This is topic "Million $ Baby" controversy and "spoiling" - Hockenberry on CounterSpin (audio) in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.


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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
For anyone interested in the story behind the question in this thread, your answers will be found in a review of mine that just went online. But I might have already told you more than you want to know.

Here's a link, with the first part of the review. The rest of the review is a definite spoiler and you'll have to access the link for rest. It will spoil the "surprise" that left most critics panting over the movie. But it's also the best part of the review.

Review: Million Dollar Baby

quote:

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Dangerous Times

By Steve Drake

I don't get boxing. I don't get why people dream of being boxers. More to the point, I don't get the millions of people who enjoy watching two people punch at each other until one can't punch back any more. I'm not being judgmental; I just don't get it. I may be the only person in the country who hasn't seen either Rocky or Requiem for a Heavyweight.

That's what really bothers me about Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby: The movie pulled me in until the last half hour, in spite of the clichés and uneven acting.

For those of you have missed the hype, is the story of an aging "cut man" (Clint Eastwood) who doubles as trainer and manager for aspiring boxers. He becomes the reluctant trainer of a too-old and enthusiastic "hillbilly" named Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank). Morgan Freeman plays "Scrap," an ex-boxer whose last fight left him blind in one eye. The loss of vision is something Frankie feels responsible for and believes is a great tragedy (but he never bothers to ask Scrap how he feels about it).

There's a caricature of a person with cognitive disabilities in the movie, too. Played by Jay Baruchel, "Danger's" only function seems to be to show us how nice Scrap and Frankie are for tolerating his presence at Frankie's gym and how cruel the rest of the world is.

Where was I?

The plot's predictable. Even someone like me, unfamiliar with boxing movies, can figure out what's coming next. Maggie shows up at Frankie's gym and starts to train. Frankie ignores her. Scrap, impressed with her dedication, quietly gives her encouragement. Frankie rants several times about how he doesn't train "girls." Nevertheless, to no one's surprise, he slowly becomes involved in her training and ends up managing and promoting her.

Frankie finds a substitute daughter in Maggie. During a car ride, she tells Frankie about her dad's dog, who dragged his hindquarters around and how she and her brother laughed at the dog. Her dad, ill and with little time left to live, takes the dog out for one final ride, and only Dad comes back. (More on this later.)

I guess I should also mention that Frankie is a practicing Catholic who goes to church every day. It's not really clear why he does this, since mostly he yanks the chain of the priest with questions, not looking for answers, just looking to irritate.

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quote:

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I will see it and write a review for a local paper (Op-Ed, letter to the editor, something).

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Sara,

Thanks for this - and the other kind words you posted. You know I now expect to see what you write after you see this, though.
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 

quote:

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I'm having enough trouble keeping up with my already chosen advocacy tasks, so I'm just going to skip this one - and I was planning on seeing it because it looked very good. Your review will allow me to explain to others why.

Excellent review. Am I right in assuming that her decision-making process isn't even presented, rather the correctness of her decision is merely assumed?

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The movie is full of gladiatorial gore which those not favorably inclined toward blood-sports may find off-putting. However, it would be wrong to think of "Million Dollar Baby" as just another fight film. In truth, it is not as much about boxing as it is about moral wrestling within the arena of the human soul.

As for the theme of euthanasia, the film is not a polemic in favor of assisted suicide. The pain and devastation of those involved is achingly evident. However, in spite of all the soul-searching that precedes it, the deed itself is presented as an act of reluctant heroism. And given the dire circumstances, our sympathies and humane inclinations may argue in favor of such misguided compassion, but our Catholic faith prohibits us from getting around the fact that, in this case, the best-intended ends cannot justify the chosen means: the taking of a life.

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quote:

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but our Catholic faith prohibits us from getting around the fact that, in this case, the best-intended ends cannot justify the chosen means: the taking of a life.

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Full disclosure: even without its ending, I would not feel kindly toward Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby. It is hard for me to sit in a theater looking up at the man who continues to fight disabled people in his backyard along the Central Coast of California, teaming up with owners howling because people in wheelchairs are suing them when they find they still cannot get into their businesses.

In Eastwood's last directorial effort, Mystic River, the killer is a deaf kid, I'm told. Readers would no doubt think I'm stretching things to wonder what it is about ol' Clint and disability. But it is food for thought.

I don't like a man who continues to vow to get Congress to pass a law forbidding people to sue for access without first waiting another 90 days, even if he is a truly great movie actor and director. And forgive me for wondering how Eastwood's feelings about quadriplegics living to fight him over access might conceivably play into his directorial prowess in letting the public know how noble, how loving, how kind it is for a father figure to help a young quad end her life.

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Good news! My esteemed editor Mary Johnson fixed the "Frankie problem."
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
*brazen bump*

Update: Fixed a couple more typos. Mary Johnson and I are putting the finishing touches on a coauthored op-ed that we'll try to submit to a few papers until one bites - starting next Tuesday, so we can work in any necessary references to the Golden Globe Awards.

Then there's this event the Chicago Film Critics Association is having next week... There will probably be a bunch of people with disabilities with signs and flyers waiting for them when they arrive next week. No secret. We plan on a press release. (Near as I can tell, every critic in Chicago who wrote about the movie loved it)

One possible sign:

Chicago Movie Critics:
"Million Dollar Bigots"


 

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Posted by JonnyNotSoBravo (Member # 5715) on :
 
I just saw this movie on Sunday, and I thought I saw some problems with it, but it was still a very emotional and powerful movie for me. I wondered how a high end medical care facility could allow bed sores as bad as the ones in this film. I wondered why the alarms at the nursing station didn't go off when Maggie's vent was stopped. I wondered why Frankie didn't reconnect Maggie's vent after he left, but just not turn it back on. With it off, it definitely looks intentional. I wondered why Maggie didn't have counseling after her accident to help her with the emotions following her paralysis.

I am so glad i saw it before your review, though. Wow, I don't think I could possibly have enjoyed that movie if I saw it with the knowledge I have after reading your review. And the fact that it's probably going to be up for Academy awards makes me sad, too. I can understand some of the choices Eastwood made as a director, and why the characters made some of their choices, but all together it paints a very unfavorable view of the disabled that is merciless in its uncharitability.
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
JNSB,

I am not sure I understand your take, being glad you saw the movie without the information.

To me, it's kinda like Eastwood had a joke at your expense - and the expense of a lot of other people. For example, the manner of killing shown would actually result in a pretty nasty death.

I also seriously wonder to what degree Eastwood's contentious history with the disability had to do with his choice of this as a movie project.
 

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Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
 
Steve,

Thanks for the review.

You know...I worked in a nursing home for a summer back when I was thinking of going into medicine as a career. There were patients there who had a variety of disabilities -- the majority were elderly but there were a few patients who were much younger and needed constant care. Working the night shift, we rarely got to know any of the people, but there were a few who woke up needing something or whose linens needed changing during the night.

I'm curious about the bed sore thing. What I learned as an orderly in that facility (by no means what I would call a "great" or even "good" nursing home. But certainly "adequate" in that it was staffed appropriately and people didn't ignore buzzers or sleep through the night shift -- I worked nights). We had several people there with very limited mobility, but we did not have anyone with Cervical Spinal cord injury leading to paralysis, so I'm a little confused about the propensity to develop bed sores.

My understanding was that we needed to check all the incontintent patients 2x per night (an average of 4 hours between bed checks). Basically, we just changed the sheets on all the beds of anyone who was not catheterized or who had any history of incontinence. Since the sheets were going to be changed daily anyway, we did the 2nd change early in the morning for everyone. Some who had more severe incontinence might get changed more often or have absorbent pads on the bed that would get changed between sheet changings.

The risk of bed sores was, I was told, primarily one of lying for a period of time in a wet sheet.

I've also heard of pressure sores (equivalent of bed sores?) that can arise if someone lies immobilized for too long. We had special things like circulation pads (a water-filled or air-filled slim mattress cover that would inflate and deflate in a cycle by section to keep the pressure points from being "stable").

I know we would reposition some of the patients periodically too.

I never saw a single bed sore in this facility. (Hmm...maybe it had better care than I thought at the time.)

but then I heard that Christopher Reeve essentially died of sepsis from an open sore. He HAD to have had the best care possible, and yet he got a sore that became infected and died from it (if I have the story right).

So...now my big question -- are bed sores as easy to avoid as I was led to believe when I worked at the nursing home (this was in high school), or

are bed sores an inevitability for people with severely limited mobility, or

is there really no way to answer this?
 

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Posted by JonnyNotSoBravo (Member # 5715) on :
 
Well, my take from a purely emotional, live moment-by-moment Point of View, is that I paid $8 for the movie and wanted to enjoy it. When I saw it, I didn't agree with the choice Frankie or Maggie made, but it still moved me and seemed like a great, atypical Hollywood movie (no Hollywood happy ending - similar to Unforgiven). With your information beforehand, I would have gone in, been pretty pissed by the end of the movie, and felt crappy about giving the movie theaters my $8.

That said, I am glad I have the information now. I certainly don't think the movie should have been made that way, and I wonder how many directorial choices were made that sacrificed the realities of disabled living for the sake of making you feel the characters'(both Maggie's and Frankie's) plight. Was there a book that this was based on? Did anybody do any research for the movie?

I think the adrenaline choice was made because it was something a "cut man" would have in in his bag. Frankie certainly wouldn't have had access to pharmaceuticals - he wasn't a doctor. I dunno - is adrenaline very easy to get?

[ January 18, 2005, 07:19 PM: Message edited by: JonnyNotSoBravo ]
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Bob and JNSB,

I'll bump this thread from wherever it gets to on Thursday. Tomorrow night, a bunch of us are going to do some leafleting and sign-carrying at an event of the Chicago Film Critics Association. That means I have about 3000 things to do between now and then.

But we have a couple of columnists who have taken an interest in our take on the movie and what we'll be doing tomorrow, so it will be worth the stabbing pains in my extremities before they go numb.

There will be more people from the disability community writing about this - count on it. But the fact is that most people aren't even able to see the movie right now. Chicago is one of the few cities in the U.S. where it opened.

Imagine that. It's on an Oscar track and most people can't even see it right now.

I may also have managed to talk a major disability organization (not "fringe" one like the one I work with) to issue a statement about the movie over PRNewswire. Been doing a lot of this between fluff posts.

My fluff posts have been real stress-reducers the last couple of days.

Later... til Thursday except for a fluffy post or two.
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
I'm tired and the warmth in our apartment hasn't penetrated to the bone yet, so I'll get back to real discussion tomorrow, but I thought I'd just give you this latest:
National Spinal Cord Injury Association: Eastwood Continues Disability Vendetta with 'Million Dollar Baby'

Gotta go. Looks like we're on one of the local news shows in a few minutes.
 

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Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
"a brilliantly executed attack on life after spinal cord injury"

Nice way to start the review.
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Yeah, Dag. That's a nicely-written opening by our friends at NSCIA. (If you want to raise your blood pressure, you ought to read the review of the movie on "The Catholic Reporter." Very enthusiastic endorsement of the movie.)

Well, CLTV, which is owned by the Chicago Tribune, just gave the ending of the movie away to everybody. They treated us pretty well.

OK, I'm really going to go to bed now. You can run on stress, caffeine, and adrenaline (in a nonlethal dose) for just so long.
 

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Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
"somewhat melodramatic nature of the ending"

WTF???


 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
(Sorry for the delay - yesterday was absolute chaos. Today's a little better, as far as having a breather to post here.)

Bob:

quote:

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but then I heard that Christopher Reeve essentially died of sepsis from an open sore. He HAD to have had the best care possible, and yet he got a sore that became infected and died from it (if I have the story right).

So...now my big question -- are bed sores as easy to avoid as I was led to believe when I worked at the nursing home (this was in high school), or

are bed sores an inevitability for people with severely limited mobility, or

is there really no way to answer this?

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quote:

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That said, I am glad I have the information now. I certainly don't think the movie should have been made that way, and I wonder how many directorial choices were made that sacrificed the realities of disabled living for the sake of making you feel the characters'(both Maggie's and Frankie's) plight. Was there a book that this was based on? Did anybody do any research for the movie?

I think the adrenaline choice was made because it was something a "cut man" would have in in his bag. Frankie certainly wouldn't have had access to pharmaceuticals - he wasn't a doctor. I dunno - is adrenaline very easy to get?

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quote:

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Frankie has a "fresh 1 oz bottle of adrenaline chloride solution
1:1000" in his refrigerator. He's been sitting in his apartment
drinking whiskey (Jameson's, I think) debating what to do.

He had an old syringe he'd used to inject procaine into crushed knuckles

He had used adrenaline "more than 100 times to stop blood from cut eyes"

"and he knew what else adrenaline chloride would do."

"There was no need to sterilize the needle"

he drew the entire bottle of adrenaline into the syringe

he put the old syringe into its case and put it into his windbreaker
pocket, making sure the needle was upright

he arrived in the parking lot at 1:50 a.m. and prayed he wouldn't be noticed

When he saw the night nurse moving to the end of the hall

He crept into the building and hid in a broom closet, leaving the
door open just a little bit

maggie's vent "... was on but she wasn't hooked to a monitor"

he expected maggie to be asleep but she wasn't

He whispers to her, she smiles then frowns as she hears the nurse pass

nurse calls out to maggie 'are you alone?'

Maggie says 'yes'

"Do you smell whiskey - funny, I thought I smelled it in the hall" says nurse

'no' says Maggie

nurse moves away (back to nursing station)

"i won't hurt you" clint says to maggie "first I'm going to put you
to sleep. Then I'll give you a shot."

'yes.' [Maggie says this, but the way it's written it's just a
separate paragraph. You know it's Maggie replying to Frankie.]

"Frankie stood behind her... firmly pressed his thumbs on both sides
of her neck, cutting off blood in cartoid....Maggie's eyes closed and
her mouth came open....oxygen from the ventilator escaped and became
part of the whirlwind inside Frankie...he stood pressing for 3
minutes... pried her mouth open..."

injected needle under tongue

even if there was an autopsy the injection left only a tiny prick and
would never be noticed

"the adrenaline -- all 30 milliliters of it -- would dissipate ..."

"He checked her pulse. It raced faster than a speed bag. Then the
stoke hit her and her face contorted, one eye sagging open...."

Frankie "closed the eye... made sure her pulse was still with his thumb"

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quote:

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By James Langton in New York
(Filed: 23/01/2005)

Clint Eastwood, the Hollywood screen legend, is under fire from
disabled groups who say that his latest award-winning film is thinly
disguised propaganda for euthanasia.

Eastwood is the director of Million Dollar Baby, a drama about
a female boxer described as "Rocky in a sports bra," in which
he also stars alongside Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman.

The film went on general release in the United States earlier this
month and critics identified it as a leading contender for an
Academy Award after Swank and Eastwood won Golden Globes
for Best Actress and Best Director.

Ostensibly, the film is about a young boxer who turns to an elderly
trainer to take her to the top. Yet audiences have been astonished
by an unheralded plot twist in which a leading character becomes
crippled in a serious accident and begs to be put to death.

The film's detractors accuse Warner Brothers, the studio that made
it, of deliberately concealing the grim ending. A number of religious
right-to-life groups are also upset because Eastwood's character is
a devout Roman Catholic who attends mass every day.

Debbie Schlussel, a conservative television and radio commentator,
described the film as a "million dollar lie" and a "cover story to
suck moviegoers in for a nefarious message." She said that the film
supported "killing the handicapped, literally putting their lights out".

The National Spinal Cord Injury Association, one of America's most
respected organisations for disabled people, accused Eastwood
of a "disability vendetta," describing the last scene of the film as
a "brilliantly executed attack on life after a spinal cord injury."

Eastwood clashed previously with the charity when he spent
$600,000 (£319,500) fighting a legal order to make his Mission
Ranch Hotel in Carmel, California, accessible to handicapped people.

Marcia Roth, the association's chief executive, said the star was
using the "power of fame and film to perpetuate his view that the
lives of people with disabilities are not worth living."

Last week, film critics attending their annual awards ceremony
in Chicago were confronted by protesters from Not Dead Yet,
an organisation that fights assisted suicide laws. The group was
angry about the glowing reviews Million Dollar Baby had received,
saying that critics were ignoring the film's underlying message
which, it said, "promotes the killing of disabled people as the
solution to the `problem' of disability."

Steven Drake, a researcher for Not Dead Yet, said that the film
"plays out killing as a romantic fantasy and gives emotional life
to the `better dead than disabled' mindset." The film's release
comes as the right-to-die debate is hotting up in the US. A new
law being considered in California – Eastwood's home state – would
allow doctor-assisted suicide.

President Bush has made clear his opposition to euthanasia. Last
year, his brother, Jeb, the governor of Florida, intervened in the case
of Terry Schiavo, a brain-damaged woman whose parents are
fighting her husband's wish to take her off life support.

Marketing for the film in the US has concentrated exclusively on its
boxing theme and Eastwood's initial reluctance to take on Swank's
character, telling her "tough ain't enough". Few reviews even hint
that the film's climax is an assisted suicide.

Another conservative commentator and film critic, Michael Medved,
said: "Warner Brothers never tells you the truth about a key plot
twist that turns this pedestrian boxing movie into an insufferable
manipulative right-to-die movie."

While promoting the film, Eastwood has avoided talking about
the issue of euthanasia. In his only comment so far, he told an
interviewer: "How people feel about that is up to them. I'm not
a pro-euthanasia person and this is a story about a giant dilemma
and how one person had to face that."

Eastwood, who has been married twice and has eight children
by five women, rarely talks about his own religious beliefs in public.

Unexpected support for the film has come from the Catholic News
Service, which reviews all new films from the point of view of the
Catholic Church in America.

The reviewer, David DiCerto, said: "The movie's morally problematic
end may leave many Catholic viewers feeling emotionally against
the ropes."

But he added: "The film is not a polemic in favour of assisted
suicide," and, "Given the dire circumstances, our sympathies
and humane inclinations may argue in favour of such misguided
compassion."

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Not making their day
Advocates for disabled upset by Eastwood movie's ending

Published January 23, 2005

LOOP -- If you haven't yet seen Clint Eastwood's new movie,
"Million Dollar Baby," you may want to stop reading here. If you
read on, you will find out about the surprise ending, so fair warning.

The movie has gotten rave reviews, but it has enraged some
advocates for the disabled. A group called Not Dead Yet was so
angered by the film's ending that it organized a demonstration last
week outside the Union League Club, where the Chicago Film
Critics Association was meeting to honor director Robert Altman.

They handed out leaflets expressing their dissatisfaction with the
surprise ending, which many critics have praised. They object to
the final scenes in which Hilary Swank's character, a female boxer
who has become a quadriplegic, is euthanized by Eastwood's
character, her trainer. He disconnects her breathing tube, telling
her that it will be a peaceful death.

"That's going to make her gasp like a fish on the shore," said
Stephen Drake of Not Dead Yet, which opposes assisted suicide.

Another complaint, Drake said, is the lack of consideration for
unsuspecting disabled people who might see the movie. "That's
some nice surprise they set you up for."

The National Spinal Cord Injury Association sent out a press
release last week saying that Eastwood's message was "better
dead than disabled," and calling the movie "a brilliantly executed
attack on people with spinal cord injury."

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Right now, if you go to google news and use "Eastwood" as your search term, around 7 of the first 11 stories that pop up are about the controversy.
 

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Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
I already read the London article. Unfortunately, the news articles are mostly quoting summaries and conclusions from the activists. Par for the course, of course.

Keep up the good work.

And I'm getting more and more annoyed with the Catholic reviews.

Dagonee

[ January 23, 2005, 09:16 PM: Message edited by: Dagonee ]
 

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Posted by Narnia (Member # 1071) on :
 
Wow, thanks for keeping us updated on this!! Great job!! I'm interested to see how it turns out...
 

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Posted by JonnyNotSoBravo (Member # 5715) on :
 
It's interesting that the two newspapers spelled sndrake's first name differently, one with "ph" and one with a "v". Journalists are usually fiercely told to get spelling of names right, and I would have figured that a commonly varied spelling name like that would prompt them to look or ask for the correct spelling.
 

