Clint Eastwood is new target for the enemies of "Hollyweird"

[T_i_B]

Isn't Eastwood a republican?

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=613804

Four days before the Oscars, one could usually expect the Hollywood studios to be at each other's throats, bad-mouthing each other's best picture contenders and taking out full-page advertisements in the trade papers to defend themselves against the calumnies of their rivals. This year, though, is a little different.

The attacks are in full swing, but they are coming largely from outside the industry - from right-wing commentators and broadcasters who relish every opportunity to bash the liberal lunatics of "Hollyweird" and feel particularly emboldened in the wake of President Bush's re-election.

Their principal target, oddly, is Clint Eastwood's multi-nominated boxing film Million Dollar Baby, which struck most critics as being seeped in old-fashioned American values - rugged individualism, achieving success against the odds, even going to church and wrestling with big moral dilemmas - but which has unleashed a torrent of rage from the likes of Rush Limbaugh, the rabble-rousing radio host, and the author Michael Medved, self-appointed chronicler of the industry's moral degeneracy.

For the past couple of weeks, the naysayers have been working up a head of steam about something the critics barely mentioned in their reviews because it concerns the unflinchingly downbeat ending, which they felt dutybound not to reveal. (Independent readers might themselves want to consider pausing here until they have seen the film.) Million Dollar Baby, they argue, is an apology for euthanasia because the crusty old boxing trainer played by Eastwood chooses to carry out the mercy killing of his charge and surrogate daughter Maggie, played by Hilary Swank, after she is reduced to immobility by a dirty punch during a prize fight.

[NVMojo]

1. these people are out of hand ...it is sickening how they feel they have

a government supported right to interfere in people's lives ...not to mention the time on their hands to attack movies, cartoon characters ...unbelievable ...the bastards need to go over to Iraq and expend some of that energy, especially lardbutt Limbaugh...who was prolonging his own euthanasia with pain killers....

[RoBear]

7. Their telling others how to live their lives reminds me of

the pretzeldent (aka asswipe) telling other countries what they need to do. I especially loved it when the Russians bitch-slapped back. At least they don't have to put up with his bullshit. Seems like if you're a repuke these days you feel empowered to tell everybody else how to live. This is especially true of the fundies. I'm sick of them, sick I tell ya!

[driver8]

57. You speak the truth, Robear...

I am sick of these hypocrites telling us what we should and should not do...the funny thing is, they never seem to follow the same bullshit ideas that they spew.

[still_one]

2. If you live by the gun, you will die by the gun

They are getting out of hand, and if it continues they will be their own destruction

[Last Lemming]

3. Go ahead

make his day

[bluestateguy]

4. Real Smart

Beat up on one of the few Republicans in Hollywood (and former mayor of Carmel, CA).

[Mockingbird]

5. Georgie to face down Dirty Harry?

[jdj]

45. so weird, remember "read my lips, no new taxes?"

the repukes are eating themselves.

[HuckleB]

47. Yeah, but GHWB didn't have any lips.

I think that's how he got away with it.

;)

[President Jesus]

6. Clint's campaign contributions

http://www.newsmeat.com/celebrity_political_donations/Clint_Eastwood.php

I had always heard he was some kind of big Republican. Guess not.

[gorbal]

18. I think he is probably independent

He seems to think for himself for the most part.

[ProfessorGAC]

42. He's Liberterian

He's said so on several occasions. He's really big on civil liberties but thinks gov't should stay out of most things. So, that would make him more liberterian than liberal. At least he thinks so.
The Professor

[Johnyawl]

29. the ONLY republican he's ever given money to...

...is a candidate named Eastwood. Hmmmmmm....

[Cha]

33. Exactly!

I'm not sure what his party was when he was mayor of Carmel..but I was surprised to learn on this thread that he fought against having his restaurant.."wheelchair accessible"..I would think he has learned since then, especially from Christopher Reeve.

[Cha]

32. I thought I remembered something like

that..thanks for confirming it.

And I keep thinking of that Academy Award caliber movie he made with Sean Penn, and Tim Robbins.."Mystic River"..they were all so good together!

[Media_Lies_Daily]

8. Picking on Clint is not going to play well. By the way, thanks for...

...revealing the storyline for those of us that haven't seen the movie.

