Posted on 02/12/2005 11:28:06 AM PST by quidnunc
Clint Eastwood's ''Million Dollar Baby'' has scored seven Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director. Alejandro Amenabar's ''The Sea Inside'' has come away with two, including Best Foreign Language Film. What links both movies? The message that it's kind to help a paralyzed person die.
To our knowledge, few critics have picked up on the films' shared ''right-to-die'' message. Had the plot been racial or homophobic killing, however, we'd be hearing an outcry (if the movie ever got made at all). Why the silence? We think it's because much of society believes it's the right thing to do, to grant the wish of any severely disabled person who asks us to help them die.
To us this exhibits an appalling lack of knowledge of severely disabled people, and an even more appalling lack of interest in questioning why films with this message are winning awards.
Amenabar's film is at least clear about things: It's the story of Ramon Sampedro, ''who fought for his right to end his life with dignity and respect.'' In Eastwood's film, it comes at us like a sucker-punch: Boxing sensation Maggie, paralyzed in a match gone horridly wrong, asks for and gets Frankie's (Eastwood) help ending her life.
Without going into detail — we know by now how much critics hate that — be forewarned that the ''peaceful death'' Frankie gives Maggie would be anything but. In reality, that sequence is a recipe for an agonizing death: You suffocate, while your heart feels ready to explode.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at suntimes.com ...
I wouldn't ruin the plot (unless asked), but I would make it clear that the commercials are being dishonest about the implied plot.
The movie is a scam, in that its selling tickets by pretending its a girl version of Rocky, with the whole underdog, and mentor thing, when its really selling something that is totally different and in no way related to any type of sports movie.
<< What can you expect from a society that thinks it is their right to get wasted and then go kill some innocent women and children with their automobile at the rate of some 50 a day in the US. >>
Only fifty?
Almost a thousand Americans die every day from Alcoholism.
I believe this is a decision that should be left between the person suffering and God.In cases where the person can't make their own decisions I would have to assume they want to die naturally.Someone like Terry Schiavo shouldn't even be in a category with people who are suffering.I see her case more of a quality of life case that would be greatly improved if her husband would let her parents take over as her guardian.He is punishing her with isolation and by withholding treatment in the hope that she'll die before ever improving.
I guess "Baby" is one movie that I won't pay any money to see, and forget the DVD.
Please do tell the plot, although I am beginning to get a piciture of it from this thread.
Popular culture sure is creating euthanisms for a lot of bad stuff.
Essentially, a girl boxer who gets taught by a father figure type mentor (who at first doesn't want anything to do with her, but softens up, and trains her). She finally gets her "big fight", in which she hits her head or something, becomes paralyzed/injured/disabled.
Life is no longer worth living for her (hollywood calls it a reason to die, others would call it depression that requires courage to live on) since that was her high point in life, and her mentor at first struggles to come to grips to end her life, "mystical negro" (as Spike Lee calls it) mentors her mentor, and helps him see the light (which you and me would call murder) and she gets put down.
Moral, if your disabled, life just ain't worth living, so go kill yourself.
I respect life also, and am glad your friend makes the most of his. I know I would absolutely freak out if it happened to me, and feel nauseous just thinking about it. For me it would be absolute torture and I imagine it would be like drowning and unable to get your breath, or tied up in a straight jacket and locked in a closet, I just absolutely could not deal with it. It is a real fear or problem I have. If someone I loved wanted relief, I would totally understand.
This is a very different issue than protecting the unborn, the unborn are not in a torture chamber.
Thanx you saved me 30$ and five hours of my life!
The moral of this story not to have your daughter get her brains knocked out in boxing </NO PC>
Of course, mud wrestling is another matter ;)
Million Dollar Baby should win the Acadamy Award for Best Picture, although it won't be a classic played in 100 years like The Passion of the Christ will be.
..this is not a different issue from murder of the baby in utero.
It's all part and parcel of the 'slippery slope'...that's been accelerating for years.
Abortion
Infanticide
Euthanasia
Thirty-two years ago, our nation allowed the preborn to be killed in the womb and over 40 million have been murdered.
...Euthanasia is simply part of this terrible trio.
#22..Over 3000 babies die from abortion per day!
<< Over 3000 babies die from abortion per day! >>
The manifestation of evil that created "the [Abortion] pill" that led to the abandonment of morality and to the consequential sexual abandon and licentiousness of the past several generations of young women -- and inevitably to "unwanted" pregnacies and to the judicial-fiat-perpetrated obscenity that is Roe v Wade -- has seen to it that the vast majority of Judeo-Christian/Western Civilization's [Otherwise] first borns are effectively ritualistically sacrificed either by "pill" or in the Billion-Dollar abortion and baby-parts industry's aborttoirs.
No wonder that wiser and more theologically astute men than me pondered the possibility that Almighty God may, on September 11 2001 have momentarily lifted His hand from our beloved FRaternal republic's protection.
If we will not protect the weakest amongst US, who will?
And if we will not -- who will find any of US deserving of His care?
Blessings -- Brian
If it's just a movie (implying Hollywood doesn't have a leftist tilt), then why don't the major film makers bring out pro-life movies? [I ask because my novels are pro-life and thus 'untouchable' for screen rights.]
Movies don't make you think. They do the thinking for you.
Excellent idea.
This is not a movie about euthenasia. It's a movie about relationships. Can't you see you're playing into the right wing stereotype? Do you think Clint Eastwood is a big lefty?? You have no idea how stupid the right wing is looking about this movie.
Ah, yes, the voice of the death-culture! (Bet you don't think Vera Drake is a pro-abort movie either.)
Pray for W and Our Freedom Winning Troops
The Germans produced several of these films in the
thirtys , I forget their names but to watch them, you
leave feeling that it's all for the best.
Just another brick in the wall...
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