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Posted by Lady Jane (Member # 7249) on :
 
This thread has certainly worked on me. I got my EW last Saturday with this movie as the cover story and was annoyed the entire laudatory article.
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Dag, Narnia, LadyJane, et al,

thanks!

JNSB:

One of the consequences of having a name like "Stephen" is that it will inevitably be spelled in a number of ways. Makes tracking down mention of things I've written or done on the net more work than it should be.

Latest news: I'll be on a very popular Chicago Radio show (so I hear), "Mancow," which has been described to me as kind of a "Howard Stern Lite."

(One of those things I'd really rather not do if I didn't have to.)

For those in the Chicago area, it'll be on around 7:10 am on Wednesday Jan. 26. I'll try to find the station specifics later or if its syndicated anywhere outside of Chicago.
 

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Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
 
Oh my, I hate Mancow but I'll listen cause its you That is if I'm awake. I'll tell my Steve to listen and he can fill me in if worse comes to worse.

I have absolutely no desire to see the movie. And hearing it advertised everywhere is ticking me off too.

AJ
 

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Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
 
When we went to see The Phantom of the Opera this weekend, there was a trailer/preview for Million Dollar Baby. A friend with us said it looked like it would be good (the trailer never hints that she gets in an accident or is injured).

I'm going to send him a link to your article so they know to NOT go see it, and why.

Farmgirl
 

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Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
 
sndrake- there's just one thing in your atricle that confused me; is assisted suicide legal in the U.S.?

quote:

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All Maggie has to do to die is to ask. No kidding. Court rulings in the 90s say that a person who uses a vent can request the vent be shut off, and the staff will give them a sedative and shut the vent off just as they start to lose consciousness.

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I have long been under the impression that it wasn't, but I'm assuming in this case (the case in the movie) it is?
 

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Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
Teshi, that's not considered assisted suicide (assuming the sedative wouldn't kill the person if they stayed on the vent).

It's the right to refuse continuing medical treatment. Small but crucial difference legally. I'm not sure how much moral distinction there is.

Dagonee
 

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Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
 
Oh! Thank you, Dag. Yes, I understand .
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 

quote:

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I have long been under the impression that it wasn't, but I'm assuming in this case (the case in the movie) it is?

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Teshi,

I'm not sure what you are asking about?

Are you thinking that having a ventilator shut off is "assisted suicide?" Legally, it's not.
The ventilator is a treatment you have the right to refuse. And, as I said, things will be arranged so that you'll be unconscious when actual suffocation occurs.

Apparently in the movie, they're pretending that Maggie doesn't have that right. And so Frankie, after about a whole day of soul-searching, sneaks in and kills her - which definitely isn't legal, even in the movie. One of the few things in this part of the movie that has a connection to reality.

[ January 24, 2005, 02:51 PM: Message edited by: sndrake ]
 

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Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
 
Thank you- yes, Dag explained it. I'm very uneducated about such things so I was confused, but now I understand.
 

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Posted by Ryuko (Member # 5125) on :
 
That's so awesome, sndrake! I mean, the movie itself is not a good thing, but the fact that you are getting your opinion out there and making a difference, that is GREAT. I'm so proud and happy.

for both you and Diane.
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
I mentioned earlier that the Australian newspaper "The Age" edited out NDY and other stuff. What they did was mild compared to a really malicious piece that came out over the weekend in "USA Today.":

'Million Dollar' Mystery by Susan Wloszczyna

The movie is an attempt at a discussion of the "spoilage" surrounding "MLB." But pay careful attention in who she is willing to name and who she isn't. I've italicized a certain sentence in order to be helpful.

quote:

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However, there exists even a more seductive incentive to spoil Baby. Unlike The Usual Suspects or Fight Club, where the narrative jolts were merely an extension of the plot, Baby is being used by political pundits and special-interest groups with causes to advance. One organization, whose name would be a form of a spoiler itself, issued a statement last week decrying what they see as a "vendetta" executed by Eastwood and his film.

In an attack on her Web site (debbieschlussel.com), conservative commentator Debbie Schlussel at least offers readers the courtesy of a spoiler alert after proclaiming Baby as "Hollywood's best political propaganda of the year, more effective than Fahrenheit 9/11" and "a left-wing diatribe." She then pummels its premise as well as the understated ad campaign, spilling every pertinent detail in the bargain.

Fellow conservative and culture critic Michael Medved has verbally spanked Baby and its makers via multiple media forums, from his nationally syndicated Seattle-based radio show to such TV outlets as the Fox News Channel, MSNBC and The 700 Club on CBN.

"The movie is wildly overrated in part because of an enduring affection for Eastwood, which I share," says Medved, a former host of PBS' Sneak Previews. But, "I hated this movie, and hate is not too strong a word. It's hackneyed and clumsy, like a flatfooted fighter who would be knocked out in the first four seconds of the first round."

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Get that? She's real free with naming names when it comes to conservatives. Then she suddenly gets coy when it comes to the National Spinal Cord Injury Association, which she cites. She won't even go so far as to call it a "disability advocacy organization," which wouldn't have given away any more than naming the parade of conservatives.

I'm usually reluctant to suspect a writer of blatant political bias, but I'll make an exception in this case.

Disability groups don't fit the story she wants to tell.
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Wow! We've been written about on websites on both ends of the political spectrum - in a positive way.

From the Left:

Dissident Voice: Piss on Pity: Clint Eastwood's "Million Dollar" Snuff Film

And from the Right:

Worldnetdaily: Film's euthanasia plot angers disabled groups
 

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Posted by Fitz (Member # 4803) on :
 
If there was a dissenting opinion in this thread I didn't spot it, so I just thought I would mention that I quite liked the movie. I had no problems with Frankie doing what Maggie begged for. And, to be totally honest with you, reading this thread has done nothing to lessen my enjoyment of the movie.

She wanted to die. Why assume that she wasn't presented with options regarding the life she could continue to live despite her disabilities? On the contrary, I would imagine that since she was in a rehabilitation facility, one would have to assume that she was given plenty of options.

I haven't read much about Eastwood. Has he done anything in the past to indicate that he's trying to push some sort of agenda? He played a character who struggled with a lot of moral indecision when it came to making the choice of whether or not he should end Maggie's life. I'll admit that there were some annoying inconsistencies (ie. lack of security at the rehab facility and the method by which Frankie killed Maggie), but inconsistencies do not an immoral movie make.
 

---

Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Fitz,

I've never said the movie was "immoral" - I don't mind defending myself, but at least stick with what I said.

You indicate that, in your imagination, you've bent over backwards to imagine that Maggie must have had the best of everything. That's just Eastwood and the scriptwriter playing on your ignorance - people with the best of care don't develop pressure sores and infections so severe that amputation is required within a few months of that kind of injury. (the location of the sore alone was absurd.)

But it was all that misinformation was required to make sure the audience would see what Clint did as the only right course of action.

You say he "struggled a lot"? What, it took him a whole day to make up his mind?



About 90 minutes until I get the call from Mancow.
 

---

Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
How did the Mancow interview go?
 

---

Posted by mothertree (Member # 4999) on :
 
I had some thoughts on this, not having seen the film of course but reading the review, especially the part about the dad loving the dog enough to put it down. It was important for this character to be so enmeshed with someone that they would feel compelled to do something they hated for her. I think that's pretty unhealthy, myself. The question is whether it is portrayed as heroic or disturbing. The use of the adrenaline persuades me it is the former.
 

---

Posted by Fitz (Member # 4803) on :
 

quote:

---

"Well, I'd take you to my resort, but I haven't made any of the
guest rooms accessible yet as a matter of principle. Maybe I could
order us some take-out."

The cynic in me says that maybe the most accurate label we can put on
this movie is "Clint Eastwood's Revenge." Hey, if we kill 'em, we
don't have to make our resorts accessible!

This movie is a corny, melodramatic assault on people with
disabilities. It plays out killing as a romantic fantasy and gives
emotional life to the "better dead than disabled" mindset lurking in
the heart of the typical (read: nondisabled) audience member.

---

quote:

---

I've never said the movie was "immoral" - I don't mind
defending myself, but at least stick with what I said.

---

quote:

---

You indicate that, in your imagination, you've bent over
backwards to imagine that Maggie must have had the best of everything.
That's just Eastwood and the scriptwriter playing on your
ignorance

---

quote:

---

All she ever wanted to be was a boxer and she got that. She had fans; she was on the covers of magazines. She doesn't want to get to the point where she can't even remember living her dream any more.

As I listened to this drivel, I wondered how Muhammed Ali, whose speech and ability to move are significantly limited by Parkinson's, might react to this.

---

quote:

---

You say he "struggled a lot"? What, it took him a whole day to make up his mind?

---

quote:

---

How did the Mancow interview go?

---

Strangely enough, it went well, from at least the one person I talked to who heard it. He's "Howard Sternish" kinda guy, and, frankly does stuff I find offensive and don't like to listen to. (A running gag, on the show, I gather, involves phone calls from an allegedly "mentally challenged" man trying to get Mancow to go to lunch with him.)

I came in prepared for the worst.

Here's the thing.

He took my side. He agreed with me. After my initial introductory statemtents, he and one of his staff mostly went on and on about sick stuff like this coming out of Hollywood.

For the most part, I decided to shut up. He was the best authority in the ears of his listeners. He was telling them he supported our own message and that Warner Bros. was fooling them with "Chick Rocky" campaign.

Glad it's over, though.

Diane got to do an interview with NPR yesterday.

Me, I get Mancow.



[ January 26, 2005, 10:42 AM: Message edited by: sndrake ]
 

---

Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
If activism were easy, everyone would do it.

Sounds like you did a good job. Is Diane's interview on the NPR site?
 

---

Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
 
sounds like it was great.

I have told everyone I know about this movie and the issues surrounding it.

Me, I'm not going to see it so I can't speak out against it (kudos to you, by the way, for encouraging people who criticize it to see it first, it drives me crazy when people speak out against stuff they haven't even seen)

But then, I wouldn't have seen it anyway. Boxing disgusts me in and of itself, so I'm not going to support a movie that glorifies it. This just gives me another reason.
 

---

Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
 
You didn't give us a heads up on the NPR one!

That I could have listend to.
 

---

Posted by mothertree (Member # 4999) on :
 
I'm just trying to understand it, Belle. It sounds like this Maggie character has trouble with seeking permission from authority. So she has to either check out on her own or manipulate someone who "loves" her to do it for her. I am curious to know from people who have seen it if that is the case.
 

---

Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
(Fitz, I'll get around to answering you, but it will take time because there are a lot of misstatements and assumptions to wade through when I do, and I don't have much time right now. It would be tempting to ignore you, since you keep going beyond what we've actually said or written.)

Dag,

Thanks!

Live radio is always hard, since it depends on your instant response to questions you don't know (even though you try to guess) in advance.

The word we have right now is that NPR's "Morning Edition" is scheduled to do a story on the "Baby" controversy on Monday morning. Breaking news could always bump the story, of course. We have no guarantees that any of Diane's interview will air, but I suspect it will, since the disability efforts around this movie originated with us.
 

---

Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
 

 

---

Posted by mothertree (Member # 4999) on :
 
I'll set myself an alarm, since I tend to be on hatrack less on the weekends.
 

---

Posted by Fitz (Member # 4803) on :
 

quote:

---

(Fitz, I'll get around to answering you, but it will take time because there are a lot of misstatements and assumptions to wade through when I do, and I don't have much time right now. It would be tempting to ignore you, since you keep going beyond what we've actually said or written.)

---

quote:

---

Perhaps he mentioned it to give you a chance to correct it yourself?

---

quote:

---

Fitz, what do you make of the fact that the movie neglected to mention (if I read the review right) that Maggie could have just asked to have her vent turned off? I would assume it's because it isn't as heroic or gripping.

---

quote:

---

I don't feel there's anything to correc

---

quote:

---

I guess she loved Frankie enough to want him to face jail. Turning the vent off is a legal medical procedure. Doing it on your own is murder. Probably not cold blooded murder. But unless she provided a written directive, it's still murder.

---

quote:

---

My grandma was burned over 60% of her body in a propane explosion. There were times in her recovery when she voiced the desire for someone to just end it for her. But she got a lot of enjoyment out of the next 17 years

---

quote:

---

For this movie to pass over the legal possibility of having the vent turned off should put it in the same class with movies like HULK and Independence Day.

---

quote:

---

But the fact that it is being elevated to a compelling drama that tells us something deep about "the secrets of life and death" indicates something wrong with our society

---

quote:

---

Is it being elevated as such?

---

quote:

---

'BABY' PLOT TWIST ANGERS ACTIVISTS

A group alleges that the movie is part of a 'vendetta' by Eastwood.

By Chris Lee
Special to the Times

The plot twist that occurs about two-thirds of the way through Clint Eastwood's boxing drama "Million Dollar Baby" hits moviegoers with the unexpected force of a stiff uppercut. Movie reviews and stories have honored that, largely keeping mum about the movie's conclusion.
***

For his part, Eastwood said he has no vendetta against disabled people, adding that he has contributed time and money to their cause. And he contends the attack on him by the disability group is a cheap shot: "I've put my money where my mouth is with the disabled, so I don't feel like I have to apologize for that," he said.

Eastwood also noted that the lawsuit filed against him was ultimately dismissed.

As for the movie, Eastwood said, there is no hidden agenda. "I'm just telling a story. I don't advocate. I'm playing a part. I've gone around in movies blowing people away with a .44 magnum. But that doesn't mean I think that's a proper thing to do.

"I think its opportunism," he said of his critics.

---

There's a lot in that response we can work with.

Also, Mike Miner of the Chicago Reader did an article on the controversy. Miner's beat is the media itself. He's widely read and well-respected, especially by those within the Chicago media. He covered us two years ago when we hammered two Chicago newspapers over their coverage of the murder of an elderly woman by her husband, and a couple other issues.

Today's issue of the Reader has a small picture of me on the front cover. But here's a link to the story, Dubious Conclusions:

quote:

---

From things Eastwood's said to the press since Million Dollar Baby came out, the movie he intended to make is the movie Ebert was imaginative enough to see. "The two characters made a decision," Ebert told me. "It may have been the wrong decision. It may have been the right decision. The movie invites us to decide." But Not Dead Yet didn't see that movie, and neither did I. Thanks to the star power of Swank and Eastwood, the film was an endorsement of Maggie's death. "Because it's Clint Eastwood, we tend to accept it as the right thing to do," Wilmington allows. (Me: Wilmington is the movie critic for the Chicago Tribune.)

---

More later...

[ January 28, 2005, 11:29 AM: Message edited by: sndrake ]
 

---

Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
 
Well - I do agree with Eastwood's point that he is just playing a part -- just like when he played Dirty Harry.

If we start poointing fingers at actors for portraying characters we don't like, we are going to have LOTS of fingers to point.

So the criticism should be aimed at the writers of the story, not the actors.

Farmgirl
 

---

Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
It's not that simple, Farmgirl.

This is the project and script Eastwood picked as his project. It's not just something he signed onto. There are stories talking about how he essentially bullied Warner Bros. into accepting this as the film he was going to do.

Then there's the whole issue of the misleading advertising...

What you say is true for Freeman and Swank, though.

I wouldn't be surprised if all Eastwood and his costars all show up on Jerry Lewis's Telethon this year, though.
 

---

Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
I just received a fax from David Edelstein, film critic for NPR's "Fresh Air" and "Slate."

He says he agrees with us and will be talking about it today on NPR's "Fresh Air" - that is all.

I have a lot of phoning and emailing to do.
 

---

Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
 
Wow.
 

---

Posted by Olivetta (Member # 6456) on :
 
There is nothing more dangerous (or beneficial) to the spirrit of our society as a good story, compellingly told.

THAT's why I agree with Mr. Drake. It's insidious. Maybe Eastwood doesn't have an axe to grind. Maybe it's some sort of aging man's phobia coming to light ("Good GOD I'm glad I'm not a cripple" sort of thing).

Either way, it's bad. That he said, essentially, "I gave you money, so shut up" is insulting. And this is coming from me, a person who is reasonably healthy, with all her parts factory original and functioning within normal parameters.

Yeah, I used to work across a desk from a lot of people with diabilities, but mostly I think of my co-worker wwith Friedrichts (sp?) ataxia. Our building was "accessible" by federal guidlines, but she still had to struggle with every damned door in the place, every damned day. I mean, we helped. It was no big deal to hold the door so she could drive through. The "accessible" employees' bathroom stall was at the far end of a narroww bank of stalls. It was a tight corner, requiring twice as much maneuvering as I've ever had to do with my truck, even in narrow downtown parking spaces.

It pissed me off that it was that way. What was worse was that the disease made her typing slow, and we could all see the managers maneuvering to fire her. Not change her to a less time-senstive position, just fire her. "No job exists in this agency that she is capable of doing in a timely manner." Even annswering phones at the call center? She was bilingual, for Chrissake.

Anyway, I'm surpirsed this isn't as clear to others as it seems to me. I mean, no-brainer clear. I'm questioning myself because of it. I mean, what is MY beef that this makes me so angry? If it isn't that clear-cut, then why does it seem so to me?

I dunno. I'm eather right or wrong, and either way I suppose I must go with my gut. *shrug*

[ January 28, 2005, 12:52 PM: Message edited by: Olivetta ]
 

---

Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
 
You're right, Olivia. Don't doubt that.
 

---

Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
 
Never doubt your own gut.
 

---

Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
It aired. Earlier than he indicated. I suspect it will be archived by tomorrow. I'll see if they have a link to just his story then.

Good piece.

*just one totally unbiased man's opinion*
 

---

Posted by Lady Jane (Member # 7249) on :
 
Wow!! *excited*
 

---

Posted by Ryuko (Member # 5125) on :
 
I agree Olivia, I feel the same way. I feel stupid talking to the people around me about how much this movie that I haven't seen has offended me, but it has.

The problem I have with this is that Clint Eastwood would never direct a film where a depressed person committed a sensationalized suicide and it was an emotional climax, and even if he did, people wouldn't call it moving or an exploration of the darkness of human experience.

They would say, and rightly so, that it was glorifying an alternative to suffering that is, to say the least, frowned upon.

When you boil it down, the reason that this is wrong is because it's obliquely saying that suicide is somehow more OK for people who are limited in some way.

I, personally, am of the opinion that people who are suffering from prolonged diseases from which there is little chance of survival should have the right to end their lives at which time they see fit. But this should be a choice that this person makes in full knowledge of their disease and what it means, with a psychologist or therapist at their side, who, along with their doctors, would be unbiased about the prognosis and about society's "use" for such a person.

The reason that this character didn't ask to have her ventilator turned off is because maybe, just maybe, the doctors would have sent someone to counsel her instead of just allowing her to die. Maybe she could have gone on to live a productive life. But Eastwood wanted to keep his movie in this world where real life had no meaning, a parody to get his point across. Whether his point is that paralyzed people have no reason to live or not, it's bad storytelling and bad filmmaking.
 

---

Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
 
It is always disturbing when people seem to enjoy a movie so much that makes so little sense. It makes me . I mean, I can see how the ending could be "powerful" in a superficial kind of way, but it wouldn't leave me satisfied. Even the dog part (base manipulation) doesn't make sense; the dog probably just needed his anal glands expressed to function normally. Yes, let's shoot him instead of giving him appropriate care. Oh, and then let's do it to a person, too!
 

---

Posted by Olivetta (Member # 6456) on :
 
The terrible thing is that it isn't bad storytelling or bad filmmaking. It's compelling. It makes you care, and feel. The damaging thing is that it makes you feel pity, even for those people who deserve much better than pity.

Plus, anyone deemed mentally sound can refuse medical treatment, though various jurisdictions are different in how they deal with it.