[Skink]

9. Clint would probably say the party left me.

I don't know when it was but it was.

[GiovanniC]

12. Limp-Balls is a Jackass

I had not seen this movie, and I don't know if I would have, but that lard-assed blowhard gave the movie away to all those who hadn't seen it.

[NVMojo]

16. ultimately, we can thank Limberg for revealing the storyline with his

psychotic, pain induced rants ...

[T_i_B]

64. As the article does point out towards the end...

Newspaper columnists have suggested that what Medved and Limbaugh have sought to do is not so much start a conversation on the morality of euthanasia as destroy Million Dollar Baby's box-office chances by giving away the ending. For that reason, some of them suspect the attacks will generate only indignation among Academy voters.

[Bake]

44. Hard to imagine that you haven't heard it already ...

I have not seen the movie, but I saw the spoiler weeks ago, right here.

Bake

[Media_Lies_Daily]

46. Good for you! Shall we break out the gold stars just for you?

[sadiesworld]

10. I believe there is some legitimate concern within the disability

community about the portrayal of the Swank character in this movie, i.e., a life w/o mobility isn't a life worth living.

Nonetheless, leave it to the RW to turn a serious issue into a soccer match (and to make it about Eastwood, Hollywood, etc.).

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

13. In the movie (contains spoilers)

Maggie says she has lived her life to the fullest. She's done all she wanted to accomplish. She made the decision to stop living. I don't see how that portrays life without mobility as not worth living. I'm sure some people would prefer to live life like Maggie: hooked up to a respirator, unable to breathe on your own, depending on other people for all your needs, etc. But for her, and for other people (including me), that kind of life was no longer worth living.

[HuckleB]

15. Yes.

Still, I would like to see the disability community use this positively, to allow Eastwood and others to tell their stories, to show the doubt and struggle of the characters, and to allow them to make the choices the make. Then, I would like the disability community to show the world that disability is not simply "a tragedy," that disabled people everywhere live happy, productive, wonderful lives. This latter point is true, and too many people see things otherwise. That doesn't make this movie some negative evil, however. It makes it a story about people who struggle to live life to the best of their ability. Nothing more. Nothing less. In that, I would hope the disability community could see the humanity of others, rather than simply condemn their struggle. And, yes, I know it is only a small contingent that condemns. Alas, it is loud.

And, yes, Clint has fought the ADA, something I do think he should answer for.

[DemBones DemBones]

23. This absolutely is causing concern in the disability movement.

Not Dead Yet! is one of the groups, and aptly named.

Clint was not at all gracious about ADA, refused to made his restaurant handicapped accessible, fought it in court, then went and testified against the ADA before the Senate.

So if you think it's a coincidence that he'd make a movie about a disabled person choosing euthanasia, I'd like to talk to you about buying some lafefront property. . .

[hollywood926]

51. It's about CHOICE!

The one word the right wing hates more than any other.

The point is not that all quadriplegics (sp?) are no longer worth anything; it's that SHE didn't want to live anymore. SHE was an athlete, not accustomed to a life of complete immobility. SHE was independent, not accustomed to people taking of her. SHE made a choice.

[Pepperbelly]

62. But to some, it might not be ...

worth living, that is.

I don't think Eastwood was saying that at all. It wasn't about denigrating anyone so much as respecting everyone. Who can say what is right or wrong since it is solely a judgement for the individual that no one else can make for them.

[underpants]

11. *NOTE*-The RW is blending this into Dems supporting euthenasia

I have heard it mentioned several times on the RW talk radio shows.

Just a heads up.

[Norquist Nemesis]

20. HUGE DING DING DING!!!!! BINGO!!! (Think Schaivo/activist

judges going opposite of Jeb Bush)

[underpants]

35. Yep the Schaivo case is THE rightwing talking point of the day

I just got back from running errands.

Oh and the other one is how the Europeans are paying homage to W fresh off his HISTORIC victories in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Ukraine.

[PassingFair]

14. OMG! Major spoiler! Don't look!

You outta WARN a procrastinating, sluggish moviegoer! Jeez!

[Tesha]

19. This seemed like a fair warning...

> (Independent readers might themselves want to consider
> pausing here until they have seen the film.)

[PassingFair]

21. ack! Whole word, whole paragraph reader here!

And dangerously curious.

