Most white people aren't going to become black in their lifetimes, and most men (with a few exceptions) aren't going to become women in the near future - but the shaky and uncertain position of being normal can easily convert by a simple medical report into a state of being disabled overnight. So-called normal people are fascinated and haunted by the person with a disability, probably because, unlike any other identity, one can go from being a normal to a quadriplegic in a matter of seconds. Toole, who wrote the story on which "Million Dollar Baby" was based, had a heart condition throughout his life, his son said, and "had strong feelings about not wanting to live in a reduced state." Like most people, Toole had a vision and a fear of life with a disability, but he didn't have direct experience. But they almost never are made or written by people with disabilities - so the actual life experience of people who have walked the walk, tapped the cane, or wheeled the chair, isn't really reflected in many of these works.į.X. People with disabilities in film tend to be lionized or thrown to the lions. These films, for the most part, are made by abled people who are using the issue of disability to rally the forces of hope and pity. Great themes for an uplifting feel-good film or a tearjerker. These films generally show us people with disabilities triumphing over their "handicap" or living the tragedy of the disease. And this year's crop are close to garnering awards - "Ray," "Aviator," "The Sea Inside" and "Million Dollar Baby." Come to think of it, if you want to be nominated for an award, you might just want to do a disability movie. Think of all the films that have been made about people with disabilities: "The Miracle Worker," "Johnny Belinda," "My Left Foot," "Children of a Lesser God," "Rain Man," "Elephant Man," "A Beautiful Mind" and many more. Ironically, one of the ways that many people do actually know about this group is through movies.
While it is rare to find a college student who isn't well versed in race, class, gender and sexuality - few if any know about their fellow Americans with disabilities. So why do so many critics like this film? Could it be because they actually have very little knowledge or contact with people with disabilities, deaf people, blind people, quadriplegics - except through the media? Many people, critics included, know very little about them or their issues. But he's wrong if he thinks that films don't have a powerful influence on how we think about ourselves and the world.
#Million dollar baby actress license#
It is our right to disagree with them." He added, "What kind of movies would there be if everyone in them had to do what we thought they should do?" Ebert's right that freedom of expression and creative license are valuable things and every right-minded person should fight to preserve this right. Roger Ebert wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times that, "The characters in movies do not always do what we would do. And the feisty girl who would stop at nothing to fight in the ring, who after the accident musters the energy to tell her hillbilly family to bugger off, strangely changes character and becomes someone who gives up her ghost rather quickly - even refusing Eastwood's offer of sending her to college (his one attempt to affect her despair).
There are no scenes in which anyone at the hospital tries to deal with Maggie's depression or offers her counseling or at the least an anti-depressant. Many people with disabilities, including the National Spinal Cord Injury Association, a national advocacy group with 13,000 members, see the film as one that uncritically advocates euthanasia for quadriplegics.