[I haven't seen Million Dollar Baby. The venom it generated from Christian critics has thus far been enough to keep me from forking over $8. A good friend of mine and occasional guest blogger, Jerry Nora, recently saw it and came away with a much different impression than the vast majority of those critics it seems. Jerry is a faithful, orthodox, and well-read Catholic. He's also a MD/PhD student who has a knack for bioethics. I don't take his opinions on such matters lightly. I give you his defense of Million Dollar Baby for your consideration. When preparing to comment, bear in mind that he gave up reading blogs for Lent and won't be able to respond in a timely fashion. If you'd like to respond directly to him, email him. – Funky]
Millon Dollar Baby did a solid job of sweeping up the Oscars last night, including Best Picture and Director, and all over the objections of many within pro-life life and conservative Christian circles for evidently being in favor of euthanasia or assisted suicide. Those objections nearly made me avoid the film, but I saw it last week, and was glad I made that decision. My conscience is clear because while suicide is in the movie, the movie does not glorify or abet suicide. The film is a modern-day tragedy, and it does not offer an easy out or proverbial "Hollywood Ending", which is why I think so many people misinterpreted it. Here is my brief take on the film.
Before we get to any suicides, we must know the players involved. In the beginning of the film, we are introduced to Hilary Swank's character, Maggie, who is determined to become a champion boxer in spite of being 32. 'She was from the sticks in Arkansas: her brother was a con, her sister was a single mom cheating on welfare, and her mother was morbidly obese and emotionally needy – your proverbial trailer trash. 'If I grew up in that, I'd consider boxing a legitimate way out, too.
Frankie Dunn (Eastwood), is an aging boxing coach who reluctantly trains Maggie in the face of her determination. He writes to a daughter that always returns to him unread, goes to Mass everyday but has driven the priest to despair with endless irritating questions, sort of passive-aggressive questions, and berates himself for how the janitor of Dunn's gym, Eddie Dupris (Freeman), lost his eyesight when Frankie was subbing for his drunkard coach during a fight. Dunn is a deeply haunted man who cannot, as the priest points out, forgive himself for some event in the past with his daughter. He also cannot commit his athletes to fights because he is afraid they'd get maimed. Maggie's persistence was the chief factor for what made Dunn agree to Maggie entering the big prizefights.
As one would expect for such a dark movie, Dunn's fears are realized when Maggie gets a high cervical fracture from a cheap shot in a fight. She needs a respirator to breath, and has her trashy family come to get her to sign over all her winnings to her mother to keep the money safe. Maggie refuses, and tells her family never to come back. At around this point, she gets some bed ulcers on her right leg that become gangrenous, resulting in an above-the-knee amputation. The greed of her family and the amputation seem to break her spirit. While the Boxing Commission was paying for all the hospitalization, she lost her will to fight.' She then asks Dunn to help her die.
Dunn refuses, but is in agony. He nicknamed Maggie "Mo Cuishla" – Irish for "My Heart" or "My Blood" – and clearly took her on as a substitute daughter. When he discusses the matter with the priest, the priest warns him that since Dunn was still reeling from whatever sin he had committed in the past (presumably with his daughter), this would completely destroy him. He then urges Dunn to bring her to Jesus. Dunn then protests, tearfully, that Maggie wasn't asking for Jesus, but for him. Dunn then sneaks into the hospital at night, wakes Maggie and tells her what he'll do. She nods and looks relieved, and he then disconnects her ventilator and gives her a massive dose of epinephrine.
The next scene is critical. Dunn never returns to the gym the next day, or any day. Dupris is waiting for him the day after the suicide and is greeted by the return of "Danger" Brach. "Danger", like Maggie, is another piece of white trash that wound up in California, but Danger did not have Maggie's talent or brains. He disappeared in the middle of the movie after some bullies at the gym beat him up. But now Danger is back, and he tells Dupris that he was right, that it was okay to lose one now and then. This is what Dupris said to Danger when he was trying to help the poor kid after he got beaten up.
That one scene makes all the difference: Danger did not have squat. Maggie still had her brains after the accident, and Danger never had them or much of anything. But he came back to fight again. Dunn disappeared, and Dupris never learned what happened to him. The priest was right: after helping kill Maggie, he lost his roots.
The movie is a tragedy of how Maggie's fear of her own family and upbringing drive her to a fierce perfectionism and sense of self-sufficiency. Her coach was a severely damaged, and subtly egotistical, man whose past mistakes drove him to make his biggest mistake yet, all in the hope of trying to help Maggie where he failed his biological daughter. We do not have a sermon at the end to tie up all these loose ends and outline the morality of the movie, but upon reflection, this is not a movie for suicide.
Update: Archbishop Charles Chaput, one of the few really good shepherds in the American episcopate, has written a column in which he calls MDB "a great film about boxing and a bad film about moral reasoning."
CNA article: Denver Archbishop calls praise for Oscar winning 'Million Dollar Baby' a 'stretch'
column: 'Million Dollar Baby': Great boxing, bad moral reasoning
Alas, if we keep playing it up as euthanasia propaganda, we'll only help bring about that unintended consequence that Chaput warned about, i.e. making this movie into an unwitting euthanasia film. And again she committed suicide, not euthanasia! IT IS NOT EUTHANASIA IF THE VICTIM ASKS FOR IT!!