Obviously, I believe in the right to die. I sat with my mother, day and night, during the week it took her to die after medical treatment ceased, in accordance with her wishes aand living will. The family had to consent to it, of course, and we all agreed. She made no secret of under what circumstances she would want treatment stopped, and I mean twenty years ago when she was as hail and hearty as anybody. Mom was friendly, outgoing and talkative. I bet people she met in queues who didn't even know her name knew she had a living will.

The hardest thing I've ever done in my life was to sit in that meeting with the doctor and all my family, and be the one to speak. To be the one who spoke the words that ended her life.

That isn't the problem I have with this. The problem I have is attitude toward people with disabilities, how we are encouraged to feel pity for them, and say aww, how kind and loving a person you are to put up with these poor people.

And I think he DID make a movie about a depressed person killing themselves spectacularly, though that doesn't really bother me at all. It's the implicit idea that this is how a person should deal with diability (by getting depressed and dying) and how subtly we are manipulated into agreement that makes me angry.
 

---

Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 

quote:

---

Even the dog part (base manipulation) doesn't make sense; the dog probably just needed his anal glands expressed to function normally. Yes, let's shoot him instead of giving him appropriate care. Oh, and then let's do it to a person, too!

---

The dog/person comparison is standard fare on the part of euthanasia proponents. It's also got a longer history. I'm hoping to put together something this weekend discussing the use of the animal/person comparison in an older movie - a classic, in fact. One based on something written during the heyday of the eugenics movement here in the U.S. (Note, most people reading or watching this particular work are oblivious to the popularity of eugenics during the time it was written and how strongly the classic relies on those eugenic themes. Stay tuned, unless someone can guess which classic I'm referring to. )
 

---

Posted by David Bowles (Member # 1021) on :
 

quote:

---

It's the implicit idea that this is how a person should deal with diability (by getting depressed and dying) and how subtly we are manipulated into agreement that makes me angry.

---

Are you willing to entertain the possibility that you and others are reading this "implicit idea" into the text of the film?
 

---

Posted by Lady Jane (Member # 7249) on :
 
That movie made cry in the middle of school, sndrake. Gary Sinise did such a good job.

[ January 28, 2005, 01:46 PM: Message edited by: Lady Jane ]
 

---

Posted by Olivetta (Member # 6456) on :
 

quote:

---

Are you willing to entertain the possibility that you and others are reading this "implicit idea" into the text of the film?

---

quote:

---

Then a wholly improbable (and impossibly contrived) tragedy strikes.
I shouldn't give away too much here, but let's just say that not only
is what happens hard to swallow, the fact that there's never even
a hint of illegality ascribed to it is utterly mystifying.

After this turn, Million Dollar Baby becomes too melodramatic to take
seriously. In fact, some of it is so filled with clichés and over the top
that I kept thinking of Oscar Wilde's assessment of The Old Curiosity
Shop: "It takes a heart of stone to read of the death of Little Nell and
not burst out laughing."

---

quote:

---

Nevertheless, Maggie works out at his gym and bends the ear of Frankie's best friend, Scrap (Freeman, who also narrates). Together, they convince Frankie to give her a shot.

---

quote:

---

So (and remember that I haven't seen this movie yet), it is totally impossible that the apparent anti-disability message is just a by-product of the personalities of the characters played by Eastwood and Swank, that given two people with those psychological make-ups, this sort of solution to incapacity might be inevitable?

---

quote:

---

Judging from your review, this is probably a waste, since
you are probably more sensitive to the stereotypical portrayals
of people who live in trailer parks than the use of the absolute
worst in anti-disability imagery.

Some of us, including the National Spinal Cord Injury Association,
noticed things about the movie that apparently were aimed right
at your own notions about disability, or you might been a little
disturbed. And just maybe, the portrayal of killing a disabled person
as an act of love (like daddy's dog) is as suitable for a parental warning
as "hypodermic needle use."

Check the website below for links to my own review, press release
from the NSCIA, and some thoughtful coverage of the movie.

Sincerely,

(signature)

---

I'll get back and try to address both David and Fitz specifically over the weekend when I should be a little freer.

The other thing I need the space for is to step back from the mode I'm in full time, which is pretty much "take no prisoners" and not the mode I want to be in when I talk with people here.

Y'all deserve better than that.

But I do need a little transition time.
 

---

Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
 
Can we help by writing letters to people who have done the absolute worst with their reviews or something? Will you point me to these reviews so I can read them and reply to those who wrote them?
 

---

Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
kq - or anyone else who wants to do that.

Tell me your general location and I'll try to dig out a rave review that came out in your neighborhood, along with email, snail mail, or fax.

That's a "yes", ketchupqueen.

And thank you.
 

---

Posted by Olivetta (Member # 6456) on :
 
Oh, me too! I can't even express how spoiling-for-a-fight I am about this. So much so that I'm a bit frightened by my own visceral reaction.
 

---

Posted by Lady Jane (Member # 7249) on :
 
It's in Slate!

quote:

---

It's possible that an individual has a moral right to take his or her own life, but the legal hurdles should be left in place. The last thing we should want is for a disabled or terminally ill person to feel pressure to ease the emotional or financial burden on family members—or for family members to apply that pressure. And as Not Dead Yet wants you to know … well, the name says it all.

---

[ January 28, 2005, 04:25 PM: Message edited by: Lady Jane ]
 

---

Posted by Olivetta (Member # 6456) on :
 
I'm in the Atlanta area. It may have been reviewed today, though I haven't caught it in the AJC, yet. I've pretty much gotten my letter written. Maybe they won't like it. The usual AJC reviewer REALLY liked League of Extrordinary Gentlemen, so anything's possible.
 

---

Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
 
I'm in Dallas, anything in the Dallas-Fort Worth area is fair game for me.
 

---

Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
I'll have stuff for people by tomorrow sometime. By (I hope) early afternoon.

Thanks!
 

---

Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
*realizes OSC will be reviewing this movie pretty soon*
 

---

Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
 
I'll keep my eye out for it in central Iowa stuff, but if you notice any feel free to give me a heads up and I'll write.
 

---

Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Arrgghhhh!!!!

I just spent well over 20 minutes linking reviews that appeared in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and also in the Dallas Morning News.

I had multiple windows going and clicked the wrong one. The message - all gone.



(OK, I'm better now.)

I will attempt to reconstruct and share some more coverage later today. Just wanted to let kq, olivetta and dkw know that I haven't forgotten you.

This has not been a "weekend" as most people understand the term.
 

---

Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
While it still makes up just a small percentage of the total coverage of "Baby," the issues being raised by NDY and NSCIA are becoming news. We're putting up links to the major stuff at our website:

Not Dead Yet

Coming soon: A media "hall of shame" for demonstrably inaccurate news stories. Or, as in the case of USA Today, writers that bend over backwards to write the disability voice out of the story.

Demonstrably inaccurate: a recent AP story used the term "brain dead" in reference to Terri Schiavo. No medical authority in any of the court actions has ever made that claim. "Brain dead" is distinct - medically and legally - from "persistent vegetative state." But reporters all over the country will pick up that misinformation from the AP wire story and reproduce the error.
 

---

Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
 
Can we write to the AP, too? How do you do that?
 

---

Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
 
Steve, having seen those flyers, I'd like to be involved in a protest in my area. Do you have ideas as to how I can get in contact with people in my area that feel the same way?

(I'm probably making you do more work on your day off. Sorry.)
 

---

Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Who said anything about a day off?

I may not get one of those for a few weeks. (no sad face here. Yeah, it's hard, but it means there's a real discussion starting to happen.)

KQ - I have calls to make tomorrow. I'll see if there are any Dallas folks we can dig out of the woodwork to get on this. Once I get some, I can hook you up.
 

---

Posted by Ryuko (Member # 5125) on :
 
Hey, Steven, did Eastwood win or lose his lawsuit about his hotel being compliant to the ADA? One of the articles you linked says he won, one says he lost.
 

---

Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Depends on who you ask.

Here's what I got from someone that seems pretty accurate:

quote:

---

Technically, he may claim "he won that" -- meaning he didn't have to pay damages --
and then activists look like we are wrong. Although there's no
question there were access violations found, and the jury said there
were. (Anyone who wants the details can read
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/09/30/MN111950.DTL

---

So: We emphasize that the jury found violations.

Eastwood: Emphasized no damages awarded (damages apply under Calif. law, not federal ADA, though). And he said in the LA Times that the case was "dismissed."

Good question - which I hope I'm answering honestly.

The other thing to keep in mind is that Eastwood's big beef is the "notice" issue. During congressional testimony, there were claims that complaints were made via certified mail and he admitted he declines certified mail directed to him by people he doesn't know.
 

---

Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
 
Well, I don't have any problem with anything else you have said, sndrake, but lets be honest....

If I were him, that famous, I wouldn't accept them either.

Thank you for the article, I enjoyed reading your take ion it. I agree with most of it, and I am glad I read your review before I went to go see it...I was planning to, but now you couldn't pay me to see it. Not just because of the disability issues, but because of the dishonest marketing ploys used to promote it.

As far as your personal and professional views about this type of thing, I can see where you are coming from, and I agree with most of it. However, I do think that people should have the final say about what happens to themselves, and that not everyone would choose to fight on.

As far as bed sores and pressure sores, good care can make a world of difference, but sometimes they can't be avoided in long term patients. They should never go unnoticed, or untreated, but I have seen patients in high-end care units with them, even with all the modern gadgets in place to minimize the risk of them. I am NOT saying that the movies portrayal of the complications were accurate, mind you... ....but rather I am replying to some other peoples questions earlier in the thread.

Once again, thanks sndrake. I know that a lot of the time you are at Hatrack you need to take a break from all this stuff, but I am glad you mentioned this.

Kwea

[ January 30, 2005, 05:35 PM: Message edited by: Kwea ]
 

---

Posted by Ryuko (Member # 5125) on :
 
Sometimes unsolicited mail can be important. It just doesn't make sense to exclude it all. As far as I can tell, people usually have folks to read their mail for them...
 

---

Posted by saxon75 (Member # 4589) on :
 
Stephen,

I think that you have some legitimate points, but I think you might be going a little too far in a few places. First, I really think that it's pushing it to imply that Eastwood is trying to further an anti-disability agenda with this film. The fact that the movie is so compelling probably does highlight a latent prejudice in our society, but the reason that such a prejudice would be so prevalent is that it's a story that's so easy to believe. The ability to walk and to manipulate objects are two abilities that are pretty fundamental to most people's concept of themselves, and consequently it's very easy for us to imagine being severely, possibly inconsolably, depressed were we to lose those abilities. So much of our identity is wrapped up in what we do that the idea of losing the ability to do those things is pretty abhorrent. I'm not saying that this is the way it ought to be, just that it makes a lot of sense. So even though this may not be representative of most disabled people's experiences, it does help to explain why stories like this are so compelling, especially since most people are not familiar with disabilities and the people who have them.

Second, I think that your interpretation of the "Danger Barch" character may be a little biased. In my opinion, Danger provides an important contrast to the boxer who beats him up. True, he is the comic relief--and that definitely speaks to the kinds of prejudices that the average audience member holds--but I think that the character's pluck in coming back to the gym after appearing to lose hope is meant to be mildly uplifiting. As Morgan Freeman's character makes such a point of saying, the kid has heart.
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
I'll try to get back to some discussion later. People are bringing up some good points. Unfortunately - or fortunately - depending on how you look at it, today is looking as bad as every other day for the past few weeks. Got waylaid yesterday by a narrowly derailed migraine-wanting-to-happen.

So... New developments:

There's an article about the controversy in today's edition of the NY Times. If you have access to a print copy, it's on the top of the front page of the "Arts" section. There's a picture of two protesters from the Chicago Action, one of them being my own Diane.

Anywhere, here's a link to Groups Criticize 'Baby' for message on suicide . (sorry - registration req'd). Included: everybody's favorite quote from my article.

Additional irony - on January 28th, the NY Times ran an article titled "For Disabled, It's Hooray for Hollywood."

Another flash. Diane will be appearing live on "Your World" on the Fox News Channel ( ), hosted by Neil Cavuto. She's scheduled to appear at about 4:38 pm ET, 3:38 CT pm CT, etc. Should last about five minutes.

S'all for now.
 

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Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
 
Good article.
(I used bugmenot.com to get a password to get in)

What about that other film they talked about? I have never heard of it -- have you?

Farmgirl
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
(Quick note in between chores)

Farmgirl: There's a link to a review of "The Sea Inside" on our website. I haven't seen it. It came to Chicago while we were out of town visiting my folks and left town shortly after. It's not hanging around long in most places - a common fate for foreign-language films with subtitles.

Not seeing it makes it hard to comment on, though. I've been urging people in the disability community to see the movie rather than take the word of NDY or NSCIA so they can get riled up all on their own.
 

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Posted by newfoundlogic (Member # 3907) on :
 
What's wrong with Fox?

I liked the "I'm not brave," line. I hope people understood what she meant by that.
 

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Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
 
Never could find that link to "The Sea Inside" review on your site, Stephen. I will keep looking.

You really need an internal search feature when you have so much stuff available. I hear that Google offers such a thing for your own site now...

Farmgirl
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
nfl,

I'm at work and wasn't able to see it. Hopefully, I'll be able to see a tape tomorrow. Can you give me a rundown?
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Link to Review of "The Sea Inside"
 

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Posted by newfoundlogic (Member # 3907) on :
 
Cavuto questioned her why she was upset with the movie, she mostly gave answers already mentioned, for example that it implied a gap between those who are disabled and those who aren't. In order to address the issue he just said that euthanasia was an issue in the movie, no details on how it was carried out. Diane's quote was in response to Cavuto trying to make the point that while she was brave for living with her disability others might not be. She basically countered saying that living was not "brave." There wasn't any mention of Eastwood being anti-disability in the past.
 

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Posted by vwiggin (Member # 926) on :
 
I don't know if anyone has posted this already, but I just saw sndrake being mentioned on rogerebert.com:

quote:

---

And Steve Drake of Not Dead Yet wrote a detailed review of the film that included suggestions for what like-minded readers could do to protest the film. Among them: “…there's always the option of audibly saying ‘bulls—t’ and similar things at particularly absurd or offensive points while you're watching the movie. It's rude, but trying to focus on the sentimentalized killing of a disabled person while another disabled person is escorted out of the theater would make a unique viewing experience for the audience.”

I appreciate the point of view of these activists, but they are grossly oversimplifying the movie -- even at the level of its crudest cliches. Does the movie really impose such a clear, strong statement on its characters? Or is it a story about individuals making terrible, difficult, dramatic choices that are not so clear-cut -- and the consequences of those hard choices? Does anybody honestly think "Million Dollar Baby" -- faults and all -- can be reduced to the equivalent of a political tract handed out on a streetcorner? If it were truly Eastwood's intention to lash out at the disabled, surely he would have been able to further his alleged grudge a lot more effectively than by making this particular movie.

---

quote:

---

Said Mr. Eastwood: "You don't have to like incest to watch Hamlet. But it's in the story."

---

NO IT'S NOT!! It's mildly implied! He must have only seen the Gibson movie. (huffs)
 

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Posted by newfoundlogic (Member # 3907) on :
 
Actually I think the difference is that we're supposed to be revolted by the incest, we're at the very least supposed to sympathize with the decision made in MDB.
 

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Posted by newfoundlogic (Member # 3907) on :
 
Not directly related, but Fox's show "House" had an episode tonight that involved a paralyzed musician who wanted to be taken off life support than live without being able to play music.
 

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Posted by Eaquae Legit (Member # 3063) on :
 
I saw that too, nfl. I'm still not sure how I feel about it.
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
We didn't get to see the end of the show. There's a crisis of the tragic kind in Diane's family right now. Which is really all I can say since it's not my story to tell. Not a good evening right now.
 

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Posted by Eaquae Legit (Member # 3063) on :
 
((Stephen and Diane and Family))
 

---

Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Thanks for the hugs, but we'll adjust.

I should tell y'all that there's a new section on the website I've been wanting to put up for a long time.

It's the Journalists' Hall of Shame

Two entries already!
 

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Posted by mothertree (Member # 4999) on :
 
Hamlet- depends on if you consider a brother in law incest. Then it's definitely in the story. But the whole Oedipal thing, yeah.

Though it would have been more salient for him to mention the suicide that occurs in Hamlet.
 

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Posted by Ryuko (Member # 5125) on :
 
That's true. It relates better to whether or not people are able to objectively decide about taking their own lives.
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
(substantially re-edited after typing way too early and on my first cup of coffee)

Someone on an email list suggested that maybe Eastwood was confusing Hamlet with Oedipus Rex.

I have a couple radio things scheduled for later today, and I believe they're both available via webcast. The one in the afternoon is on a DC station and will entail about 30 minutes of discussion with a member of a pro-assisted suicide organization. That should be interesting.

Details are on my desk at work. I'll try to post them later.

[ February 02, 2005, 06:38 AM: Message edited by: sndrake ]
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
wwiggin:

quote:

---

I don't know if anyone has posted this already, but I just saw sndrake being mentioned on rogerebert.com:

---

quote:

---

Javier Bardem mention No. 2: interesting that there's been a loud cry of protest about the treatment of a disabled character in "Million Dollar Baby," but hardly a word about "The Sea Inside." Bardem delivers an astonishingly moving performance as Ramon Sampedro, who was paralyzed as a young man and spent 30 years fighting for the legal right to end his own life.

But, I guess it's easier for activists to go after Clint Eastwood and a fictional story than a film based on true events.

Neither film advocates euthanasia. Neither film exploits or disrespects the disabled. Neither film "sends the wrong message," whatever that means. "Million Dollar Baby" and "The Sea Inside" are two splendidly told films about two individuals and the choices they make. Why would anyone think the characters played by Hilary Swank and Bardem are representing everyone who's disabled?

***

Later this month, the film "Rory O'Shea Was Here" arrives in theaters. James McAvoy brings fierce passion to his role as a wheelchair-using rebel who's in the tradition of Jon Voight in "Coming Home," Tom Cruise in "Born on the 4th of July" and Eric Stoltz in "The Waterdance."

Many of the main characters in "Rory O'Shea Was Here" are in wheelchairs. Some are strong and free spirits; others are depressed. None are suicidal. This doesn't mean "Rory" is a better film than "Million Dollar Baby" and "The Sea Inside." (It's a good film, but not quite in the same league as the other two.) But none of these films has an obligation to represent an entire segment of society in only the most positive light. That's not the job of cinema. That's the job of public service announcements.

---

quote:

---

On Feb. 12, Richard Roeper hosts a fund-raiser at Soundbar for "Friends For Steven," supporting pediatric cancer research at Children's Memorial Hospital. For tickets go to www.friendsforsteven.org

---

No, not going to attack "Friends for Steven," but this wouldn't have been half as self-serving had it been attached to a different column.
 

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Posted by mothertree (Member # 4999) on :
 
How many of us, looking back, were really glad that Titanic won? Because of the flaw in how this movie is put together (the legal option of refusing intervention is not dealt with) this movie should be considered as sentimental but irrelevant as Titanic. IMHO. What did Titanic winning tell us about our society? What does this film being nominated tell us about society?
 

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Posted by vwiggin (Member # 926) on :
 
Thanks, I just found the Ebert article you are talking about.

Here's a link to the article if anyone wants to read Ebert's response:

quote:

---

I have here two recent messages. One is from a woman who read a Medved essay in USA Today which seemed to be about another topic, and then, without warning, bluntly revealed the secret of "Million Dollar Baby." She is enraged at him. Another is from the mother of a quadriplegic who was injured in 2003. She wrote to the national spinal cord injury association (NSCIA), in response to an NSCIA press release warning that the movie’s final act could have potentially harmful effects on people with similar disabilities, depending on their state of mind. Her son became a quadriplegic after a 2003 accident, she writes, and they were looking forward to seeing the film, but "after learning here of its content, I now feel I must find the way to distract him from watching it; it would be too damaging."

Groups like the NSCIA have a responsibility to the people they serve, to address issues which, for them, transcend the need to keep a plot secret. The mother got the information she needed, and is acting on it.

---

quote:

---

Thanks, I just found the Ebert article you are talking about.