[ozone_man]

43. Same here.

Oh well, I was probably not going to go see it anyway.

[HuckleB]

17. How can one spoil what's already been spoiled repeatedly by the MSM?

This story has been on every news and radio channel, not to mention in every newspaper around. I don't think it's fair to bash a poster for spoiling the movie, when this story is so widespread. Heck, Clint was on NPR last week talking about it.

He made a great point, when he wondered why nobody went after him for his gun-toting characters, but they come after him for this.

[DemBones DemBones]

24. It's the disability angle and his past opposition to ADA.

See my post above.

[HuckleB]

27. That's not why the RW and MSM are discussing this, unfortunately.

In regard to the RW tirades, Eastwood's question remains quite valid.

The RW could care less about the ADA, and it could certainly care less about sharing stories of the lives of those who've discovered wonderful lives after "disability."

Have you seen the film?

[bobthedrummer]

22. "I know what you're thinking, punk."

[HuckleB]

40. Thanks, Dirty Harry

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2002187322_navarrette23.html

"Maybe I'm getting to the age when I'm starting to be senile or nostalgic or both, but people are so angry now," Eastwood said. "You used to be able to disagree with people and still be friends. Now you hear these talk shows, and everyone who believes differently from you is a moron and an idiot — both on the right and the left."

[DemBones DemBones]

25. Go to http://www.notdeadyet.org for the disability rights objection

to the movie. Also see Ragged Edge.

http://www.raggededgemagazine.com/

Disability activists are very unlikely to vote GOP but I guess GOP help on this issue is better than no help at all.

There are people in this country pushing for more assisted suicide and for legal euthanasia. Disabled people don't want to be told they have nothing to live for by people who know very little about the lives of the disabled -- and that includes the vast majority of nondisabled people.

We fear that if assisted suicide becomes widely available, we'll be pressured to die and stop being a burden to our families and society. No one should have to feel that sort of fear.

[KamaAina]

37. More non-RW objections at "Million Dollar Bigot"

http://www.milliondollarbigot.org

John Hockenberry, who is not known as a right-winger but who has a disability, checks in here:

http://www.milliondollarbigot.org/loser.html

One can barely imagine how relieved the movie critics now climbing over themselves to defend Clint Eastwood were to see the right-wing media going after Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby. Suddenly they were free to set the dispute into a broad culture war context as Frank Rich did last week. They were free finally to ignore the true outrage of the movie. These same critics failed millions of Americans with disabilities by accepting as utterly plausible the plot-twist that a quadriplegic would sputter into medical agony in a matter of months and embrace suicide as her only option in a nation where millions of people with spinal cord injuries lead full long lives. No, these critics would much prefer to talk about offenses against poor victimized directors, comparing Eastwood to last year's besieged Michael Moore rather than to talk about their own failings or about a group which has never had any standing in the culture wars.

Plot twist is, in fact, an apt description of Million Dollar Baby's ending. A spinal cord injury followed by a dolorous slo-mo sipping of Eastwood's poetic hemlock avoids the inconvenient truth that a female athlete outside of basketball and perhaps professional mud-wrestling has virtually no opportunity to make a living in America. That might make a more plausible reason for suicide than the rationale Million Dollar Baby supplies.

Hollywood loves this disabled suicide plot and Eastwood is hardly the only director to be enthralled with might be called the crip ex machina theatrical convention.

How delusional is it for Hollywood to spend billions on teen flicks and big budget films where teens and youth culture star and yet there is practically never any mention that suicide is the number one public health concern for American teenagers, one of the leading causes of teen deaths? Somehow teen-suicide seems just nutty compared to depressed quadriplegics offing themselves. Maybe the plot twist Hollywood seems so desperate to defend isn't really assisted suicide. Maybe its Eastwood's own epic saga of slogging to the Oscar summit that gets these critics all misty eyed?

We tried to get John to deliver the keynote at our annual disabilities confgerence, but his speaking fees are far too high for us. Now I know why.

Edit: Note how Hockenberry refers to "the right-wing media". Does this sound like a Medved/OxyRush clone to you?

[Babel_17]

26. A point that is missed imo (Spoilers!)

Ms. Swank's character arguably had no family. Her biological family was clearly shown as one she couldn't count on at all.

Her only "real" family were Eastwood and maybe Freeman.

