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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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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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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."

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

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

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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.

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

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

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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 -

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

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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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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.

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“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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According to Motion Picture Academy voters, the best “cripple” is a dead “cripple.”

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