---

I gave you the Cliff Notes so you wouldn't have to read it.!

From Ebert's "response":

quote:

---

Groups like the NSCIA have a responsibility to the people they serve, to address issues which, for them, transcend the need to keep a plot secret. The mother got the information she needed, and is acting on it.

---

This is such a complete load of BS for anyone who is actually familiar with what NSCIA said and did. They didn't issue a warning to their membership - they issued a statement of public protest. And he implies there is some sort of social contract in which - apparently - everyone recognizes some "need" to keep a plot secret.

Anyone else remember taking that pledge? I must have been out when they came around.
 

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Posted by mothertree (Member # 4999) on :
 
A pledge so deep it must be transcended, as though it were original sin or the pain body. :chuckle:

Surely there is a rating that can reflect that the dramatic appeal of a movie is derived from one of the main characters dying. LS would do fine.
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
New Stories in the Austin American Statesman, which claims to be the same as the NY Times story by Waxman. It's not really, because it incorporates quotes from a column in the Denver Post.

Also, USA Today published a story today that makes up for the earlier one that earned them entrance into our "hall of shame." One thing new - there's a quote from a spokesperson for another spinal cord injury group that is agreeing with NSCIA and NDY about the movie.

Edit to add this quote from USA Today article:

quote:

---

Oscar voters would likely agree with the movie's stance, says Us Weekly film critic Thelma Adams.

"They were probably thinking, 'Hurry up with the needle,'" she says. "They were wondering what took so long."

---

In context, Ms. Adams is saying that like it's either a good thing or at least obvious - maybe both. Funny, that's kinda what we've been saying, but we get our hands slapped or our heads patted (the Ebert approach) when we do.

[ February 03, 2005, 02:05 PM: Message edited by: sndrake ]
 

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Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
 
A related note:
Roper's column in the Sun-Times today has an apology for not putting a *spoiler* announcement on his column when he talked about the outcome of Million Dollar Baby. He said he thought that it had been mentioned so many other places that it had been "spoiled" by the time it got to his column.

Wasn't he one of the earlier people to mention it?

AJ
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Well, it will be interesting...

I got a call an hour ago from the Sun-Times and they will publish the Op-ed Mary Johnson and I submitted.

I wrote a cover letter complaining that both Ebert and Roeper had misrepresented the views of both our group and NSCIA - and they never mentioned the name of our group - based in the same city - at all.

Suggested that they might want to attempt some open, fair and accurate discussion of the issue.



Musta worked. It might go in Sunday. I'll know later - maybe tonight.
 

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Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
 
It does mention sndrake specifically and Not Dead Yet is in a picture. CNN put something on the controversy on their website today.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/Movies/02/07/film.million.dollar.backlash.ap/index.html

Also sndrake, Vogue ran a piece on Hillary Swank, she's on the cover of my latest magazine. I haven't read it in complete detail but the only mention of milion dollar baby, so far is complimentary.

I don't know if a letter to the editor would be appropriate or not, but it is something to consider.

AJ

(changed this, I didn't see Not Dead Yet or Sndrake mentioned at first but read down farther and they were there.)

[ February 07, 2005, 11:58 AM: Message edited by: BannaOj ]
 

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Posted by Lady Jane (Member # 7249) on :
 

quote:

---

Both movies draw on stereotypes that disabled people cannot lead worthwhile lives, said Stephen Drake, a researcher for Chicago-based Not Dead Yet, a group that has held protests at theaters showing "Million Dollar Baby."

"I really can't imagine this kind of awards attention for somebody who put out a film that relies on the worst stereotypes the audience holds about homosexuality," Drake said.

---

Cool.

[ February 07, 2005, 11:58 AM: Message edited by: Lady Jane ]
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
AJ,

thanks for the info. It looks like things are building with this story rather than simmering down.

Right now, I'm trying to find the time to hammer out an op-ed zeroing in on Rush Limbaugh and Maureen Dowd - they disagree about MDB, but they are both very comfortable with ignoring the disability groups that have weighed in. Y'all know how I love to bash the left AND the right when I get a chance.

Last I heard, the op-ed I coauthored with Mary Johnson will run in the Chicago Sun-Times this coming Sunday. Suits me fine - since it keeps the issue alive as news.

Also, the word now is that CNN will feature a four-minute story tomorrow - Tuesday, Feb. 8th -
on Paula Zahn Now. It airs at 8pm ET. Diane will be on it, although there's no way to know how much of her taped interview they'll use or which parts.

(Lady Jane - I don't know how many other papers did this, but the NC Charlotte Observer deleted that particular quote of mine when they posted the AP article. Maybe they thought it was too radical for North Carolina? )

Been a rough weekend. We had to be with family - Diane's 17-year-old nephew died. The absolute worst reason to be gathering together as family. The kind of hurt it leaves in its wake never really goes away - it just becomes something that people get used to and live with as time goes by.
 

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Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
 
I'm so sorry to hear about Diane's nephew.

I talked to a mother at gymnastics class about MDB. She said she wanted to take her daughter to it, because it was a sports movie with a female lead, and those were hard to find.

I then asked her if she was aware that it wasn't just a "sports" movie that had the traditional type ending. She said no.

I warned her that if I told her any more it would spoil the "surprise" ending but she said she wanted to hear it before she took her daughter.

At the end of our conversation, she said it was definitely not what she and her daughter needed to watch - and she would not be spending her money on it. I encouraged her to read about the controversy, and mentioned Not Dead Yet by name. It has the advantage of being easy for folks to remember.
 

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Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
 
*hugs* for you and Diane. With the Vogue piece it is completely possible it was written before there ever was "controversy" or the film had been "spoiled" And obviously it is a fashion magazine. But they have done some disability sensitive peices (or at least peices they thought were disability sensitive) in the past, including one fashion editor writing about her disabled sister visiting, and how she has as much independence as possible.

AJ
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
*gulp*

Change of plans.

I will be on Paula Zahn on CNN tonight!

Live - that's the *gulp* part.

The show airs at 8 pm ET and will be the top story.

Evidently, they've been doing the story on CNN and using Diane's interview footage. They wanted a "fresh face" for tonight.
 

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Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
 
Cool
 

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Posted by scottneb (Member # 676) on :
 
I'll be watching!!!
 

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Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
 
I don't get cable. I'll be thinking of you though.

Hobbes
 

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Posted by Beren One Hand (Member # 3403) on :
 
That's great!

I'll definitely be watching.

Flash us the hatrack sign if you can.
 

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Posted by mothertree (Member # 4999) on :
 
Make sure and use the word "onanism" inconspicuously in your remarks.
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
*On top of everything, sndrake will now be thinking "don't say onanism" over and over again in his head*




 

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Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
 
I think I'll tell my family to watch this in lue of me being able to. Good luck S-Man!

Hobbes
 

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Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
I'm going to watch. If you want to extend your homosexuality point, ask them how appropriate it would be to have a movie where one of the lead characters commits suicide upon realizing they're homosexual, with no meaningful exploration of societal wrongs that might contribute to such a decision or the many counterpoints to those pressures.

Of course, you're the expert, and you probably don't want to divert that much attention from your message. But the rabble rouser in me would love to see it.

Good luck!

Dagonee
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Thanks everyone! I'm going to work on my "cheat sheet" - just some reminders of important points/key wording, most of which won't be used.

Dag - that is a good extension, but probably too long for this kind of thing. I think maybe I can work it into an article or flyer.

Bye for now.



[ February 07, 2005, 05:03 PM: Message edited by: sndrake ]
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Well, things change really fast.

They're doing the story, but I've been dropped.

Not going with either of the NY contacts we referred, either.

Hopefully, NDY is still in there - but I have no knowledge that leads me to believe the person they got can talk issues.

It's Brook Ellison, and she may be good, but most of what she's done is in the "inspirational" vein, AFAIK.

Hoping for the best...
 

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Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
 
Phooey.
 

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Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
 
Dammit.
 

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Posted by newfoundlogic (Member # 3907) on :
 
So how many more updates before we know whether you'll be on CNN?
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
There should still be taped interviews with Diane and with a researcher in California who has spinal cord injuries.

What I'm really worried about is that the Zahn show may want to morph this into a "human interest" story, since that's the way media usually deals with disability. I imagine some journalists and editors are a little disoriented from the type of writing they've been having to do on this.

When it comes to the media, "human interest" angles almost always trump discourse on rights, discrimination, access and stereotyping.

I checked out Ellison's webpage, and most of what she has to say seems to revolve around being "inspirational" and pitching the need for medical research.

Not knocking the topics, but neither one has much to do with the current issue being discussed.
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
I don't know if I shared this before, but I want to make sure that anyone who's interested gets a chance to read this particular op-ed, possibly the best thing written on the whole topic so far:

CBC: Disability Matters - Death, not disability, is the end of the world

quote:

---

DISABILITY MATTERS:
Death, not disability, is the end of the world

(Ed Smith is a retired educator and full-time writer. His humour column runs in several papers and magazines and he has had eight books published. He has been quadriplegic since 1998. Ed lives in Springdale, Nfld.)

Clint Eastwood just lost me as a fan, something I'm sure will keep him awake nights.

His latest movie, Million Dollar Baby, has won praise from everyone who's seen it, and perhaps a few who haven't. As a person with quadriplegia I see it as nothing more or less than a scurrilous attack on people with spinal cord injury specifically, and those with disabilities generally.

A couple of years ago I gave a keynote presentation to a conference on disabilities. It was meant to be an upbeat and "go get 'em" type speech and from the standing ovation at the end it seemed I had succeeded admirably. Less than an hour later one of the delegates to the conference (we'll call him Jack) button-holed me in the hotel lobby. He looked me up and down and then spoke in confidential tones.

"When I see you now," he said, "and remember what you used to be like, I think 'twould be better if you were dead."

Jack and Clint would have hit it off well. Million Dollar Baby, which Eastwood both directs and stars in, is the story of a fight manager with a promising young boxer. The fighter gets a spinal cord injury in a fall and at her request the manager (Eastwood) kills her as she lies in a nursing home. The film will likely win all kinds of awards.

(go ahead to the link and finish the article)

---

quote:

---

"When I see you now," he said, "and remember what you used to be like, I think 'twould be better if you were dead."

---

quote:

---

I can hardly believe that *anyone* would say such a terrible thing right to his face. That's just incredible.

---

Most of the people I know who have observable severe disabilities have similar stories to tell. What sets a person like that apart is that they obviously have really poor social judgment.

But the question remains:

For every socially inept person who says that, how many others are thinking it?

That kind of nagging question can get to a person much more than whatever limitations are put on them by paralysis or other disabilities.

(Journalist John Hockenberry wrote once of being on an airplane and a stewardess asked him if he ever thought of committing suicide. This is a person carefully trained to get on well with passengers, mind you. Hockenberry, of course, is a paraplegic and has been one for over 20 years.)
 

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Posted by newfoundlogic (Member # 3907) on :
 
Stupid CNN. See, this is why you shouldn't have insulted Fox News.
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
*cough*

nfl,

I'm told O'Reilly talked about this with Michael Medved and they didn't mention disability groups at all.

That said, the CNN was a deliberate sabotage piece. It turned into the "human interest" story they are comfortable dealing with.

Is that the angle they take when covering issues like racism, sexism and homophobia?

[ February 07, 2005, 09:23 PM: Message edited by: sndrake ]
 

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Posted by newfoundlogic (Member # 3907) on :
 
Neil Cavuto gave NDY a large piece to tell its side of the story, CNN gave NDY one line then set about fifteen minutes toward refuting that one line.
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
nfl,

Point taken. But in all the things that NDY has been involved with, that is the first time Fox has taken notice at all.

In other words, it will take more than that one time for anyone to convince me they are any better than the mainstream press.

See, that's the thing. The mainstream press has their reasons to marginalize disability organizations when covering issues that affect us or are about us.

Fox does the same thing, although for different reasons.

There are exceptions: Focus on the Family has included NDY and other disability groups in stories about assisted suicide and Terri Schiavo. Worldnet has managed to do two stories about disability involvement - one in regard to Schiavo and one in regard to MDB. Some of the more grassroots-oriented pro-life websites have covered NDY on a fairly regular basis.

The extreme leftwing press has also covered us a couple of times. Counterpunch published an excellent article by a disability activist on Kevorkian and assisted suicide. Just recently, "Beyond the Chronicle" and "Dissident Voice" published great articles about the Eastwood controversy.

It's not as simple as "right" and "left" - for one thing, part of the "right" consists of pretty well-off libertarians like Eastwood. Since they have enough money to go around any legal restrictions on things like abortion, they will still vote for the person who will promise to take less money in taxes. And, hey, if assisted suicide results in fewere old, ill or disabled people to have to support, that's OK with the libertarians, too.
 

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Posted by newfoundlogic (Member # 3907) on :
 
I'm not saying Fox News is the network of angels, but they certainly aren't going to be any more more unfair than CNN or the other news networks.
 

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Posted by Eaquae Legit (Member # 3063) on :
 
I was really disappointed with the CNN story. It didn't feel "controversial" at all, like Zahn was deliberately steering the conversation away from the concerns of groups like NDY and the NSCIA. She even manouvered Ellison into saying that the NSCIA was over-reacting. Maybe it was just me and my own biases reading too much into it, but she looked decidedly uncomfortable with the questions. Like, "How do I answer this without coming across like and extremist idiot?"

Very disappointed. Shame, CNN.
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Even though this is only on Netscape news right now, I suspect it will get wider distribution (I'm doing my best to see that happen). It could kick press coverage up again:

'CSI's' Hall Takes Issue With Two Oscar Nominees

quote:

---

BECK/SMITH HOLLYWOOD EXCLUSIVE

'CSI's' Hall Takes Issue With Two Oscar Nominees

"CSI: Crime Scene Investigation's" Robert David Hall celebrates his
personal 100th episode Feb. 24 -- not bad, considering the actor known
as Doc Robbins came in initially for a one-shot guesting. There was a
time he couldn't have imagined such success on a huge international hit
series.

(Spoiler alert: the following addresses a plot element of "Million
Dollar Baby" that moviegoers who've yet to see the film may wish to avoid.)

Some 26 years ago, the one-time track and field athlete was nearly
killed when an 18-wheel truck crashed through a freeway center divider
and hit his small foreign car.

"The gas tank exploded and I spent six months in a burn ward," he
recalls. "They amputated one leg right away, the other over the course
of the summer. It was a pretty horrific time...Someone in the hospital
told me, 'If what happened to you happened to me, I'd kill myself.' I've
always remembered that."

Having lived through such an experience, he shares the apprehension in
the disability community now over Clint Eastwood's "Million Dollar Baby"
and Spain's Best Foreign Language nominee, "The Sea Inside," starring
Javier Bardem.

"I love Clint Eastwood's work. I would love to act in a Clint Eastwood
film. That being said, I have many friends with disabilities who are
deeply concerned that two Academy Award-nominated films put forth this
idea that the noble choice is to kill yourself if you become disabled. I
disagree with that," says Hall, National Chairman of the Performers with
Disabilities Caucus for SAG, AFTRA and Equity. "I think somebody has to say: Even if you are severely disabled, life is still worth living."

Hall's disability is a non-issue on "CSI," which makes him happy -- as
does increasing receptiveness on the part of some producers toward
casting actors with disabilities. After all, says Hall, "There are 56
million people with disabilities in America. It's the biggest so-called
minority group in the country."

---

 

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Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
 
I wondered, sndrake, whether you'd heard about the movie Rory O'Shea Was Here. I saw a trailer for it when I saw Vera Drake and I wondered what you'd think of it. It seems, to my uneducated eye, to have the opposite view from Million Dollar Baby.

From imdb

From Movieweb- Seems to be a better link.
 

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Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
We just covered a case in Connecticut with what has been identified as "Death Row Syndrome," in which defendants want to give up. This syndrome is being used as an excuse to attempt to override decisions to give up appeals and go ahead and be executed.

The theory is that death row is so miserable and the ongoing appeals process while waiting for execution is so debilitating that it causes mental illness that results in a wish to die.

The instant I heard about this, I thought about this movie and the ongoing controversy.

Dagonee
 

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Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
 
I love the fact that his disability is a non-issue on CSI. At first, I was wondering if they were going to explain it. Then I realized it doesn't make a hill of beans, and unless the plot of a story directly involves that, it's better not to.

I think it's cool.

But it's a fine line, because we'd like to think that a person's disabled status would be no more of an issue to us than the fact that someone has, say, red hair. A bit unusual, but not anything that affects how we view the person. In the case of disabilities though, we are faced with having to make accomodations, so we do have to treat them differently to a point, just to make sure they can be treated more like equals.

I think that's poorly worded but my head is so messed up I can't think how to re-word it.

At any rate, I admire you Steve and Diane. Keep fighting a good fight!
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Multiple responses:

Teshi,

Rory O'Shea hasn't opened in Chicago yet. I expect I'll see it when it does. The premise looks interesting. It might also get some kinder words than it would have from critics before the MDB controversy - a lot of them want to bend over backwards now to prove they're not the bigots we've said they are. (example - the documentary "Murderball" suddenly became a big hit at Sundance - it's about wheelchair rugby. It's probably good, but good documentaries about disability get ignored by critics on a regular basis.)

Dag,

I predicted several years ago that if the ACLU ever succeeds in eliminating capital punishment, they'll turn right around and start supporting lawsuits from prisoners in jail for life without parole who want to kill themselves rather than serve out their sentences. The "quality of life" standard will apply.

Belle,

Yeah - good movies about disability is only part of the picture. What's also needed is what we have on CSI - Hall's character's disability has come up a few times in a casual way so it's not hidden, but otherwise he's just another character.

What Hall said took some courage - there will be members of his caucus that disagree with him and will be angry if it gets more public - which is what I hope happens, of course. But he's liable to receive lots of flak if it does.
 

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Posted by mothertree (Member # 4999) on :
 
This CSI actor's response makes me wonder about the depiction of amputees by able bodied actors (like in Forrest Gump). I mean, they were so proud of how hard they worked to take out his legs on film. But I've always been sort of fed up with Forrest Gump.
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
mothertree,

That's not just an issue with amputees. The only major film I can think of offhand in which a leading character with a disability in a film was actually played by someone with a disability was when Marlee Matlin starred in Children of a Lesser God.
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Couple new things. There will be another op-ed going up on the NDY webpage shortly. The one that Mary Johnson and I wrote will appear in tomorrow's (Saturday, Feb. 12) edition of the Chicago Sun-Times.

In the meantime, my email to Maureen Dowd is up on the website now. You can read Maureen Dowd's op-ed here, although registration is required.

I won't make you go to the website for the email I sent to Dowd - here's the text:

quote:

---

(Letter sent Feb. 9 to liberties@nytimes.com, to New York Times Columnist Maureen Dowd, re: Dowd's Feb. 6. column titled Wherefore Art Thou, Clint?)

Ms. Dowd,

It's not surprising that Rush Limbaugh ignored the National Spinal Cord Injury Association and Not Dead Yet in talking about objectors to "Million Dollar Baby." Limbaugh probably couldn't fit the phrase "disability rights" in a sentence without hacking up a furball. And he is, after all, the guy who thought there was nothing wrong with referring to "the retard vote" back in the 2000 elections.

But you approached the disability concerns about this movie in exactly the same way Limbaugh did. By pretending we didn't exist. I doubt you would treat the concerns of other minority rights groups that way, even if you disagreed with them on an issue.

The point is, at long last you and Limbaugh have found common ground. You are equally willing to ignore or marginalize us in pursuit of your own agenda. At best, you'll use as ammo in your "culture war" -- and at the worst, we become acceptable collateral damage.

I'm not bothering to write to Limbaugh, because the uselessness of doing so is a foregone conclusion. It's probably useless to write to you as well, but at least I'm giving you a try.

Sincerely,

Stephen Drake
Research Analyst
Not Dead Yet

---

[ February 11, 2005, 04:26 PM: Message edited by: sndrake ]
 

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Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
 
Has she responded?