Her prospects for getting any other meaningful people in her life were not good at all.

Neither Eastwood or Freeman could be said to have long to live themselves.

If Eastwood hadn't acted when he did there was every chance that he himself would either be gone or so debilitated that he couldn't act.

If anything was ever to be done the time was arguably "now".

As her only loving family member able to act in her behalf he had no other options.


Going with that is the nuance that this wasn't an overnight decision. That fact seems to get glossed over. This is a motion picture and it has limits in how it can effectively deliver a story.

But the point was clearly made that Ms. Swank wasn't making a spur of the moment decision nor was Eastwood. Both of them considered the life in question seriously and could be seen as posessing an inate respect for life.

The decision that was made evolved over a period of time.

[DemBones DemBones]

28. Read the views expressed by Not Dead Yet and The Ragged Edge

and see our side of this. Links in my post just above yours.

[Babel_17]

39. I read it and I can understand your concern.

I also "get" the plot flaws.

But this isn't about the plot flaws really is it?

I can understand people who are taking an absolutist view and who fear creeping incrementalism.

But the bottom line is freedom of choice.

And imo that freedom of choice can include wanting some assistance in a suicide.

It seems this movie doesn't provide the proper fodder to nurture a good and reasoned national debate on the subject.

It's a movie that expresses personal sentiments, personal sentiments that imo are well within the pale of what most of us consider civilized.

I can appreciate the nerve this has touched but I don't see malicious intent.


It seems there's a deal of venom being directed Mr. Eastwood's and the movie's way.

I don't see that as helpful as there are worthy points being made and the venom distracts from that.

By all means continue to point out the plot flaws and to voice concerns.


But to imply that the rights of patients who find themselves in this situation are secondary to fears of a future where euthanasia will be enforced is not the way to go imo.

My heart does go out to people who voice these concerns though.

I truly can't begin to imagine the underlying fears that go with this condition.

[Cha]

30. Eastwood is too smart to be a fascist

loving bush supporter..he may have been a republican in the past but the dirty bush regime are fascists.

[HuckleB]

41. Indeed. He's always played characters where moral ambiguity reigns.

orality, ambiguity and movies
http://www.arkansasnews.com/archive/2005/02/15/JohnBrummett/317339.html

[FourStarDemocrat]

54. He is a free thinker and always has been.

He's more libertarian than anything. If he was a republican at one time the party left him.

[iamjoy]

31. Tempest In A Teapot? (spoiler)

Or maybe it is a movie about the brutality of boxing and how people getting seriously injured is considered entertainment in our society.

just a thought...

[Cha]

48. That's the reason I probably won't see it..

I don't like movies about boxing.

[FourStarDemocrat]

55. Neither do i but...

its worth seeing regardless. The boxing mainly provides a backdrop to the real emotional/ relationship story between the characters.

[hollywood926]

50. That's certainly part of what the movie is about and...

of course, they are the first ones to run and see every movie with Ahhhnold in it - all movies that condone gun violence.

Good point.

[T_i_B]

60. Reading the article

that's just what I thought. However, I haven't seen the movie so I can't tell for sure.

[BiggJawn]

34. Pissed-off that "Mad Max IV: Jesusdome" came up empty.

My GF has a co-worker who's dieing from ALS. Eastwood has NOTHING to do with my desire to be taken out back and shot if I ever get in that condition...

It's all about "The Passion of The Mel"

Limp-balls and Medved can both suck my ass. Jeff/Rusty'd probably enjoy it.

[HuckleB]

36. The Medical Ethics DebateOver "Million Dollar Baby" Is Off Track

I hope this adds some perspective to the emotional blasts that have been aimed at the film, while pointing out the flaws within the film itself.

Post details: "Million Dollar Baby" Deserves An Oscar, But The Medical Ethics Debate Has Gone Off The Track

http://namct.com/news/index.php?p=2171&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

"Unfortunately, the medical premise of Million Dollar Baby is dead wrong, because Baby could have refused the ventilator without a quibble, merely by asking. Since the famous Karen Quinlan case 30 years ago, U.S. doctors have been totally prohibited from insisting on unwanted therapy against a patient’s wishes.

