CNN.com – The backlash over “Million Dollar Baby”
Million Dollar Baby is a boxing movie with a twist. Instead of the main character, Maggie, winning it all, she breaks her neck and is paralyzed from the neck down. Check out The Movie Spoiler for the whole plot.
Things don’t go to well for her after that. Maggie has to have her leg amputated due to muscle atrophy and bed sores. She tries to get her trainer, Frankie, to kill her, but he refuses. So she bites her tongue and hopes to bleed to death, but the doctors save her.
Seeing how much she wants to die, Frankie changes his mind and decides to help Maggie. He goes into her room, removes her breathing tube and injects her with adrenaline. She dies instantly. Some people with spinal cord injuries have a problem with this movie. The say that it reinforces the stereotype that paralyzed people can’t have fulfilling lives. And then there is the whole euthanasia issue.
There were times in the hospital after the wreck when I really wanted to die. But I never thought about killing myself. Maybe if I had been as bad off as Maggie I would have, especially if I had been someone whose entire life was about boxing. I also don’t have a problem with euthanasia, but it depends on the circumstances.
I made the decision to remove my dad’s feeding tube and other life support. Later I found his living will and saw that that was what he wanted, but it wasn’t a hard choice. Of course he was brain dead with no chance of recovery. Maggie still could have lived a decent life once she was over the depression, but I understand her chioce.
It will be a hard movie to watch, and I may wait for video, but I want to see Million Dollar Baby.