Euthanasia: “The act or practice of ending the life of an individual suffering from a terminal illness or an incurable condition, as by lethal injection or the suspension of extraordinary medical treatment.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition copyright © 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic version licensed from InfoSoft International, Inc. All rights reserved.”
It seems to me, then, that SHE committed suicide by HIS act of euthanasia.
I didn’t see too many hints of perfectionism in Maggie and I am someone who struggles with perfectionism. She was no doubt driven to want to overcome her family background to succeed and boxing was her only chance.
I don’t see that as perfectionism. Its more like having a sense of calling and having it fulfilled and once that was over, there wasn’t much else for her in this lifetime.
I mean I’m a person who grew up feeling very awkward with my physical movements and who dedicated myself to the life of the mind from an early age. Maggie was the opposite and that’s okay. But while I could see myself persisting in reading and writing in a situation like Maggies at the end, I don’t think someone with a kinesthetic orientation could handle being paralyzed from the neck down with a leg missing.
For me, its one of those you need to walk a thousand paces in another’s moccasins type of deal. Modern medicine helped her to say goodbye to Dunn and to find out how much he loved her, but it need not keep her life prolonged indefinitely when in the more natural course of things she would die.
dlw
I haven’t seen it, but here is a commentary from someone who has….” ‘Seeing “Million Dollar Baby” From My Wheelchair
I read Diane Coleman’s article. I don’t see MDB as saying that people like her should choose to die rather than live. I think the key here is that Maggie’s gift/desire in life revolved around her overcoming her poor-trash background and succeeding with the one talent that God had given here. She accomplished this goal, thanks to Clint’s character. When the accident happened, she did not have the same gifts as Diane did and was ready to go home.
It was not suicide, it was accepting the tragic, but natural, consequences of the other female boxer’s actions, that were delayed by the extensive use of modern technology. And Clint’s character made sure that she would die peacefully.
But for me, I think even more important was the poor quality of the pastoral role played by the priest.
dlw
I wrote my own reaction to Eastwood’s interview at my blog, the Anti-Manicheist, here.
dlw
I’m glad I already saw it, or that would have ruined the surprise for me — but back to the euthanasia/suicide thing: I haven’t been able to understand all the harsh criticism either.
What Jerry says about it is all true, and the simpler point I’ve been making to people (part of what Jerry has written) is that the movie doesn’t glorify these things. Anyone who pays attention to the film, as opposed to skimming through the talking points, will notice this much about it. But perhaps it’s the movie’s fault for not being as overly simplified as the rhetoric some people have been spewing about it.
Thanks for posting this, and thanks to Jerry for writing it. It’s good analysis.
Maggie’s severe loss of functionality and early death stem from the rival boxer’s action, not from Dunn’s action. Her death was only delayed with the help of much modern day technology and Maggie’s character did not want it delayed inevitably and Dunn made it so she would pass in an unpainful manner.
I don’t see it is an issue of thou shall not kill, but whether or not thou shall always sustain the life in these jars of clay that we reside in. Once again, from a biblical standpoint all those who have a relationship with God will be resurrected with new bodies, eventually. I don’t see this as like a suicide where one turns one back on God and all those around you, presuming that you’d be better off dead.
But hey I’m just an estranged brethen, anyways.
dlw
Oops. Don’t know what I was thinking. There are four kinds of euthanasia, because passive euthanasia can be voluntary or involuntary as well. Duh.
There’s also non-voluntary euthanasia, which means without consent but also not against any explicit wishes of the person, e.g. Terri Schiavo, small children, pets. This is most definitely voluntary, active euthanasia. He injects her with something, making it active, and she asks for it, making it voluntary. This is also clearly illegal, since active euthanasia is never allowed except in assisted suicide cases in a few states, and the patient has to do the killing herself.
Clint Eastwood said in an interview that the priest expresses Eastwood’s own view and the view the film was trying to get across, so this review gets it right.
Y’know, you can only push around terminology so far. You say “It is not euthanasia if the victim asks for it,” but when euthanasia is performed, are you going to turn around and say that it’s actually “murder”? Also, using the word “victim” loads the phrase and weights it toward one side of the controversy.
Also, there are three kinds of euthanasia: voluntary active, involuntary active, and passive. Active euthanasia is performing some action that will cause or hasten death; passive euthanasia is not acting to prolong life or to delay death. Voluntary euthanasia has been requested by the subject; involuntary euthanasia has not been requested by the subject.
Most people have no problem with passive euthanasia.
Voluntary active euthanasia can be sticky. If a person wants to die and performs the necessary action him- or herself, most people aren’t going to complain. But if someone else does it, a few people are going to get upset.
The real controversy, though, is around involuntary active euthanasia.
Ultimately, however, bringing in words like “murder” or “suicide” only cloud the issue and charge it with emotions that preclude thinking rationally about the subject.
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