The Medved/Million Dollar Baby controversy

Live from the Sub Basement of the Abiline Kinko's
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Normally I am a fan of The Moderate Voice, and I can stand Michael Medved longer then most Talk radio hosts…. But a conflict has come between the two.

#1) Michael, I feel sorry for you having all these people attack you and your filling the better part of an hour on your show with it… really I do
#2) I usually avoid the “made for the Oscars” movies. These films as a rule tend to look down on the people saying “We’d be released earlier if only you were more cultured.” So I had no plans to see Million Dollar Baby whatsoever
#3) I heard about the “euthanasia” plot and figured Clint or Morgan had some incurable disease
#4) as a rule I love Clint’s work

With these caveats out there

Spoiler space alert
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Ok… from the trailers we have a conflicted traditionalist catholic on the edge with his daughter and his church

We have a young woman who wants to be a boxing great and won’t take no for an answer

He denies her, but we get the lovable loser/mentor student mojo working and he trains her…

Then she gets severely wounded, but not lethally wounded in the fight

She says she can’t live any more please kill me.

First of all, this is a major conflict not only with her character (she was so damned sure to make it to be a real fighter) and Clint (Killing off his surrogate daughter and humanizing force) so right there this isn’t a subtle message – Medved’s point and based on what I see I agree with him- and a movie shouldn’t be marketed as a feel good boxing movie when it is “surprise” about murdering crippled people

Euthanasia... Doing it to folks who are dying while I ethically can see that as a kinda gray area, saying “your life will not be as good as you want so you should just die” this is not a grey area at all. It’s a psychotic area, it’s a suicidal area. She could have refused care and we could have had that be what killed her (people with those kind of injuries have serious issues) but no, we crossed the line from what can easily happen in the real world with the blessing of the person who has to endure the suffering, and crossing in to what is a second degree murder rap, at best.

I am sure the acting is great. I am sure the direction like all of Clint’s works is fantastic. But the message of the movie is hidden in the promotion, and hidden because it is so odious. Disabled groups have picketed this movie, while the Christian right tells its audience “You wouldn’t like this” a role that critics and religious groups SHOULD play.

So Michael Medved says the message is bad, ham handed, and being dishonestly promoted.

I can agree with him on all three of those points.
If we say her with a terminal illness, fighting for her dream and against the clock and dying after her heroic fight in the ring… accomplishing her dream, I’d have less problem with the Euthanasia angle in the film. But I have problems with the notion that if your life isn’t at a moment as absolutely good as you want it to be, you should just die. Or if you can’t have a full quality of life, you’re better off dead. Killing people because they are inconvenient is not a human attitude, it is inhuman and ghoulish pure and simple.

I can take the theme if you at least artfully play it out. From what I hear Million Dollar Baby doesn’t. Now, while this controversy excited my curiosity to see how the story could contort to make these choices real for the characters…. I still have no desire to see it until it hits HBO.