AJ
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Nope - but since the someone we're still getting hits from media sites, I expect word might get back to her and then maybe we'll get a response...


 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Co-authored op-ed, that is. But there I couldn't fit that into the title thread.

Movies about disabled keep myths alive

quote:

---

Movies about disabled keep myths alive
February 12, 2005

BY STEPHEN DRAKE AND MARY JOHNSON

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.

This is Frankie's act of love.

In real life, Maggie wouldn't need Frankie's clandestine aid. Courts have ruled since the 1990s that a person on a ventilator can simply ask, and a nursing staffer will administer a sedative and then turn off the vent as consciousness ebbs. Eastwood got the sequence wrong.

It's the 21st century, and the only place Maggie can live is a glorified nursing home? Even with the best of care, she gets a pressure sore so severe it requires amputation? Literary license aside, had the boxing moves been wrong, critics and boxing buffs would think less of the film. Details of Maggie's life after injury, though, evidently seem too unimportant to check for accuracy, merely scenes to imprint on us the horror of the paralyzed life.

Even had Eastwood bothered to get his facts straight, it's hard for us to sit in a theater looking up at the man who continues to fight disabled people in his backyard along California's Central Coast, vowing to get the state -- and Congress -- to pass a law forbidding people paralyzed like Maggie to sue businesses over access violations under the 14-year-old Americans With Disabilities Act without first waiting yet another 90 days, even if he is a truly great movie actor and director.

''Baby's'' corny, melodramatic plot is engineered to feed a romantic fantasy, giving emotional life to the ''better dead than disabled'' mindset lurking in the heart of the typical (read: nondisabled) moviegoer.

That mind-set explains why ''The Sea Inside'' has been such a hit with critics. These are the stories about disability that society wants to believe. The killings are always acts of love, selfless and heroic, fueled by the myth that ''nothing can be done about the undignified lives of people with disabilities except to help them die,'' as Chapman University's Art Blaser puts it.

They don't reflect the typical disability experience, which, for most of us, is just the experience of living our lives.

As efforts to gain acceptance for assisted suicide (which is really legalized medical killing) move from the courts into the mass entertainment media, the vehicle they are driving in on is the vehicle of severe disability. In these films, it's paralysis. Earlier this year, it was the ''United States of Leland,'' in which the stabbing death of an autistic teen was portrayed as an act of kindness.

Stephen Drake is research analyst for Not Dead Yet, a Chicago-based advocacy group for people with disabilities. Mary Johnson's latest book is Make Them Go Away: Clint Eastwood, Christopher Reeve and the Case Against Disability Rights. She edits www.raggededgemagazine.com

---

[ February 12, 2005, 06:45 AM: Message edited by: sndrake ]
 

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Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
 
Awesome.

<-- for all you do
 

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Posted by David Bowles (Member # 1021) on :
 
Way to ad hominem your opponents, Steve! Why not write to Limbaugh? Do you really think that, despite his conservative views, some of which might clash with your own moral outlook, he is a monstrous individual with no feelings or empathy? I think you ought to at least give him the same benefit of a doubt you've done for Dowd and send him a missive (though your tone may not do much to endear you to him or open him up to your POV... ethos, my man, ethos). Then, if he tells you to screw off, you'll be justified in your estimation of his character.
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
David,

I'll be happy to get into detailed discussions about tactics in about 3 weeks. By that time, all this will be over - everything should wind down within a couple days after the Oscars are awarded.

First, though, don't make the mistake of thinking this is just me doing my own thing. Any guy with in need of a haircut and some better clothes can sit in a cluttered room and write manifestos.

Most of what you see is the result of consultation with at least 4 or 5 other activists and stratgists around the country. Yeah, I'm the person taking "point," but this is not a solo endeavor. And there's been discussion and reasoning behind just about everything we've said and done on this, even if it's not transparent. In fact, it's not supposed to be transparent.

The short answer about the Dowd letter, though, is that you are not the target audience.

I don't want to sound like I'm whining or copping out entirely, but it's been a long month in which the only break has been to spend a couple days mourning for and burying Diane's nephew. There will be no breaks between now and February 27 - all this stops being news very soon after the Oscar ceremony. Any work to be done around MDB has to be done in these two weeks - or there will be no point in doing it at all.
 

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Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
 
Again I ask: is there anything we can do to help?
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
ketchupqueen:

There are several things you can do: You could write a letter to the editor to the Dallas Morning News, for one thing (that's the area you live in, as I recall): viewpoints@dallasnews.com

Letters should not exceed 200 words. If there is a message board on the paper's website, you could post something about the movie, along with a link to the NDY website.

Same goes for any film discussion forums - there are too many of those to count. If there doesn't seem to be any awareness that there's a problem with the film, or that the only criticism is coming from the religious right - you could post a little info and a link.

That's off the top of my head.

Unfortunately, I'm doing a few too many things in that mode right now.

PS: Two things of note about the op-ed today.

They deleted the last line, which I'll include with the one that ends it currently. It went something like this:

quote:

---

Earlier this year, it was the ''United States of Leland,'' in which the stabbing death of an autistic teen was portrayed as an act of kindness. Columnist Richard Roeper gave "Leland" a "thumbs up" when he reviewed it.

---

The other thing is that this article will generate angry mail. But it's not the content that will make people the maddest.

There was no spoiler warning.

Think about it - has anyone ever seen so many articles that started out with something like "you might not want to read the rest of this." ????



[ February 12, 2005, 03:44 PM: Message edited by: sndrake ]
 

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Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
 
I did write a letter to the Dallas Morning News.

They chose not to publish it.
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Thanks, ketchupqueen.

That's the problem with letters to the editor - so few get published. Seems to have nothing to do with quality, either.

So it might be best to look for discussion boards and/or blogs - if you insert a link after a brief discussion of the issues, people will check it out.

Robert David Hall's statement is probably big news for some people. He's on one of the top-rated shows on CBS. Might be a good opener. There's a link to the article about him on our site. People checking out the site often results in them talking about it and sharing the info with others.

We're hoping to get a couple of fairly well-known people on board in the next few days to add to the mix.
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Well, someone must have clued Limbaugh in on the fact that Eastwood is a conservative and maybe it's better to keep him on their side:

Duel No Longer Needed - by John Ryan

Excerpts:

quote:

---

Rush Limbaugh and Clint Eastwood won't have to re-enact the fight scenes from ``Million Dollar Baby'' after all.

Limbaugh was itching to talk about his alleged role in spoiling the movie's ending for political purposes. A New York Times column by Frank Rich last week quoted Eastwood as saying, ``You used to be able to disagree with people and still be friends. Now you hear these talk shows, and everyone who believes differently from you is a moron and an idiot -- both on the right and the left.''

``I'm glad you asked me about that,'' Limbaugh said Saturday. He added that he hasn't seen the movie, has no opinion on it, has never met Eastwood and was only passing along the thoughts of other critics.

``So I got lumped in as the ringleader of this simply because I'm the Mr. Big of the conservative movement,'' he said.
***

Limbaugh hoped to find him. At a soiree Friday, ``I asked some of those people to make sure, if I didn't have a chance to tell him myself, to tell him I'm not part of this.''

---

quote:

---

I understand why "Million Dollar Baby" is so deeply upsetting to so many. Experiencing life from a wheelchair, I've suffered through plenty of examples of Hollywood's misinterpretation of our lives. It's either the hero plot ("Coming Home" starring Jon Voight and "Born on the Fourth of July" with Tom Cruise), the inspirational victim ("My Left Foot" with Daniel Day-Lewis) or the better-dead-than-in-bed film.

Never mind that people with real disabilities are rarely cast to play characters with on-screen disabilities. Hero or victim, the stories are never even close to real life. And in the case of "Million Dollar Baby," a life like Maggie Fitzgerald's is, apparently, worse than death.

---

 

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Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
 
MDB is now playing here, and the local weekly free press, The Isthmus, has published a review. Since they won't publish Letters to the Editor except those which are responses to something already covered in that paper (e.g., another letter, review, story), this leaves an opening.

I'll go see it this week and then weigh in. Steve, I'll send you a copy of the letter after I write it.
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Tick,

Thanks! We'll put a link up on our site.

CT, thank you very much. I'll check out the review.

Big news in my next post - and will call for yet another change in the thread title...
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Right now. On the main page. Uncle Orson Review many things, including "Million Dollar Baby." Not only does he agree with most of our take on the movie, he points people to two of my articles!!!!

Uncle Orson Reviews - Wedding, Racing & Boxing at the Movies

Excerpt:

quote:

---

But the movie is so intense and earnest about its phony moral dilemmas and its glorification of the murder of the helpless and despondent that you almost don’t notice how evil the message of the movie is.

Don’t take my word for it, though. Read Steve Drake’s review of Million Dollar Baby: “Dangerous Times” at the Ragged Edge website www.raggededgemagazine.com, a review of the movie from the point of view of someone who actually suffers from the kind of disability that makes do-gooders want to murder you for so they can feel good about themselves.

Then read his essay “From ‘Mercy Killing’ to ‘Domestic Violence,’” to get an idea of the real danger that old, sick and disabled people face in our murder-is-noble society.

Quite apart from the moral issues involved, I must point out as a writing teacher that suicide or “assisted” suicide is what bad or inexperienced writers resort to when they don’t have an ending.

I tell my writing students that everybody has to write at least one noble-suicide story – so write it now, to get it out of your system; then throw it away, because it’s junk.

---

quote:

---

I tell my writing students that everybody has to write at least one noble-suicide story – so write it now, to get it out of your system; then throw it away, because it’s junk.

---

quote:

---

What galls the film's adversaries - or so they say - is a turn in the plot that they started giving away on the radio and elsewhere in December, long before it started being mentioned in articles like the one you're reading now. They hoped to "spoil" the movie and punish it at the box office, though there's no evidence that they have succeeded. As Mr. Eastwood has pointed out, advance knowledge of the story's ending did nothing to deter the audience for "The Passion of the Christ." My own experience is that knowing the ultimate direction of "Million Dollar Baby" - an organic development that in no way resembles a plot trick like that in "The Sixth Sense" - only deepened my second viewing of it.

---

quote:

---

There's no dream team, either in the boxing arena or in the emergency room, in "Million Dollar Baby." While there is much to admire in the year's other Oscar-nominated movies - the full-bodied writing in "Sideways," the cinematic bravura of "The Aviator," the awesome Jamie Foxx in "Ray" - Mr. Eastwood's film, while also boasting great acting, is the only one that challenges America's current triumphalist daydream. It does so not because it has any politics or takes a stand on assisted suicide but because it has the temerity to suggest that fights can have consequences, that some crises do not have black-and-white solutions and that even the pure of heart are not guaranteed a Hollywood ending. What makes some feel betrayed and angry after seeing "Million Dollar Baby" is exactly what makes many more stop and think: one of Hollywood's most durable cowboys is saying that it's not always morning in America, and that it may take more than faith to get us through the night.

---

quote:

---

I don't see what all the uproar is about. Clint Eastwood had a story to tell, and it involved a woman who was paralyzed and wanted to die. This in no way invalidates the lives of the many disabled people living around the world (of which some probably would like to end their lives). This is supposed to be entertainment, and if you don't like it, don't watch it.

---

quote:

---

Wow. He completely misses the point that disability rights activists like Steve are making.

---

Actually, Rich isn't missing the point. He's deliberately distorting it. He's following the course laid out by Roger Ebert.

That's an assumption, but I think it's supportable. He obviously knew that, unlike Maureen Dowd, he should at least mention us (response to Dowd is posted on the previous page).

Rich is an assistant editor at the Times. Among other things, the Times has a very long-held and very strong stance in support of euthanasia and assisted suicide. They have also been critical of the Americans with Disabilities Act on occasion.

Rich is deliberately casting the story as "extreme right" vs. "everyone else." That's the way the Times likes to see the debate around assisted suicide and euthanasia portrayed. If they have to cut a few corners to keep the coverage on that level, so be it.

(Not that they're the only members of the media guilty of that. Some right wingers do that too. And lots of other mainstream reporters.)
 

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Posted by Zalmoxis (Member # 2327) on :
 
Steve:

Interesting. But not suprising.

What fascinates me is how liberals always seem to believe that aesthetics is on their side -- and so we have Rich claiming that it's not a plot trick [while OSC points out (and rightfully so in my opinion that it's one of the oldest, tired, cheapest plot tricks around)].

Now I'm at least partially liberal and tend to believe that aethetics is on my side, and I think that conservatives would do well to gain more credibility (or at least awareness) in the area of aesthetics so I'm sure I've been guilty of that type of smugness in the past. But that doesn't mean it doesn't irk me when I see others engage in it.
 

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Posted by Narnia (Member # 1071) on :
 
Bumping to add the Scott Brick review that was tacked onto OSC's review recently.

It has nothing to do with the spinal cord injury debate, but it does take the "Clint Eastwood is the God of film-making" out of the picture. I can't imagine that he wouldn't do the research needed to make it realistic...but I can imagine a director sacrificing the realism for the drama. I guess.
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
BIG NEWS!

http://www.milliondollarbigot.org/loser.html

(Courtesy of disability activist Mike Reynolds, who requested requested and got this piece from Hockenberry. I have special permission to distribute this piece in its entirety.)

quote:

---

And the Loser Is...

By John Hockenberry

One can barely imagine how relieved the movie critics now climbing
over themselves to defend Clint Eastwood were to see the right-wing
media going after Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby. Suddenly they
were free to set the dispute into a broad culture war context as
Frank Rich did last week. They were free finally to ignore the true
outrage of the movie. These same critics failed millions of Americans
with disabilities by accepting as utterly plausible the plot-twist that
a quadriplegic would sputter into medical agony in a matter of
months and embrace suicide as her only option in a nation where
millions of people with spinal cord injuries lead full long lives.
No, these critics would much prefer to talk about offenses against
poor victimized directors, comparing Eastwood to last year's
besieged Michael Moore rather than to talk about their own failings
or about a group which has never had any standing in the
culture wars.

Plot twist is, in fact, an apt description of Million Dollar Baby's
ending. A spinal cord injury followed by a dolorous slo-mo
sipping of Eastwood's poetic hemlock avoids the inconvenient
truth that a female athlete outside of basketball and perhaps
professional mud-wrestling has virtually no opportunity to make
a living in America. That might make a more plausible reason
for suicide than the rationale Million Dollar Baby supplies.

Hollywood loves this disabled suicide plot and Eastwood is hardly
the only director to be enthralled with might be called the
crip ex machina theatrical convention.

How delusional is it for Hollywood to spend billions on teen
flicks and big budget films where teens and youth culture star
and yet there is practically never any mention that suicide is
the number one public health concern for American teenagers,
one of the leading causes of teen deaths? Somehow teen-suicide
seems just nutty compared to depressed quadriplegics offing
themselves. Maybe the plot twist Hollywood seems so desperate
to defend isn't really assisted suicide. Maybe its Eastwood's
own epic saga of slogging to the Oscar summit that gets these
critics all misty eyed?

As a right-wing culture war target, rather than an anti-disabled bigot,
Eastwood and the critics can certainly avoid mentioning the
director's high-profile campaign against the American With Disabilities
act after he was sued for owning an inaccessible restaurant. The
thought of insulting or offending millions of people who live full lives
despite a myriad of restrictions on their freedoms and a palpable
sense of impatience that we're "not dead yet" at all enter the minds
of these movie culture warriors. Had it occurred to them, they
might have mentioned that Rush Limbaugh and his gang were
among the biggest critics of the ADA, have endorsed restrictions
on healthcare support for people in need of long-term rehabilitation
and have eagerly used disabled rights to further their own agenda
when convenient.

If Mr. Eastwood is so convinced that his film is grounded in reality
then perhaps he might wish to accompany me to the U.S. Army's
Walter Reed Medical Center in Maryland where there are 1000
or so severely disabled soldiers from Iraq whose lives are changed
forever, who were told they fought for Iraqi freedom and are now
perhaps wondering, along with their families, who is going to fight
or their freedom to live a full life here in America. As a paraplegic
for three decades I can help them with that question. Would
Mr. tough guy Eastwood and his new pals Frank Rich and
Roger Ebert have the guts to defend Million Dollar Baby's
"plausible" message of suicidal disabled people? Would they
offer to helpfully pull the plug on these soldiers? How's that for
a plot twist? Thank God there is another message of hope and
strength inside Walter Reed and in pockets of sanity in this
country. I pray that someday it's a plausible one in Hollywood
and throughout America.

John Hockenberry is an author and correspondent for NBC News.
He lives in New York with his wonderful wife Allison, and their
equally wonderful kids, Zoe, Olivia, Regan and Zachary.

---

 

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Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
John Hockenberry is so cool!
Also, I totally agree. I cannot understand how the HELL can people be against measures to make people's already difficult lives easier?
That I just don't get. Plus, making every building accessable makes perfect sense to me. You make more money that way when more people can get in.
Makes no damn sense, especially what he said about these young soldiers coming home wounded only to find out that their care will be limited.
That is messed up. Seriously messed up.

[ February 17, 2005, 01:56 PM: Message edited by: Synesthesia ]
 

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Posted by newfoundlogic (Member # 3907) on :
 
The article doesn't say anything about the disabled soldiers care being limited so how about we not turn this into a partisan anti-Iraq War thread?

What does anyone know about Jean-Dominique Bauby? I saw on IMDB.com they are making a movie called The Diving Bell and the Butterfly starring Johnny Depp that is being fast-tracked by Universal and is due out sometime next year. Hopefully this will be something positive out of Hollywood even if Depp isn't disabled himself.

Edited to spell "Iraq" right.

[ February 19, 2005, 12:05 AM: Message edited by: newfoundlogic ]
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
nfl,

You're on target with Hockenberry's remarks on wounded soldiers. I suspect that he thinks they're getting good care right now - he was trying to make a different point entirely.

I think I have a copy of Bauby's book lying around here somewhere. I'll have to dig it out sometime in the near future to see what it's really like. If it's radically different from the "mercy killing" themes at the top of the charts right now, I wonder if critics will be tripping all over themselves to praise it to show they're really capable of promoting films about disabled people that don't involve a suicide and/or murder at the end.

On a lighter note - not a bad thing in this thread - our cable now has an "on demand" service that gives a lot of selections that can be played for free at any time. They have 10 of the Three Stooges shorts.

I have been trying to get Diane to understand the Three Stooges. It's tough going.

But the second one we watched was "Punch Drunk" - the first Three Stooges film with Curley as a boxer. (This is the one where it's "Pop Goes the Weasel" that makes him go berserk)

Diane looked unimpressed when it was over. But then I got her to admit she did think it was better than "Million $ Baby."

For some reason, she does not think I should interpret that as an endorsement of the Three Stooges as quality film.

I will continue to work on her, though. Seven more Stooges flicks to go through.
 

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Posted by Eaquae Legit (Member # 3063) on :
 
I don't suppose they have Ants int he Pantry or We Want Our Mummy, do they? Those were two of my favourites...
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Dunno about those two... I'll try to remember to get back to you on that. I'll tell Diane you recommended them.
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Help! Anyone in Dallas still have the Saturday (Feb. 19) copy of the Dallas Morning News and willing to snail mail me a page?

Boxing flick flops in medical circles

quote:

---

Boxing flick flops in medical circles
Patients can refuse care, but film glossed over that, experts say

10:39 AM CST on Saturday, February 19, 2005

By JEFFREY WEISS / The Dallas Morning News

Clint Eastwood's boxing film Million Dollar Baby is taking pre-Oscar body shots from commentators and activists who say the movie is pro-euthanasia or anti-disabled.

Whether those shots are on target, medical experts say there's no question the popular, highly honored film reinforces a widely held misconception that patients can be forced to accept medical treatment they don't want.

American law actually guarantees a mentally competent patient's right to make any medical decision – even if it results in death. Most religious traditions permit patients to make such a choice.

"Nobody did their homework," said Lennard Davis, professor of disability studies and human development at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

The film has been nominated for seven Oscars, including best picture, actor, actress, supporting actor and director. The story is mostly about how an aging boxing promoter, played by Mr. Eastwood, trains a tough but vulnerable woman, played by Hilary Swank, toward a boxing championship.

