rodney King. Things went from bad to worse as the riots began and terror as well as Chaos began to happen all around the city. Mass looting and destruction to stores and shops around Los Angeles. There were even a certain group who defend their stores from looting known as the rooftop Koreans who would shoot anyone who got too close to their stores and protected it for the few days the riots went on.

In The Great Gatsby the perfect storm slowly gains traction through the first chapters of the story, from cheating spouses to lying and rumors about each other. It all goes down hill, but it always needs that little shove and that shove was Rhodney King’s Police brutality incident which tipped the situation as most of the population of Los Angeles started to riot, steal, and even hurt each other. There are many examples of Malaise and Man in the Great Gatsby and the whole story is an example of this up to a point, but my favorite example is when Tom cheats on Daisy with his mistress and later into the chapter he ends a party by breaking his mistress’ nose.  

Works Cited:

1. Fitzgerald, F. Scott. 'The Great Gatsby.' Scribner, 1925.