“Beyond his silence, there is a past. Beyond her dreams, there is a feeling. Beyond hope, there is a memory. Beyond their journey, there is a love.”
Million Dollar Baby swept the 2005 Academy Awards, winning Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor. I recently rewatched it to see how a major Hollywood director treats a subject like Assisted Suicide. Surprisingly enough, this film takes Euthanasia and makes it as morally complex as Red Dawn.
Clint Eastwood (and screenwriter Paul Haggis)’s Manichean cast rally support for Maggie’s decision to die. Just look at the antagonists: a myopic priest, an evil communist prostitute, a brutal young black man, and a family of n’er do well rednecks. Not the most sympathetic (or human) bunch.
Father Horvak is the most complex antagonist in the film. Frankie (Clint Eastwood) has been attending his mass for several years, mainly to comically debate the existence of god. They end each discussion with a ritual; Father Horvak asks Frankie if he has written to his estranged daughter, then admonishes him for lying when he says yes. Later in the film Frankie receives a letter to his daughter marked with “Return to Sender.” He goes to the closet and puts it an overflowing box of similar letters. Frankie has been telling the truth, which is important later when Father Horvak exhorts him not to pull the plug on Maggie. Father Horvak was wrong before, and we feel right when Frankie ignores him.
The bad guys also include the bad girl Blue Bear, the east German (read communist) prostitute known as “the dirtiest fighter in the ring.” Blue Bear hits Maggie when she is not looking after the fight is over knocking her onto a stool, paralyzing her. She shows no remorse for what she has done.
Next we have the arrogant boxer Shawrelle Barry, who beats the hell out of the do good idiot Danger Barch, only to get knocked out by the righteous and wise Eddie “Scrap Iron” Dupris (Morgan Freeman). I will return to the problem of identifying us, the viewer, with Danger later.
For me Maggie’s family is the most offensive stereotype in this film, which makes a clear statement on the rural poor in America; they are lazy, ugly, greedy and ignorant. The mother worries about losing welfare when Maggie buys her a house. The family visits disney world before visiting a now paralyzed Maggie in the hospital, then show up fully costumed long enough to put a pen in her mouth to get her to sign away her money. The contradiction that this family produced the christ-like Maggie is ignored.
Million Dollar Baby was released a little over a month after America reelected President Bush and now seems emblematic of his reign. His world of good and evil brought us the worst financial crisis since the depression, two brutal and unwinnable wars, and our first black president. Living in Europe right now I often have to combat american stereotypes, prominent among which is Danger Barch.
Danger is too dumb to realize that he has no chance of winning against Shawrelle, who beats the living hell out of him. When he finally returns, saying anyone can lose one fight, we are supposed to be inspired. Danger is an idiot with no future, but we are supposed to identify with him.
In the real world there are no Morgan Freemans to come in to save the day (even with Obama). It was a Danger Barch mentality that took us into Iraq, where an estimated 4200 Americans and 1.3 million Iraqis have died.
This film has a happy ending, albeit disguised. If Maggie were forced to live in her condition it would have been a far more tragic fate. Eddie’s narration turns out to have been a remarkably articulate and insightful letter to Frankie’s estranged daughter, whose actual address he has apparently been withholding from Frankie.
Clint Eastwood is a great actor and director. It’s an impressive feat to win so many Oscars for a film that supports Euthanasia. The sacrifice is making yet another hollywood fairy tale that decides everything for us, the viewer. Apparently we are like Danger, too dumb to decide on things without the lulling narration of Morgan Freeman.