But the controversies turn on a surprise plot twist that has nothing to do with boxing. We will try to explain the issues without giving away the story, but be warned that we will spill some of the details:

One character, a quadriplegic, asks another character for help dying. The quadriplegic has no feeling or movement below the neck and cannot breathe without the help of a machine. The patient attempts suicide twice by biting down hard on the tongue, hoping to bleed to death.

Emotionally painful angst ensues, with the second character receiving conflicting guidance from a priest and a friend. Finally, the second character walks into the patient's room in the middle of the night, pulls out a syringe and vial full of adrenaline and – does what?

The final decision – to kill or not to kill? – is vital to the plot of the movie but not to explain the debate.

Start with the medical ethics problem: The quadriplegic is a prisoner of the medical center's care – desperately wanting to die and being forced to live. But U.S. law says that no patient should be trapped that way.

"What we have is a case of perpetuated ignorance," said Jeff Shannon, who may be the only quadriplegic in the country reviewing movies for a major newspaper. He freelances for The Seattle Times. (His injury was lower on the spine than the movie character and he lives a mostly independent life.)

He's given the film a good review but is troubled by the way it handles some of the details of disability and medical care.

"Basically, the third act of the movie is utter fantasy," he said. And he doesn't mean that as a compliment.

People like the patient in Million Dollar Baby are anything but fantasy. Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas had a similar patient in 1996.

When she told her doctor she wanted to die, he called in the hospital medical ethics committee, led then and now by Dr. Robert Fine. After several weeks of conversation, counseling and soul searching with the woman, the committee agreed her mind was clear and that she had the right to make her own medical decisions.

A few days later, the hospital complied with her wishes. While surrounded by loved ones, she asked that the chaplain read the 23rd Psalm and the Lord's Prayer. Two hymns were played on a tape recorder. A sedative was put in her IV and she fell asleep.

The ventilator was turned off. A minute or two later, her heart stopped.

Dr. Fine has seen Million Dollar Baby. What troubled him most was how isolated the characters were in the movie.

"He was all alone, left to bear all that burden by himself," Dr. Fine said.

Patients and their loved ones can expect support from the medical staff, he said.

Since a series of legal decisions in the early 1990s, any mentally competent adult patient in America can refuse medical treatment, experts say. That's true for surgery, medication, a blood transfusion or the use of a respirator.

That's true even if the doctor believes the decision will lead inevitably to death. And it's true no matter what physical disabilities are involved, as long as the patient is able to clearly express an opinion.

AMA spells it out

The American Medical Association spells these rights out in its official policies:

"The principle of patient autonomy requires that physicians must respect the decision to forgo life-sustaining treatment of a patient who possesses decision-making capacity."

A right to refuse medical care and die naturally is deeply ingrained in both Jewish and Christian tradition, said Dr. Arthur Caplan, a professor of bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania.

That the right is also guaranteed in American law is not common knowledge, he said. "There are a lot of folks who don't understand what their rights are."

Included in those folks had been Bill O'Reilly, who discussed the issue with Dr. Caplan last week on his Radio Factor talk show.

"Here in the USA you can say it [I want to die] and the hospital can overrule you and keep you alive even if you don't want to be alive," Mr. O'Reilly declared early in the show. Dr. Caplan explained that Mr. O'Reilly was wrong.

Part of his confusion seemed to be between active euthanasia – still illegal in every state but Oregon – and a natural death due to the withdrawal of treatment. Dr. Jack Kevorkian's assisted suicides would not have died immediately, except for the poison he helped administer. He's now in prison, convicted in 1999 of second-degree murder.

Other "right-to-die" cases are also different from the fictional case in Million Dollar Baby or the real Baylor patient. Terry Schiavo in Florida, kept alive by a feeding tube, is unable to express her desires and left no legal end-of-life directive.

Well-known similar fictional stories also differ in important details. The 1981 film Whose Life Is It Anyway and the current Oscar-nominated Spanish movie The Sea Inside are about quadriplegics who want to die. But in both cases, the characters can breathe on their own and live without other medical treatments.

Now weighing in ...

Whether or not they understand the actual legal rights of American patients hasn't stopped many of the critics from weighing in. Conservatives like Mr. O'Reilly say the film is pro-euthanasia. Disability advocates say the movie perpetuates the idea that death is preferable to paralysis, even though thousands of quadriplegics say they are living happy, fulfilling lives.

Mr. Eastwood is a particular target for disability advocates because of his public opposition to the Americans with Disabilities Act, the federal law that guarantees specific right to people with various disabilities.

Mr. Eastwood, who declined to be interviewed for this article, has said that the movie tells a particular story and is faithful to the original short stories written by F.X. O'Toole, a former boxing "cut man," like Mr. Eastwood's character in the movie.

That faithfulness may be exactly the problem, said Dr. Davis from the University of Illinois.

"He's certainly an expert on boxing and on cuts," he said of Mr. O'Toole. "But is he an expert on quadriplegics and dying? Obviously not."

---

Although most people who read this article won't check it, a link to the NDY website is listed with the article. Reading this article - which is otherwise a pretty good discussion - might lead people to believe that the comments about the right to refuse treatment are new and original, and offered due to the wisdom and expertise of physicians and bioethicists quoted.

Y'all have been following this since the beginning, including my original article which listed the misrepresentation of the right to refuse a vent as a major problem with the movie. The "experts" are a little late on the scene.

And they're pissed.

I don't have time to post these right now, but two bioethicists have launched "critiques" of the disability-oriented protests of Million $ Baby. The most recent is by Arthur Caplan and is absolutely vitriolic.

The reason? Caplan believes the people who should the recognized authorities on disability matters are people like him - bioethicists. I think he's really enraged to see that, for once, disability advocates, scholars and activists are actually being heard about matters about us.

So, people like Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd are bending over backwards to write us out of the story. Rush Limbaugh doesn't like us either, I would guess. And now the bioethicists feel threatened.

We must be doing something right.
 

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Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
 
We don't get the paper, but my mother- and father-in-law get the Morning News, and they save their papers. I'll be happy to mail it to you. Do you need the whole thing, or just the section with that article? I will also write to the Morning News again commenting on that article, thanking them for presenting the other side of the story and perhaps elaborating a bit more. Maybe that won't tick them off too much.

[ February 20, 2005, 11:17 AM: Message edited by: ketchupqueen ]
 

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Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
Do you have links to the bioethicist critiques? I'd like to read them.

Dagonee
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
ketchupqueen:

Thanks! All I really need is the page(s)
the article is on - that way I get the newspaper name, date and page number.

You would not believe how many articles people have sent me with little or no info about date or where it was published.

Dag,

I'll dig those out later today. But you might be glad to know that there is a newly formed "Disabled Catholics in Action" - headed up by the former director of the Catholic Office on People with Disabilities. She was "let go" from that position and COPD has been very quiet since then, which may be what the Catholic Conference had in mind, sad to say.

Mary Jane Owen has a bunch of Catholic disability activists on board - I expect them to raise some noise within the Church once they get going.
 

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Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
 
Wow! My aunt is a disabled Catholic who may want to be involved (even just by donating money to help support them or something). Do you have a website or anything on them? Or even an article or two and some contact info?

And we'll be over at my in-laws' tonight. I'll ask for yesterday's paper and find the relevant pages to send to you. Please e-mail me the address you want it sent to (e-mail's in the profile).
 

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Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 

quote:

---

I'll dig those out later today. But you might be glad to know that there is a newly formed "Disabled Catholics in Action" - headed up by the former director of the Catholic Office on People with Disabilities. She was "let go" from that position and COPD has been very quiet since then, which may be what the Catholic Conference had in mind, sad to say.

Mary Jane Owen has a bunch of Catholic disability activists on board - I expect them to raise some noise within the Church once they get going.

---

Thanks. I think I'll get in touch with her. I've had little time to proceed very far on my own project, and maybe I can get them interested in picking up some of my slack.

I know you must be terribly busy leading up to the Oscars, but I hope this publicity will actually do some good.

Dagonee
 

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Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
 
Dagonee, Paralinks has a link to Caplan's article.

I generally am of the opinon that Caplan is sort of like a fluffer-nutter sandwich -- comfortable, not really nutritious, and certainly not pushing the bounds of quality cuisine. Still, very much craved by many. An easy, fluffy, tooth-achingly sweet nub of mental opium.

[Just in case it isn't clear, that is not an endorsement.]

[ February 20, 2005, 12:35 PM: Message edited by: ClaudiaTherese ]
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
CT,

it was clear to me, FWIW.

BTW, Caplan is now officially on the list of people I have annoyed. We've traded jabs at the blog on bioethics.net.

Susan Wolf, who has done some work I respect, also wrote on this. Her piece doesn't scream of contempt, but the agenda is still one of a professional reclaiming his/her turf - and relies on some of the same distortions in Caplan's article.

What 'Million Dollar Baby' has to say about disability and death

(beginning of essay)

quote:

---

"Million Dollar Baby" is Clint Eastwood's provocative movie about the relationship between a crusty trainer named Frankie and Maggie, a determined woman boxer. (Caution: plot details revealed below.) The film is drawing flack for raising serious questions about euthanasia. Conservatives such as Rush Limbaugh and disability rights organizations such as the National Spinal Cord Injury Foundation charge that "Million Dollar Baby" advocates assisted suicide and euthanasia while perpetuating the stereotype that life with quadriplegia is not worth living.

As a bioethicist who has written about assisted suicide and euthanasia for years (opposing the legalization of both), I can spot a confused debate when I see one. A little bioethics might clarify what the film really says about disability and death.

---

quote:

---

Dealing with quality of life decisions about these devastating forms of disability in a thoughtful way — in a movie, book or theatrical presentation — is not selling any kind of value message about disability or, for that matter, promoting a particular ideological agenda. It is using the medium to explore some very tough ethical questions. And that is a very good use of cinema, one that ought to be celebrated not denigrated. (emphasis added)

---

quote:

---

While the movie makes too much of assisted suicide, any movie that can get Americans thinking about questions of life and death gets my vote.

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quote:

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The film is drawing flack for raising serious questions about euthanasia.

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quote:

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Here at Serenity Glen we pride ourselves on being one of the number one destinations for movie actors playing people who have just had a spinal cord injury. We specialize in poignancy, maudlin sentimentality, and quick endings to movies.

Serenity Glen is a fake low level rehabilitation hospital, created by an alliance of movie producers and nursing home advocates. Bring your actors faking disability to our facility, and support the nursing home industry, now under siege from disability rights extremists. Audience members need never know that long-standing attempts to channel money away from nursing homes and into community-based living have been opposed every step of the way by the nursing home lobby and its bought-and-paid-for politicians. You're wealthy friends who own stocks in nursing homes will be very appreciative!

***

We do not allow any of our fake patients to drive their own wheelchairs. Any kind of technology for quadriplegics paralyzed below the neck is off-limits at Serenity Glen. Our motto is "Independence, who needs it?" (Our old motto, "Tod Macht Frei" for some reason made historically-minded audience members nervous.) That way, the helplessness and poignancy of any actor playing a person with a spinal cord injury is dramatically increased. Actors faking concern for the actor faking a spinal cord injury may mention such technology, but only in passing and in the abstract. Audience members won't even know that sip/puff technology is at least 25 years old! Or that other options exist for independence , including environmental controls (lights, speakerphones, appliances, televisions, stereos, doors, drapes, etc.), computer interfaces (voice input that gets faster every year, controlling a mouse by mouth), and ever increasing levels of access in the outside environment. And don't worry, if your lead actor and director opposes real access for real people with disabilities, and even testifies before the real Congress to that effect, your audience will not make the connection.

***

When not in use, our wheelchairs always sit by windows in isolation, and throw long shadows on walls. Indeed, we can even have shadows painted on the walls to insure extra poignancy. You can count on audience members having seen other long shots of wheelchairs isolated by windows, or people sitting alone in wheelchairs by windows. Stir up these memories, use them to your benefit!

***

Our fake respirator does not count as a form of medical intervention. Although real people with tracheostomies have the long-established right to have the tube disconnected while sedated, so that they can die anytime they want to, our facility does not offer this service. Because most audience members don't know this, this makes any fake murder or assisted suicide in our facilities more poignant and sympathetic.

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quote:

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Indeed, we can even have shadows painted on the walls to insure extra poignancy.

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Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
 
That's very funny, although the editing (um, lack of?) made me wince a little...
 

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Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
 
[Re: MDB] It's cheap. Cheap, maudlin, painful.

Clint Eastwood ain't no Ira Glass.

[ February 20, 2005, 01:40 PM: Message edited by: ClaudiaTherese ]
 

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Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
 
I've got the article, Steve. If you could e-mail me or link to the address you want it sent to, I'd appreciate it very much. PO is closed tomorrow, but we'll be going anyway to buy stamps from the vending machine, so it should go out by Tue. morning. I'll try to find time to write a letter to the editor about that article, too.
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Sorry for the delay - been dealing with migraine stuff for the past couple days.

ketchupqueen - my very public work address (and the best place for any clipping to go) is:

Stephen Drake
Not Dead Yet
7521 Madison St.
Forest Park, IL 60130
 

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Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
 
Thanks, that's what I needed. *couldn't find an address on a website if her life depended on it*
 

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Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
 
It will go out tomorrow; sorry, my husband didn't get to the post office for stamps until tonight.
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Some of you have met Diane. Besides being my partner and sweetheart of about 7 1/2 years, she's the founder of NDY.

She wrote her own op-ed about Million $ Baby, but no paper picked it up. That includes the NY Times, which also turned down John Hockenberry.

So we've put her article up on the NDY website. It's a different article than most of the others, and I think it's pretty powerful, although I'm admittedly biased.

Seeing "Million Dollar Baby" from my Wheelchair

quote:

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Seeing Million Dollar Baby From My Wheelchair

By Diane Coleman, J.D.

Many people have told me that they don't think they could "stand to live" if they needed a wheelchair like me. That's why I felt a little queasy about going to see Million Dollar Baby. But helping plan the first disability protest of the movie, in Chicago, I had a duty to see it.

I thought I was emotionally well-prepared. I already knew many details about the last half hour - the injury, hospital, nursing home and killing scenes - from disabled colleagues.

But my preparation was more than that. When I grew up, through braces and surgeries, my elementary school teachers called me "Mary Sunshine." When I completed UCLA law school from a motorized wheelchair, I was called "inspirational." I took it as the highest complement to be told by some non-disabled person that they "didn't think of" me as "handicapped." When I was excluded or rejected in my work or social life, I could always understand the other's perspective.

Even the few times someone would actually say they would rather be dead than be like me, I would just politely forge on.

In my early thirties, sharing experiences with disabled friends, I finally learned how to recognize and constructively resist discrimination. The connection and insights we shared gave me a new lens through which to view my life. Most importantly, I learned to look more clearly at the ways I had internalized the stigma and shame of disability, and began the lifelong struggle to undo the damage done by growing up in isolation from a true sense of community and mutual respect.

In short, a "Jerry's Kid" became a "telethon protester." Over the last two decades of involvement in the disability rights movement, I have faced arrest many times in non-violent protest to help win the right to ride the bus, and the right to not be forced into a nursing home because of the need for assistance to live. During Kevorkian's heyday in assisting the suicides of middle-aged disabled women, I founded a national disability rights group called Not Dead Yet. Using a ventilator at night since 2002, it's become even more personal.

I came into the theater, wanting to flee quickly when Million Dollar Baby was over. I sat through the whole movie without removing my coat, scarf, hat or gloves.

Queasy stomach, wish to flee - not typical for me anymore. Moreover, the threat of assisted suicide and euthanasia are daily fare for Not Dead Yet. We fight to be heard over the loud voices of players on both sides whose interests should be readily seen as, at best, secondary to the organized voice of those society says are "better off dead." So many of us have died too young, never getting a real chance to live.

In the midst of all that reality, what makes a fictional movie like Million Dollar Baby so disturbing that I want to flee?

As the movie unfolded to its star-powered conclusion, audience members sniffled in pitiful admiration of Maggie's determination to die rather than move on and leave her non-disabled life behind. They were deeply moved by Frankie's redemption through fatherly love, his wish to help her live and his profound sacrifice in giving up everything he had to free her from her "frozen" body. This is the bittersweet ending that inspires so much acclaim.

As I watched, I thought about the impact the movie would have on severely disabled people surrounded only by doctors, nurses and mixed up, grieving family and friends.

Swept along in the emotion, could any audience member imagine a happy and meaningful life for Maggie as a quad? For him or herself as a quad?

It took me another week to get in touch with my deeper personal discomfort.

Could people imagine a happy and meaningful life for me? Could they see that I am not living a fate worse than death?

I've always felt a tension between how others see me and how I see myself. By now, that tension, and my coping mechanisms, are way below the surface. Denial, the fantasy of acceptance, I have used whatever I could to endure and manage over 50 years of those looks, and looks away, to be who I am out in the world everyday.

But now I am forced to see how critics and audiences love this movie, resent our anger, and extol the virtues of open public discussion of euthanasia based on disability. My fantasy is ripped away.

If I'd been truly prepared, I'd have brought a sign to hold up, saying, "I Am Not Better Off Dead." I would have looked into every face exiting the theater, insisting that they see me, and this simple yet apparently incomprehensible message.

Diane Coleman, J.D. is President of Not Dead Yet and Executive Director of Progress Center for Independent Living, in Forest Park, Illinois.

---

 

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Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
Awesome op-ed. *has a few questions*
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Syn,

You can ask questions, but I beg for patience when it comes to answers. The next 72 hours are going to be very busy. Possibly longer, but I'll try. Just bear with me. I am much more dependent on caffeine and momentum in terms of functioning than I like to be.

PS - I think it's awesome, too.
 

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Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
 
Oh wow, that's fantastic.
 

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Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
 
Okay - well, apparently Clint Eastwood has agreed to talk today on Bill O'Reilly's show tonight, and debate with him on the movie. At least that's what it says on FoxNews' promo...

FG
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
FG, that's not really a good thing, you know.

For one thing, we can pretty much count on both O'Reilly and Eastwood to stick to the script: he's being attacked by religious conservatives *only*.

For another, O'Reilly will probably treat him with great deference.

Finally, I don't know how O'Reilly is on other topics, because I've only watched him when he's covered euthanasia, Terri Schiavo, etc. When he's covered those things, he hasn't bothered to think things through or even begin to do the most basic fact-checking. Something he has in common with Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich - who are guilty of the same thing when pontificating on this subject.
 

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Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
 
Guess we will just have to wait and see...

edit:

quote:

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When he's covered those things, he hasn't bothered to think things through or even begin to do the most basic fact-checking.

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quote:

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In fact, the "Left" has been embracing this movie. I think it's disability activists against the world. Unfortunately.

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quote:

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Drake says neither the left nor the right truly claims disability issues as their own. Both "are really just invested in their broader culture war -- with neither side seeing us as part of the culture they're defending. We're simply collateral damage.

"Liberals say, 'we support the social programs that you depend on, that you agree with -- and because we do that, we should have your unqualified support, even when we support every 'better dead than disabled' cause that comes along.' Folks on the right say, 'Look, we're out there on the protest line in Florida; we're fighting for the lives of people like Terri Schiavo, so we should get your unqualified support, no matter how much we cut the social programs you need to function and even survive.'"

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Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
Stephen, please tell Diane her piece is wonderful.
 

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Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
 
Tough stuff, Steve. I can see both sides of the issue, and am torn by it myself more than a little. While I have the utmost respect for you and the work you do, I also have known people who have argued the opposite side for themselves, and I felt at the time that they had the right to be heard as well, particularily when speaking about their own lives.

There just isn't an easy way of dealing with this stuff, you know? Of course, you know that better than I do, from personal experience..

I do know that listening to you has made me think a lot about it again, after years of having made up my mind, and That I have no desire to see this movie now. I even got mad at the radio today driving my wife to work...they were picking Oscar picks, and I got pissed that teh guy, who I usually like a lot, was picking MDB.

