My 'Million Dollar' Answer: Why would a conservative criticize Clint Eastwood's latest work?

The Wall Street Journal Opinion Journal ^ | February 17, 2005 | Michael Medved

[quidnunc]

I'll tell you.

As the Oscar campaign comes down to its climactic concluding days, I've been amazed to see much of the ferocious battle for Best Picture improbably and irrationally focused on … me.

In recent weeks, some of the nation's most influential cultural observers have chosen to concentrate their Academy Awards commentary on my harsh reaction on radio and TV about the deceptive packaging of Clint Eastwood's boxing-and-euthanasia epic, "Million Dollar Baby." Roger Ebert raised the issue in several columns, attacking my decision to mention the movie's crucial assisted-suicide theme as "unforgivable." Maureen Dowd portrayed me as a witless censor (and even coined a new word, "Medvedized") while suggesting that consistency demanded my objection to classic suicide scenes in Shakespeare. Frank Rich berated me as a leader of "the usual gang of ayatollahs" in a column titled "How Dirty Harry Turned Commie," comparing my criticism of Eastwood's film to the lunacy of the House Un-American Activities Committee investigating 10-year-old Shirley Temple in 1938. In more than a dozen other commentaries, from the Los Angeles Times to the Houston Chronicle, outraged observers expressed not only disagreement but denunciation of my unpopular position as a skeptic regarding one of the most absurdly over-praised movies in recent Hollywood history.

Initially, the condemnation centered on my alleged role as a "spoiler," suggesting that I had maliciously damaged the commercial prospects for "Million Dollar Baby" by "describing its plot in great detail" (according to Roger Ebert). As a matter of fact, I never disclosed specifics on the movie's dark surprise, nor indicated which of its endearing characters chose to exercise "the right to die."

-snip-

[conservative cat]

There is a scene in Monsters Ball that requires warning, too. I saw that without knowing about it about 2 weeks after an ex-boyfriend committed suicide.

[Richard Kimball]

The listed production costs were 30 million, and usually the studios spend about 1/2 of the production budget for marketing and distribution, so it figures about 45 million invested. It's made roughly 46 million, so it's a break even deal. The studios did a minor release in selected markets, hoping to build word of mouth, so they expected big things from it.

[ratemy]

Million Dollar Baby is a movie about the sanctity of life...of course the religious conservatives don't like it...

[mcg1969]

Actually, though, I won't bother, because to be honest, he wouldn't lay a finger on you. See, after he emerged from his inevitable depression---which something like 90% of parapalegics suffer from---he went ahead and, oh, finished law school and became a successful prosecuting attorney. So assault and battery wouldn't suit his career too well.

So please excuse me if I get a little touchy when it is suggested that people ought to just let that post-injury depression take them wherever it may.

[Patton@Bastogne]

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Mcg1969


When (my christian brother's) done beating the crap out of you, maybe you'll realize he's a parapalegic.


So what's your point ?

Either you and your crippled brother are lousy-hate-filled "Christians" ... or just complete idiots ...

If your brother's comfortable living as a paralegic, more power to him ... it's got to take a lot of courage ... just don't try the "Jerry Falwell Christian Ayatollah" crap here ... it's still America ...



Patton@Bastogne
Free Republic Member since 1998.



General George S. Patton Jr. Website




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[mcg1969]

So what's your point?

My point is, Beavis, that people with spinal cord injuries almost always suffer clinical depression as a result. Anyone who claims to care about them would help them exit that depression before allowing them to make such, well, permanent decisions such as taking their lives. And the funny thing is, once they do exit that depression---as the vast majority of them do---they are glad they didn't make such a stupid move.

It's not unlike taking the keys from someone who's had too much to drink. If they have any sense at all they'll thank you when they sober up.

[helen back]

Ummm... don't you go to the movies to be told a story you DON'T know the ending to? If I'm hearing the majority of you correctly - once you don't like what the story is about, you ... what? Demand Eastwood on a skewer? Want to see how much public commotion you can stir? What? Seems Medved wants to see how much power he has to rile you up... evidently that's a lot.

It makes me think maybe you're all much younger than me. When I was a kid, we didn't have vcr's to play that same stupid cartoon movie 300 times. Endings were surprises. We didn't "vet" movies, for chrissakes. And if something was disturbing or unsettling, it was a MOVIE. NOT REAL LIFE.

I don't enjoy a strong moral message in the movies I watch, and I'd probably walk away from this saying "I wish they didn't feel they had to push an agenda" or something... but I wouldn't be making a federal case about it, either. Get thee a grip.

Geez.

[Borges]

Can't believe how much attention is being paid to this simple little tearjerker. And in reference to Michael Medved's example from Shakespeare...Opheila didn't kill herself she lost her mind and drowned. A better example would have been Romeo and Juliet or Antony and Cleopatra. Or Othello.

[Richard Kimball]

Well, if it's as good as a Kevin Costner flick I'll run right out and see it.

Seriously, I wouldn't see it because I don't like suicide movies. If somebody wants to make them and see them, it's their business, just not my cup of tea.

Medved's problem with the movie was not the movie, it was the false advertising used to market it. It was marketed as "Rocky". Had it been marketed with a theme like "The toughest fights aren't in the ring", and hints been given of the sombre nature of the movie, Medved probably would have just said, this is a dark movie, so be warned. It would have been much the same if A Clockwork Orange had been marketed as a zany romp, similar to Dumb and Dumber.

[mcg1969]

No, Helen, I don't want to know the ending. I just want to know what the movie is about. Have you even heard the radio spots for this movie? For all anyone knows it's a sports film, complete with a feisty young upstart and a crotchety old coach who at first doesn't like the whippersnapper but warms up to her in then end. Sounds like fun! Not.

[AnnaZ]

I heard about some guy in a wheelchair that started a conservative web site...

Excellent analogy.

[Nachum]

A Clockwork Orange had been marketed as a zany romp

The trailers for A Clockwork Orange did market it as a zany romp.

[Borges]

It would have been much the same if A Clockwork Orange had been marketed as a zany romp

A bit o' the old Ultra-Suicide

[mcg1969]

Excellent. Helen, Richard Kimball's idea about how this movie could have been marketed honestly is far more constructive than I've been able to offer; please consider.

[Andy from Beaverton]

You are right, the deceit is all in the marketing of this film. Nothing else.

[Borges]

Here's the thing though...I spoke to a friend who saw the movie and is a nurse...the paralysis the character had would have taken all her limbs and eventually her organs would start to fail. She was doomed.

[mcg1969]

Aren't we all.

[Michael.SF.]

I have not seen the movie, so maybe my opinion does not mater. However, reflecting only on the strength of a person faced with a debilitating injury or disease, I think I am safe in saying:

General Patton would have respected anyone who chose to live, in spite of adversity, over the one who selected to take the cowards way out through suicide.

P@B - Reflect for a moment on the infamous 'slapping' incident. What PO'd the General the most about that? It was the fact that the man did not face his own fears and instead chose a section eight as an escape route.

It takes far more courage to live with adversity, then it does to die because of it.

[macbee]

Umm, Ophelia did not simply drown - she essentially committed suicide:

There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:
Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element: but long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.

No struggle, no cries for help: she floated for a time and sang bits of old songs, then slowly sank below the surface and was gone. As Gertude described her: "poor wretch".