posted
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.
posted
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.
Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
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:
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.
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."
I can hardly believe that *anyone* would say such a terrible thing right to his face. That's just incredible.
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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
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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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. Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
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.
Posts: 3446 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
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.
Posts: 2849 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
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: 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."
posted
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.
posted
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.
posted
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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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
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.
Posts: 2010 | Registered: Apr 2003
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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.Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
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.
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.
posted
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...
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
posted
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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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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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." ????
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.
Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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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.''
David,
if you're still reading this thread, I don't take back a word about Limbaugh. The man is a slob and a turd.
And that's not something I say about conservatives in general. I reserve it for people like Limbaugh.
posted
I wanted to thank you again for being a member of this board, Steve. I am learning a lot. This thread is amazing.
I want to also extend my condolences to your family on the death of Diane's nephew, I hadn't heard. My sympathies and prayers are with you.
Belle--I also love that about CSI, Dr. Robbins is one of my favorite characters. I had wondered if his disability was 'real' (because I knew that Carrie on E/R was played by a nondisabled person), but ended up not thinking about it after a while since his character wasn't driven by it in any way. Just this week on E/R, tangentially, Carrie's disability was explained. I don't think it had ever been brought up before. *shrug*
In any case, I am talking to people IRL about this all of the time, and sending articles in email. I don't yet have the gumption to write any letters to the editor (especially since I haven't seen or plan to see the movie), but we shall see.
Again, thanks to everyone participating in this thread.
Posts: 1545 | Registered: May 2002
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posted
Thanks all for the sympathy. It hit hard but mostly we aren't thinking about it since the work is calling for us to bury ourselves in for awhile. He was a nice kid, though. I always looked forward to seeing him on our Kalamazoo visits.
posted
I just wanted to let you know that your comments got some play here in Buffalo. There was an article written, referring to your comments and others of your organization on Million Dollar Baby.
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.
posted
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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