So at least you know you have had an effect on one persons decision ( actually, far more than one if this thread is any judge) about this movie, right?
 

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Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
I dislike those organizations, but I am definetly on your side. Those sorts of attitudes make me mad enough to see red.
What sort of disability does Diane have?
And why are both sides not listening to the disabled?
Several people keep predicting MDB will win, which annoys me because FN deserves it so much.... *Sigh*

[ February 25, 2005, 07:54 PM: Message edited by: Synesthesia ]
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Anyone get this paper and maybe send me the page with this article by snail mail? Please?

Duane Dudek contacted me a couple weeks ago. He's the only film critic to have done so. This is a well-researched and thoughtful piece (it doesn't cut all our way) that seeks out points of view from people with disabilities and other sources:

Disabilities in films spark debate

quote:

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Disabilities in films spark debate
By DUANE DUDEK
Journal Sentinel film critic
Last Updated: Feb. 26, 2005
Any Oscars that will be awarded Sunday to "Million Dollar Baby" and its director and star Clint Eastwood will be over the objections of activist members of the disability community.

If you're unaware of any controversy, it may be because what a non-disabled audience - including film critics, who were loath to reveal its plot - saw as a work of art, some people with disabilities regarded as an imitation of life, their lives, and they didn't like what they saw.

But when it turned out others had different reasons for not liking the film, the debate became hijacked by constituencies still gnawing on the bones of the electoral carcass.

All this puts the film - which is nominated for seven Oscars, including best picture - in a box, and puts the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in a bind.

Win or lose, the question can be asked: Was it judged on its merits or was it affected by the controversy?

Whatever the outcome, it is not the first time, and surely not the last, that people with disabilities will have found themselves at odds with Hollywood. Nor, for that matter, at odds with Eastwood.

Oscar history is a roll call of disabilities, including a blind Al Pacino, a quadriplegic Daniel Day-Lewis and a developmentally disabled Tom Hanks and Dustin Hoffman.

Other nominated films this year that deal with some type of disability include "Ray," about the blind singer-musician Ray Charles; "The Aviator," about the obsessive-compulsive eccentric Howard Hughes; and Spain's nominee for best foreign-language film "The Sea Inside," about a suicidal man with quadriplegia played by Javier Bardem.

If you're in the mood to stretch a point, you could even argue that the two men in "Sideways" are in some way developmentally arrested.

"Unless I'm missing somebody, I don't think anyone was nominated" for playing a disabled person "in the first 20 years" of the Academy, said Damien Bona, author of "Inside Oscar."

"And the first person to win was someone who was" disabled, he said, referring to Harold Russell, a double amputee who won best supporting actor and honorary Oscars for 1946's "The Best Years of Our Lives."

In recent decades, Oscar voters have favored roles with disabilities "because it's obvious the person is acting," said Bona. And actors are drawn to them, he added, because "once you clue into the disability, that's all there is to it.

"But it's more or less a gimmick. It's by and large surface acting."

Tragedy begets controversy
What this has to do with "Million Dollar Baby" requires an explanation that those who have not seen the film may want to avoid.

The film, adapted from a short story by F.X. Toole by Oscar nominee Paul Haggis, has elevated the kind of plot twist found in "The Crying Game" and "The Sixth Sense" - the woman's a guy and the guy's a ghost, respectively - into a moral debate.

A disclaimer
The film's plot twist will now be revealed and explored.

On the surface, and in the advertisements, "Million Dollar Baby" is the story of a female boxer, played by Oscar nominee Hilary Swank, and the trainer, played by Eastwood, with whom she develops a father-daughter relationship. Midway through the film, Swank becomes paralyzed in the ring. And what was an uplifting underdog story turns into a tragic portrait about her choice of death over quadriplegia and of the agonizing struggle that Eastwood's character, a practicing if conflicted Roman Catholic, goes through in deciding whether to assist her.

And that has turned the film into a tug-of-war between abortion opponents and abortion-rights supporters.

"The religious right and so-called progressives would like to define these issues as part of their culture war," said Stephen Drake, a Forest Park, Ill., research analyst for the disability group Not Dead Yet. "Neither side wants to respect our stake in this issue."

And their stake is a matter of life and death.

Discussions of euthanasia revolve around "certain people, the old, the ill and the disabled," and the assumption that "these lives are less valuable," said Drake, who has hydrocephalus, caused by a brain injury at birth.

"What are we supposed to think if 'The Sea Inside' and 'Million Dollar Baby' win best picture awards for their categories? Are we supposed to believe, through a startling coincidence, that those were the best movies made this year, or is something else going on with people's attitudes?"

Uneasy cultural surrogates
Cultural portraits of disability are problematic at best. Films like "Stuck on You" or "There's Something About Mary," both by Bobby and Peter Farrelly, "take disability and give it this culturally accepted stereotypical portrayal and use it for humor," said Chris Smit, an assistant professor at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich.

Smit teaches media theory and criticism and edited "Screening Disability," a collection of essays on film and disability.

Since many in the disability community "have a myopic focus," said Smit, it's no surprise that they find film portraits of disability to be "negative and oppressive."

Often, the role is used to provide "inspiration" or to enhance our understanding of a villain, Smit said.

For instance, "Rain Man" - in which Oscar winner Dustin Hoffman played a developmentally disabled man - "could be seen as negative because it stereotypes people with autism, makes them mystical and spiritual, with an extra ability in terms of math skills," said Smit.

But when looking at "disability within the framework of the entire film" and as a portrait of human relationships, "autism works in the narrative as a way to develop our understanding of how we interact with difference," said Smit, who has spinal muscular atrophy.

Because "the disability activist rights movement has not garnered the social attention" of other minority groups and "the number of disabled people who are visible in society is quite small," Smit said, people have a limited understanding of the disabled and films become a sort of cultural surrogate.

A backstory of contention
Enter "Million Dollar Baby," whose sentimental material "is very much in Clint's tradition," said Patrick McGilligan, the Milwaukee-based author of "Clint: The Life and Legend." "The story construction creates an emotional wallop that is sympathetic with the hero, which is a constant factor in his work."

Drake said Eastwood "stacks the deck" in "Million Dollar Baby" by building "a scene of horrors that gets the audience emotionally on board with him by the time the killing happens. (Swank) is in total isolation. It's not bad enough that she's paralyzed; this healthy woman with top-flight medical care gets pressure sores and has an amputation."

But what some dismiss as dramatic convenience, others condemn as a sort of payback.

"Clint Eastwood has a history of problems in the disability community," said Mary Johnson, editor of Ragged Edge, a disability-rights publication founded in 1980 that is now an online journal (www.raggededgemagazine.com). "The National Spinal Cord (Injury) Association has been infuriated with that man for years."

Johnson said that after Eastwood was sued for not providing wheelchair access at an inn he owns in at Carmel, Calif., he "pursued a scorched-earth policy" against the Americans with Disabilities Act "and gained a lot of enemies" in the disability community.

McGilligan doesn't think the disability community is wrong in seeing a connection.

"They've interpreted the film according to the filmmaker's previous work and ideas," he said. "There's a thin line between saying, in 'Dirty Harry,' 'You're a disgusting criminal and I'm going to shoot you' and 'You're a wonderful spunky boxer who's going to have a horrible life.' "

When "disability is painted darkly or as the end of something, it gets a lot of people in the disability community nervous," said Smit. "On the other hand, is this story trying to tell us something? I'm sure Clint Eastwood isn't saying disability should be the end of everything. Maybe he wants us to grapple with that (issue)."

Smit is "a proponent of the idea that art . . . is there to make us deal with difficult questions, and if you take away that ability, which I think some people are . . . that to me seems scary and totalitarian."

Spoilers and surprises
Drake said he was surprised by the response to the protest by commentators and critics who reacted "as if revealing the end of the movie was like yelling fire in a movie theater."

"Artists can say whatever they want, but we have rights to free speech, too," he said.

Smit, for one, believes that "we are moving toward an era in film and TV in which the portrayal of disability is becoming more sophisticated and . . . a little more positive."

And one of the best such films is yet to come.

"Murderball," a documentary about wheelchair rugby players, is scheduled to open this summer.

One of its stars is Mark Zupan, a tattooed and charismatic civil engineer from Austin, Texas, who lived in Pewaukee during the 1980s. Zupan was the toast of Park City, Utah, when the film premiered during the Sundance Film Festival last month.

"Murderball" "breaks down barriers" and "answers questions people won't ask," said Zupan, who was paralyzed in a traffic accident.

He has not seen "Million Dollar Baby," but he feels strongly that "Murderball" will heighten awareness of disability sports and improve perceptions about people with disabilities.

"It's not just a good movie," he said. "It's about how you can (confront) something that's certainly life-changing and start a new life, and then take it far beyond what your life was before. You find out what you can do, and don't let the thing you're sitting in ruin your dreams.

"I've done more in a chair than I've done out. I've met more people, done more things and had more experiences. I've affected people in ways I don't think I ever did in the past.

"I wouldn't," Zupan said, "change my life."

---

quote:

---

Other nominated films this year that deal with some type of disability include "Ray," about the blind singer-musician Ray Charles

---

I can see the problem/issue with casting non-disabled people in roles playing disabled people in most cases. In What's Eating Gilbert Grape, why not have an actually intellectually disabled person playing the role instead of Leonard DiCaprio?

But in the case of Ray Charles, an actual person, I think casting on the basis of appearance and voice similarity has to win out over casting on the basis of blindness.

[As I said - off the topic. And probably not contentious. Oh well. ]
 

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Posted by Jeni (Member # 1454) on :
 
I get the Milwaukee JS. You can email the address in my profile.
 

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Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
 
Jeni, he posted the address he needs it sent to above (for me). He told me he needs just the page(s) the article in question is on (so it has the name and date of the publication on it). I think that's probably what he needs from you, too.
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Address again (not private at all, it's all over the internet):

Stephen Drake
Not Dead Yet
7521 Madison St.
Forest Park, IL 60130

Thanks! Yes - just the page. I like the article. He's a very unusual film critic. They probably wouldn't let him play in critic games here in Chicago (strained "Rudolph" analogy).
 

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Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
 
Saw it.

What an entirely bizarre movie this was, when you think about it. The driving premise for the big denouement is so unreal that the film becomes almost Felliniesque.

Yes, her surrogate father must inject her with epinephrine and unplug the vent, because of course there are no other options. And the flying pigs smoking candy cigars were bound to fly out of Eastwood's bum, too, because that is where he keeps his secret passage to the Pentagon.

WTF??

I need to write my review.
 

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Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
 
There you go spoiling again, CT...at least all the other critics manage to save some suprises for us, but no-you hav to go and reveal ALL the plot devices.


My favorite was the pink flying pigs with the cigars.

[ February 27, 2005, 02:28 PM: Message edited by: Kwea ]
 

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Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
 


I mean, seriously, the plot twist is so outre that at one point it also brought to mind Eraserhead.

Thanks, Clint. 'preciated that, too.

The film should be reviewed as an out-there surreal art film student flick. I think that's exactly what I will do.

[ February 27, 2005, 02:38 PM: Message edited by: ClaudiaTherese ]
 

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Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
If the film created a realistic hypothetical that presented difficult questions, I wouldn't have nearly as big a problem with it even if the decision were the same. As Dana said, this movie went out of its way to avoid dealing with the question.
 

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Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
 
Well...the academy of motion picture arts and sciences just displayed a collosal lack of something. Not sure what.

Having actually NOT seen the film, I can't say much about it, but I'm disappointed that it won so many awards.

Sorry Steve.


 

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Posted by Narnia (Member # 1071) on :
 
As well as the Sea Inside...two films about assisted suicide won major awards this year.

[ February 27, 2005, 11:46 PM: Message edited by: Narnia ]
 

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Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
 

quote:

---

I mean, seriously, the plot twist is so outre that at one point it also brought to mind Eraserhead.

---

quote:

---

If you're in the mood to stretch a point, you could even argue that the two men in "Sideways" are in some way developmentally arrested.

---

quote:

---

"But it's more or less a gimmick. It's by and large surface acting."

---

quote:

---

Silly me..I thought movies were all about the story.

---

If that were the case then there would be no need to have actors. No need for actors of any quality anyway. You could just hire any bunch of people off the street and point some cameras at them while they read the script.
 

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Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :
 
I try to not care much about what the Academy says. I see very little of it as actual objective evaluation - it seems that every year there's an agenda to push.

This, though, did make me sad.

Something Imogen said reminded me of a recommendation -

quote:

---

why not have an actually intellectually disabled person playing the role?

---

A French film from 199(6?) actually did this. It's called Le Huitième Jour (The Eighth Day) and won a dual Best Actor award at Cannes for Daniel Auteuil (you may know him from Jean de Florette) and Pascal Duquenne, a remarkable actor who actually has Down Syndrome. It's one of my favorite films of all time. Last I checked, it hadn't come out on DVD in America, though there is an American video version so chances are a good rental store will have a copy. I highly recommend it.
 

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Posted by mothertree (Member # 4999) on :
 
I usually love the Oscars, record them and watch the good bits over and over. I sat out this year, which I've only done one other time when "American Beauty" was the odds on favorite. I'm not sure how I would have reacted if I had boycotted the Oscars and MDB didn't win. But it did so (_|_) Academy.
 

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Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
 
Sax, I didn't say that all the rest didn't mater. I just said that to me it is all about the story. Bad acting can ruin a movie, no doubt...but I have rarely (if ever) see a movie where the story sucked that I felt was worht the price of admission.

At least if the story is good I might be able to read the book it is based on.

Kwea
 

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Posted by saxon75 (Member # 4589) on :
 
Fair enough, and there are plenty of people out there who feel the same way. Just bear in mind that there are also plenty of people who don't.
 

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Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
 
(aside: mothertree, I'm one of the few people I know who really can not stand American Beauty, but I never really understood why. Why don't you like it? I don't want to hijiack the thread, but I'd really like to know another person's opinion on the film that is less than one of praise.)
 

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Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :
 
I hate American Beauty and I've never seen it. But I suppose that doesn't make me very qualified to chat about it.
 

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Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
 
Is there something in it that is objectionable to you, Annie? I just never understand why I could not bring myself to like it...
 

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Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
 
I didn't like it at all, and I did see it.
 

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Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :
 
I just read the reviews and got mad about society in general and the kind of things we find acceptable.
 

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Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
The one frustrating thing about American Beauty is-

Spoiler-When watching it with a group of people usually they will groan in agony when that guy kisses the other guy, but when Lester is pawing at that skinny little girl, they don't say a word...
This bothers me for some reason.
Lots of things bother me.
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Well, it probably needs edits, but here's the draft press release. I'll deal with it again after I get a few hours of sleep. I took a nap tonight, but I have a feeling I'm not going to feel like I got enough sleep tomorrow - again.

Press release (just title and body):

quote:

---

Disability Advocates Call Oscars "Kill the Cripples" Night

According to Motion Picture Academy voters, the best “cripple” is
a dead “cripple.” The two awards for “best motion picture” – foreign
and American – both went to movies centered on sympathetic
portrayals of the killing of quadriplegics. “The Sea Inside” won best
foreign film. “Million Dollar Baby” nearly swept the awards – with
Oscars awarded for best actress, best supporting actor, best director,
and finally – best picture.

“This is a clear statement on the Hollywood industry’s opinion of
people with disabilities,” says Diane Coleman, president of Not
Dead Yet, a national disability rights group opposed to legalization
of assisted suicide and euthanasia. “They grudgingly made
accessibility changes when Chris Reeve complained about accessibility
at the Kodak Theater, where the Oscar event is held. They love us if
we’re begging for a cure or begging to die. Once we start talking
about our rights, we see their interest and sympathy disappear.”

Fortunately, the American public itself might not be as enthralled
with the “kill the cripple” theme as members of the Hollywood industry.
According to a Harris poll released on February 23, respondents had
“The Aviator” and “Ray” in a close race for their top choices, with
“Million Dollar Baby” a distant third.

“It’s clear the Hollywood industry loves nothing more than a story
about a disabled person begging to die and having a nondisabled
‘friend’ do it,” says Stephen Drake, research analyst for Not Dead
Yet. “There are many films with great acting, better scripts and
better direction. They don’t get awards. The reason “Sea Inside”
and “Million Dollar Baby” end up winners is that obviously the
theme hits a deep emotional cord, at least with Hollywood industry
members and movie critics.”

Drake also credits critics and commentators for helping to build the
film’s popularity. They did, that, he says, by marginalizing or
eliminating mention of concerns about the movie coming from the
disability community. Commentators on the right and left portrayed
the controversy as one of conservatives vs. Hollywood. Such
politically diverse figures such as Roger Ebert, Michael Medved,
Frank Rich, Rush Limbaugh, Maureen Dowd, Pat Buchanan and
Gary Thomson all found one thing they have in common: Their
willingness to ignore and marginalize the disability community to
bolster their own volleys in their “culture wars.”

“I guess we should be grateful for one thing,” says Drake. “At least
there wasn’t an animated feature about killing a disabled person.
We’d be looking at a clean sweep then.”

###

---

 

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Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
 
I liked the touch about the animated freture about it, Steve....

Although they might take up the challenge on that if you goad them into it...
 

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Posted by Kama (Member # 3022) on :
 
From the biggest Polish newspaper (translation by Kama):

quote:

---

In the recent weeks, when the movie was becoming more and more popular, it evoked a noisy protest campaigne of conservative right TV commentators and talk-radio stations. It was accused of promoting the idea of euthanaia. However, this type of protests could only help Eastwood's movie, instead of harming the Academy votes.

---

quote:

---

“I guess we should be grateful for one thing,” says Drake. “At least
there wasn’t an animated feature about killing a disabled person.
We’d be looking at a clean sweep then.”

---

quote:

---

According to Motion Picture Academy voters, the best “cripple” is a dead “cripple.”

---

Stephen, I'm pretty sure that the reason you have "cripple" in quotation marks is that it's not the sort of word that should ever be used to describe a person, but it kind of makes it look like you're actually quoting the Academy.
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Sax,

my short reply would be:

and your point is...?

Look, this isn't a level playing field. Between the columnists at the NY Times, Roger Ebert, the Warner Bros PR Machine, etc., I don't think there's too much chance there will be any misunderstanding here. Frankly, I prefer to argue in terms much more level than say, Arthur Caplan, not that this says much.

If the playing field isn't level and the game is about you, you do what you can within reason to reduce the edge of the other side. We can be inflammatory with our rhetoric and stand a chance of actually getting heard or we can just say polite things and continue to be ignored. Not really a hard choice, is it?

Try reading this thread through. The inflammatory (but justified) rhetoric is a "door-opener" - it allowed for measured, reasoned statements from myself and others through interviews and op-eds.

Until the NY Times and others started pretending we didn't exist, that is.
 

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Posted by saxon75 (Member # 4589) on :
 
You don't think that misrepresenting your opponent gives people a reason to discount everything reasonable you say?
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
It's not misrepresentation - it's dramatic license. More accurately, it's inflammatory.

There's more than one way to interpret the use of quotation marks, btw. When the press release is actually read by someone, it becomes pretty clear they're "scare quotes."

And the technique works.
 

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Posted by saxon75 (Member # 4589) on :
 
Aside from which, I wasn't even arguing about the actual content of the sentence. I mean, I highly doubt that you could honestly characterize the Academy voters as thinking that "the only good 'cripple' is a dead 'cripple.'" I mean, the awards this year most likely indicate that either the Academy voters are ignorant enough not to notice the plot holes and so were voting based on the strength of the performances and filmcraft, or that they had had the plot holes pointed out and still thought that the performances and filmcraft deserved recognition. Accusing the entire Hollywood machine--or at least that part of it that decides the Oscars--of wanting all disabled people dead is obviously a mischaracterization, and while it makes me uncomfortable to have somebody I respect say things that are so grossly and purposely inaccurate I understand your reasons for doing so and to a certain extent agree. But I wasn't talking about the sentence as a whole, I was just talking about the quotation marks. Leaving them out implies that you are interpreting or paraphrasing their words or actions. Leaving them in makes it look like you are quoting them, which personally worries me that you are opening yourself up to libel charges.
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Sax,

I'm really not worried about being sued for libel. I'm not up on the specifics of the law, but the more public the figure, the more flexibility you have in what you can say. (The words in the press release are mild compared to some of the stuff coming from the religious right, for example.) I'm also not sure libel applies to a nebulous group - it's generally applied to an individual. Look up the libel suit Jerry Falwell lost against Larry Flynt sometime, though.