Pope Pius XII, himself, understood as much in 1952, when he condemned “extraordinary means” to maintain life against the will of patients. The major religions are in agreement. I have worked with chaplains and rabbis of all faiths to help patients make these decisions – and most of the priests I work with have written advanced directives to ensure they are never placed on a ventilator against their will.

Gray areas do arise when a patient is unconscious, however. Difficult ethical cases come up all the time. But a rational, talking patient could have refused the ventilator, the IV fluids, medicines, surgery – or a dozen other treatments needed to stay alive. Is the film really suggesting the doctors took the patient to surgery to remove a leg, in order to save her life without her consent? Had Baby refused the operation, she would have died from infection, and she would have spared the Eastwood character his torment, and her own attempt to end her life by biting her tongue.

...

But if the movie’s depiction of a typical ventilator scenario was absurdly unrealistic, the talk-show and op-ed page debates that have followed it seem even more ludicrous. While conservatives Rush Limbaugh and Michael Medved huff and puff about “the sacred right to preserve life” and disability activists protest the depiction of Baby, nobody seems to have grasped a key fact: This is a total non-issue in American hospitals today!

..."

[HuckleB]

38. As usual, we ignore the explorations of the rest of the world.

Sea Inside's death debate --
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4257497.stm

[edbermac]

49. This is probably being put out by a rival studio...

Remember a few years ago when A Beautiful Mind was nominated and Sludge began screaming how Nash's anti-semitism was whitewashed?

[DemocracyInaction]

52. Stupid Rush might just lose something he adores over this one!!

He loves playing the pro-am part of the Pebble Beach Golf Tournament. Well, Pebble Beach and the other two courses (Spy Glass and Poppy Hills)that the tournament are played on are owned by a small group of men, one of which is Clint Eastwood and Clint always plays in the tournament and invited into the booth to be fawned over, etc. Keep up the attack you pill-popping loser!!!!

[FourStarDemocrat]

53. Clint Eastwood is an artist..

--which is what the hollywood demonizers fail to understand when they attempt to Medvedize movies (Maureen Dowd's word for their actions). I saw the film and was highly impressed. I think kthe script, acting and directing are definitely Oscar contenders, and all the more reason if the film causes some controversy and makes people think and debate.

You can't expect to please everybody when you're telling an intense story--and the heartbreak, guilt and cognitive dissonance stemming from having to make such a decision about your own life and then ask for your loved one's help ws clearly depicted in several of the movie's scenes. This is not the decision that everyone with a seriously debilitating injury would make. It's one story.

[DrZeeLit]

65. I just saw the movie last night. It's his best, jmho.

The characterization rises above most "major" studio movies. From the minute his character is on screen, Frank does not utter a word or make a move out of character. Phenomenal. In fact, everyone in the film is dead-on.

Always important to remember it is a MOVIE. The movie as an art form is supposed to take the viewer somewhere else, required to take the viewer out of his or her world. A moral piece of fiction demands attention, asks the viewer to think, challenges the viewer. This movie met those parameters and moved outside that box.

What does it matter his politics? Everybody who looked into his donations or his affiliation is no better than the witch hunters of the fifties. Sad that both sides have come to this.

Debate the ideas and challenges -- that's the core of any piece of art. But the artist, no. Silencing, censoring, banning, burning -- is this what is next? From either side? Because the film portrays one side of an issue? Or better, because the film dares to put a face to an issue and allows the viewer to decide? Or because the actor and director gave money to particular causes or supported certain parties?

This is an amazing piece of art. And like any art, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And then, the beholder moves on.

[tom_paine]

56. Clint did not express 100% support for THE PARTY and THE LEADER 'values'

Therefore, he is a traitor.

That is exactly how the Totalitarian Mind, the Bushevik Mind, works.

Not much more complicated that that, as it was in 1933.

[Piperay]

58. Eating their own

now they are going after Eastwood who I remember from way back when as a big repuke supporter. I remember when Raygun was Gov here in CA and seeing Eastwood at rallies for Raygun, he would give speeches for Raygun and talk about how 'bad' and 'ugly' the Democrats were. x(

[struggle4progress]

61. Yep.

[uncertainty1999]

59. Please use a SPOILER ALERT NEXT TIME!!!

I have not yet seenthis movie :-(

[The Animator]

63. RW Pundit's goin' up againt Eastwood... well

They've gotta ask themselves one question...

Do they feel lucky?