It also just got the Okey-dokey from PRweb, which tends to be careful, even though the have disclaimers about responsibility for content.

Don't assume that reason and rational discourse will get anyone to pay any attention to you unless they already agree with you. It's a pretty foul reality, but it's the real world we need to deal with, not the world as we would have it be.
 

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Posted by saxon75 (Member # 4589) on :
 
::shrug:: Well, I guess if you're not worried about it then I shouldn't either.
 

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Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 


Alas, sndrake, that type of technique riles me. I wish you wouldn't use it.

It makes me less sympathetic to your cause.
 

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Posted by saxon75 (Member # 4589) on :
 

quote:

---

Don't assume that reason and rational discourse will get anyone to pay any attention to you unless they already agree with you. It's a pretty foul reality, but it's the real world we need to deal with, not the world as we would have it be.

---

quote:

---

I'd submit it's irrational to have irritation at me be a reason to be less sympathetic to the cause.

---

quote:

---

Suggest some alternatives that don't involve being so polite we're ignored.

---

quote:

---

Nationally syndicated columnists Frank Rich and Gary Thomson have both admitted in private correspondence that their elimination or marginalization of attacks on MDB coming from disability groups was intentional. Their columns framed the issue solely as a right vs. left thing. And so did Pat Buchanan and others on his side, for that matter.

---

quote:

---

I'm with you. Do whatever it takes to be noticed. Even if you have to play their same game, or be harsh. It doesn't turn me off from your cause because the outrage is justifiable.

---

Syn, thanks, but there are always limits. For one thing, NDY follows a strictly nonviolent approach. We also make sure we're on a solid factual foundation - always. Unlike people who are "authorities" like Arthur Caplan, we have to be accurate about claims we make, because, unlike "recognized authorities," we'll be challenged.
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
DKW,

Thanks. I am very tired and it was nice to have someone talk about power inequities besides myself - and Syn, of course.
 

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Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
No violence of course, Violence is so impolite. And, also having the honest truth helps too...
But, I am not against a good strong effective offense as long as it is tempored with wisdom.

Cool points DKW...
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Just to give you a good and current example of what we're up against in terms of not only writing us out of the story, but "rewriting" it in other ways, there's this from today's NY Times:

'Million Dollar Baby' Dominates Oscars

quote:

---

And no great controversy - with the exception of a late-breaking protest by advocates for the disabled, who objected to the portrayal of an assisted suicide in "Million Dollar Baby" - enlivened the run up to this year's Oscars.

---

Late-breaking?

The film was in limited release until mid-January. Our Chicago protest was held before the national opening of the film. One of the two authors of this piece wrote about us in the NY Times on January 31. Considering the limited release only happened around Christmas, my "call to arms" review came out on January 11th, how does this all qualify as "late-breaking?"

Answer: It doesn't.

So, good people, how do you deal with the rewriting of history? Write letters to the editor knowing full well that the Times will just refuse to run them? (The only reply they ran to Frank Rich's column was from a religious conservative. There were at least a dozen letters from people within the disability community who sent responses to that column.)

Nice touch, though. One more reason to marginalize us. Not a true reason, but not too many people will notice, so it will work.

[ February 28, 2005, 03:07 PM: Message edited by: sndrake ]
 

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Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
Advocates of the disabled?
Damn, those people are clueless and I have more reasons to hate the Oscars. For some reason it made me mad that they took so long to give an oscar for best actress to someone black.
It takes so long for things to change -_-.
 

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Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
 
It's quite annoying when they don't even ackowledge reciept of your letters to the editor.
 

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Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
It's annoying, but it is understandable, considering how many they must get.
 

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Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
 
I'd just like to chip in that through this thread I've pretty much consistantly agreed with Dag, but I wanted to add that I have enormous respect for Clint Eastwood as a director, he can bring a powerful movie to the screen, Unforgiven was, in my opinion a classic.

That's all.

Hobbes
 

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Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
 
But Dag, you'd think they could at least send an auto-reply e-mail. (I write my letters in e-mail form, as it's the paper's preferred mode of communication, and it's cheaper, faster, and easier.)
 

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Posted by Jay (Member # 5786) on :
 
Million Dollar Baby -- A Missed Opportunity
 

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Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
 
NPR this morning had a report on the Oscars. I was disappointed to hear the reporter sum up the controversy about this film with the phrase:

"Million Dollar Baby has earned criticism for showing the consequences of boxing."

Um...is anyone anywhere even talking about how boxing might CAUSE the ethical dilemmas?

Ugh.

I think Stephen is right...reviewers (who are essentially "Hollywood beat reporters" will go to great lengths not to tick off the power-elite. Whether she was hoping to not divulge the surprise ending or was deliberately miscasting the controversy so that Clint would like her...it still trivialized one of the most important social issues we're grappling with today.

IMHO, of course.
 

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Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
I've been involved in two issues that got national coverage (only one of them as an advocate), and the most frustrating thing is how quickly such stories get turned into team A v. team B. Complex issues are devolved into X and ~X, seemingly overnight. There's no room for nuance.

It's even more frustrating when you have to rely on one of the teams to get legal help.

Dagonee

[ February 28, 2005, 07:21 PM: Message edited by: Dagonee ]
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Well, Diane and I are both developing a nice collection of hate mail. It's nothing new to me. The first piece I ever received was from a mother of a teenager with severe disabilities. That woman's crusade in life was to be able to kill off her daughter before she herself died - would rather hand her to death than to strangers.

That was just about ten years ago.

The really amazing thing is that some of Diane's email is related to her own powerful piece, which will be reprinted in several places now, including a journal devoted to anti-racism.

I can understand the venom directed at us over some of our stuff - but Diane's piece? Some people really are vile.

There's some other stuff, too. I'll post later.
 

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Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
*Cannot understand how anyone can write hate mail in response to those.*
But, I'm glad Diane's piece is being printed in a lot of places because that is quite cool..
 

---

Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
(This is the kind of long-term impact we're hoping to see more of. This columnist read Diane's essay and went thinking beyond the issue of "Million Dollar Baby." It's a really great column - and the issues are the same ones being faced in most states right now. Today's news says there will be at least 40 billion cut from federal medicaid funds.)

Blunt's budget backs disabled into tough corner

quote:

---

Columbia Daily Tribune (Missouri)
TRIBUNE COLUMN
Blunt’s budget backs disabled in Missouri into tough corner

By TONY MESSENGER
Published Tuesday, March 1, 2005

Gov. Matt Blunt’s first budget is his million-dollar baby.

The brutal document landed on the legislative canvas with the thud
of a boxer going down for the count. It’s not pretty, but that doesn’t
bother the governor, who promised his constituents a government
that would cut back and not raise taxes. Having promised not to
take money from the mouths of school babes, Blunt had no choice
but to target the biggest heavyweight of all: Medicaid.

He slashed with impunity, lowering qualifying levels to those who
don’t even have the federal poverty line in sight. He added co-pays
and cut entire programs. His targets were the fringes of society,
folks whom most of us don’t want to think much about anyway.
The elderly. The poor. The disabled.

The governor says he has no choice. Times are tough. Money doesn’t
grow on trees.

In fact, we always have a choice. That’s what Academy Award
director Clint Eastwood showed us in his critically acclaimed movie
that took home four Oscars. We often have tough choices, the kind
of life and death decisions that tell the world of our character. It was
the choice of the main character in "Million Dollar Baby" that made
some in the disabled community recoil in horror at the ultimate
message in the same way they’re responding in anger to Blunt’s
budget. It’s my choice to give away the plot in this column. It’s your
choice to stop reading now if you don’t want to know it.

In the movie, Hilary Swank’s paralyzed former boxer, Maggie,
chooses death rather than a life in a wheelchair.

The decision didn’t bother me. Maybe it’s because I’m such an
Eastwood fan that I was predisposed to an ending that provoked
thought more than it uplifted. But after I read Diane Coleman’s
words, I came to a deeper understanding of what bothers some
disabled people about the movie. Coleman is the president of
Not Dead Yet, an advocacy group for disabled folks. She lives her
life in a wheelchair and is one of the folks bothered by the movie.

"Many people have told me that they don’t think they could
‘stand to live’ if they needed a wheelchair like me," Coleman wrote
in a column she posted on her group’s Web site. It’s easy for
non-disabled folks to feel Maggie’s pain as she decides to die in
the movie, Coleman notes. It’s easy for them to sympathize with
trainer Frankie as he fulfills Maggie’s death wish. It’s too easy,
she says, for folks to sniffle "in pitiful admiration of Maggie’s
determination to die rather than move on and leave her non-disabled
life behind."

It’s much harder, Coleman says, to look at her and imagine the life
she leads as something of quality. It’s why the movie made her queasy.

That’s the feeling Tammy Jennings had when she heard of Blunt’s
proposed budget cuts. Jennings, too, uses a wheelchair and gets
by with a personal assistant who helps her shop, bathe, eat and
dress each day. She sent me an e-mail using a device in which
she uses a pointer attached to her head.

The Columbia resident is 39 and has cerebral palsy. She is in the
process of buying her own home, though now she’s reconsidering.

"Blunt might as well shoot the elderly and disabled people, because
they can’t afford the medications they need to live," she says.

Jennings isn’t alone in her anger. Luci Bruyneel wrote to tell me
she would end up in a nursing home if she loses her personal
care services. Cindy Eckstein fears the same thing.

In fact, says Mark Stone of Services for Independent Living, that’s
the terrible truth of many of Blunt’s proposed budget cuts. Personal
care services funded by Medicaid keep disabled folks living and
working in our community. That’s better for our economy and in
the long run cheaper than warehousing them in nursing homes.

"What they don’t understand is that this year’s budget cuts will cost
us more than they’re going to save," Stone says. His organization
serves disabled folks in a six-county Mid-Missouri region. Blunt’s
counter-punch on his seemingly uncaring cuts is that he cares
about the people he’s hurting but wants other segments of society
to take care of their needs. Blunt’s plan shifts the care of the
neediest Missourians to insurance companies, charities and,
ultimately, right back to different parts of the Medicaid program.

Stone and other advocates hope to convince state legislators that
cutting Medicaid funding to disabled folks costs more than it saves.
He thinks he can make a real dollar-for-dollar case that Blunt is just
wrong, but mostly he wants us to see the disabled as people who
make hard choices to live the way they want to live.

"They’re ignoring the human factor of taking a person out of the
community and putting them in a nursing home," Stone says.

That human factor is what Coleman says is so easy for non-disabled
folks to see right through.

We can’t look past the wheelchair. Neither could a fictional young
boxer living in a nursing home who just wanted to die.

As moviegoers, we applauded her courage.

If Blunt’s budget passes in its current form, the noise we hear won’t
be clapping.

It will be the enormous thud of an entire community going down for
the count.

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"Since 1990 there are laws that allow (cognitive) patients to refuse treatment. A quadriplegic on a respirator could simply ask to be disconnected from the device. Doctors would have done so and administered a sedative so the person could die peacefully."

But Eastwood chose to have his character "illegally enter the hospital and disconnect the device."

That "would make her gasp like a fish on the shore," says Stephen Drake, whose mother was told he'd be a vegetable. Stephen is now research analyst for Not Dead Yet, a disability rights group.

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Disability rights activist Diane Coleman of Not Dead Yet, whom I've known for years, points out that message: "Some of the (film's) audience will be newly disabled people, their family members and friends, swept along in the critically acclaimed emotion that the kindest response to someone struggling with the life changes brought on by a severe injury is, after all, to kill them."

Obviously, a filmmaker has the right to send any message he or she wants, or send no message at all. But Clint Eastwood should not be surprised that certain messages are not taken kindly by the disabled, who are not dead yet — and are as alive as he is.

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Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
Nat Hentoff is great. His writing is generally a very good example of strong condemnation of ideas and practices without personal attacks. And he walks a fine line, because he's got major enemies across the political spectrum.

Even when he's espousing something I vehemently disagree with, he's presenting ideas that can be evaluated without having to ignore insults.

Dagonee
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
To be very specific, Nat Hentoff is an atheist pro-life liberal/libertarian. Recent columns have criticized Democrats for their opposition to the appointment of Judge Pickering. Others have criticized the Bush administration over torture issues - such as the exporting of prisoners to countries that use torture.

Even though he is one of the most articulate defenders of the First Amendment, he's no longer welcome at major ACLU events as a speaker. Religious conservative pro-life groups aren't crazy about him either.

I like Nat a lot. He called this morning to tell me his column was up.
 

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Posted by Olivetta (Member # 6456) on :
 
The Netflix Critic, Rocchi, really got this movie's number, too. I just noticed it up on Netflix, though I know it was around before. He calls it a big greasy glob of Oscart bait, or something like that. Heh.

Actually, I think it was already linked to in this thread, but it's up on Netflix now, too. Several customer reviews gave it a good whack, too. I love Netflix for being so egalitarian.
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
I wasn't sure whether or not to post this on the inflammator thread or this one...

Which give you and idea of what the column will be like, I guess. Just to show that anyone can fall prey to being locked into stereotypical thinking, I never expected to find this on the Sports page of a college (Cornell) newspaper:

Nazi Boxing - by Kyle Sheahen, Sun Assistant Sports Editor

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Leni Riefenstahl is alive and well and her name is Clint Eastwood.

Riefenstahl is the legendary Nazi filmmaker who created Triumph of the Will in 1935. The film carried on the tradition of D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation and Sergei Eisenstein's October -- films where pageantry, pomp and splendor are used to push insidious political agendas.

Triumph of the Will was released a year before the 1936 Berlin Olympics. One of the most controversial sporting events of all time, the Games featured drug-fueled German athletes trying to show the world they were The Master Race. The swastika-clad athletes were blonde, blue-eyed and virile.

Riefenstahl released another film, Olympia, chronicling the Berlin Games. It was a terrific sports movie. It set standards for sports cinematography against which all future sports movies would be measured. Yet, despite its dazzling technique, Olympia was still dedicated to its message of social Darwinism -- the strong will survive and the weak must be weeded out and discarded.

**more good stuff in the article at the newspaper site**

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(SH) - I take as my text the film "Million Dollar Baby," directed and starred in by Clint Eastwood (who got his start as an actor in Westerns) as Frankie Dunn, a trainer of boxers, with Hilary Swank playing Maggie Fitzgerald, an aspiring boxer.
The movie has attracted considerable attention, and in fact was crowned at the Academy Awards with the honors for best picture, best director, best actress, and best supporting actor (Morgan Freeman). It has also been vilified by commentators on the religious right, who object to its alleged espousal of euthanasia. In the film, Maggie, who has developed into a fine boxer, is seriously injured in her big fight - so seriously that she is bed-ridden and immobile, unable to speak and with no future. She wants to die.

In the end Frankie, her trainer and mentor, ends her misery by killing her. Many viewers have found the film excellent and moving.

The religious right, however, is not concerned with cinematic excellence; it is upset because the movie seems to promote mercy killing, the taking of human life. People of the religious right regard life as sacrosanct, not to be terminated artificially under any circumstances.

If they knew what the movie was really about, though, they would have no objection. I am here to set them straight, and to reveal the movie as an allegory of a cowboy and his horse.

*****

I present here the original plot and characters: A rootless man, a cowboy with an ill-defined past, notices a neglected filly on the ranch, and takes an interest in her. He trains her, brings her along, and enters her in a number of races. The filly is unexpectedly good and wins her contests, developing a considerable following as she does.

Finally the big day arrives, and all are expectant but apprehensive, for the horse may be in over her head. Nonetheless, after a rough start she picks up speed, and is on the point of passing the odds-on favorite when the favorite's vile jockey causes her to trip by swerving his horse into her.

She falls, and injures her leg. We hope that the horse can be saved, and the cowboy tries to save her, but her leg has been broken, and in the end he recognizes that the case is hopeless and he puts her down. He then rides off on his lonely journey from out of despair and into nowhere.

The movie is thus a Western of the traditional sort, with cowboy replaced by trainer and filly replaced by fighter. The action is transferred from the ranch to the city, from the corral to the ring.

Unless conservative commentators object to putting down injured horses, they can have no objection to this film. The Academy clearly approves. My job is done.

William F. Wyatt is a professor of classics emeritus at Brown University.

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Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
Um... My objections to people putting down horses aside, he seems to forget that this is a HUMAN BEING we are talking about here....
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Syn,

I don't think he's forgetting at all - this is satire. My guess is that he is a conservative prolife guy and trying to get his point across in a satirical piece, which is always a dicey business.
 

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Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
Oh... *Head slap*
I can't always tell...
 

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Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
 
I noticed the tone of that last one right away, and thought it was well done.

I love a good satire....
 

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Posted by Lady Jane (Member # 7249) on :
 
Slate has an article about the alternative to assisted suicide

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Alfonso Gomez-Lobo, one of the council's conservatives, suggests that depression robs these people of autonomy, and maybe this argument could sway libertarians. Hendin agrees: "One of the key features of depression is an inability to see alternatives." But he thinks the chief distortion is ignorance of palliative care, which makes people think they have to choose between suffering and suicide. "That's not much of a choice," he says.

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This week on CounterSpin: Sure, Million Dollar Baby is just a movie, but given how rarely the media spotlight ever makes it around to people with disabilities, the movie is bound to shape public opinion and understanding. So the questions provoked by the film would seem to deserve more thoughtful, and inclusive, journalistic treatment than they’ve thus far received. We'll talk about media coverage of the controversial Oscar winning film and its ostensible message with NBC correspondent John Hockenberry, author also of "Moving Violations: War Zones, Wheelchairs, and Declarations of Independence."

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Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
 
That is so cool....talk about good press.
 

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Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 

Can a person really bleed to death by biting their tongue?
That movie was such a let down. Even if I didn't know the ending, I'd still just be so down and annoyed from the ending.. i HATE endings like that.
I know that life isn't all flowers and butterflies, but still.

AND I still don't see how it was good enough to win an oscar...

[ March 05, 2005, 12:00 AM: Message edited by: Synesthesia ]
 

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Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
 
Sounds like it won solely on the strength of the acting, which really looks good.
 

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Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
The acting was good, but Clint Eastwood always seems wooden to me... Beady eyed and really stiff... he hardly shows any emotions for the most part.
Also, I didn't see why they used voice-over narration. And why was Morgan Freeman's character narrating? It made sense in Shawshank, but in this movie? Perhaps it was unnessasary. Voice overs are overdone anyway in a lot of movies... I don't know, the dippiness factors of the movie bothered me.
 

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Posted by Eaquae Legit (Member # 3063) on :
 
Hey, people are still talking! This is from The Toronto Sun. (If you want a paper copy, I'd need to know today, since the library doesn't keep copies of this paper.)

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Wed, March 9, 2005

Family films are ignored by elites

By MICHAEL COREN -- For the Toronto Sun

THE Oscars came and went. Another spasm of self-congratulation and indulgence. Especially ironic in that the major movie studios are in serious financial trouble and people are staying away from theatres in increasingly large numbers.

But Hollywood has never been concerned about people. If anything, the elites of North America's entertainment industry despise the people and all for which they stand. After all, Hollywood's fetishes are liberal politics, cosmetic surgery, publicity and sexual extremism, not necessarily in that order!


The nominated movies for this year's Oscars said a great deal.

Million Dollar Baby, for example, was as much about euthanasia as about boxing and gave a blatant defence of the killing of the handicapped and the terminally ill. Little attention has been given to large-scale protests against the film by leaders of the disabled community.

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/Michael_Coren/2005/03/09/954582.html

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