{"id":17,"date":"2005-02-08T18:50:34","date_gmt":"2005-02-08T22:50:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/2005\/02\/08\/the-incredible-million-dollar-baby-i"},"modified":"2005-02-08T18:50:34","modified_gmt":"2005-02-08T22:50:34","slug":"the-incredible-million-dollar-baby-in-miss-saigon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/2005\/02\/the-incredible-million-dollar-baby-in-miss-saigon\/","title":{"rendered":"The Incredible Million Dollar Baby in Miss Saigon"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Art is political. It’s pretty much gospel in our postmodern world. So when Rachel and I saw Million Dollar Baby last
\nmonth, she suspected there’d be controversy over the ending, in
\nwhich ( ! ! spoilers ahead ! ! ) Clint Eastwood’s character Frankie assists Hillary Swank’s character Maggie to commit suicide.
\nMaureen Dowd summarizes the controversy<\/a> (see also this CNN coverage<\/a>),
\nand for once I agree with her that the purpose of art isn’t (just) to
\nsend messages: sometimes it’s to tell a story.\n<\/p>\n

I suppose it’s hard to
\nget people who grew up on fairy tales to understand that not every story
\nhas a moral, and even if it does, that it’s not necessarily a piece of propaganda to
\nsell you on that message. I mean, I’ll admit that I despise The English Patient because I find the adulterous storyline
\nrepulsive.<\/p>\n

The interesting thing is that while Frankie does choose to help Maggie
\ncommit suicide at the end of $1M Baby<\/span>, the film portrays this as a horrific
\ntragedy. Furthermore, while I sympathize with both Frankie and Maggie,
\nI don’t know that the decision was the “right” one, even in the context
\nof the film. Perhaps the most crushing moment in the entire movie was
\nthe scene in which Frankie encourages Maggie to go back to school, and
\nshe responds that she wants to die. After all, if Frankie could coach Maggie to
\nbecome a champion boxer, surely he could coach her to enjoy life again? But while we
\ncan second-guess Maggie and Frankie’s decision, the story is about
\nthem and not us, and if anything bringing out the fact (or belief) that some
\nof us would make a different decision in their shoes could well be the
\n“point” of the story. And to the Catholics protesting the film:
\nFrankie’s priest perhaps correctly predicts that Frankie would be
\n“forever lost” if he goes through with the act: Frankie is not seen
\nagain in the film after the deed is done, and his ultimate fate is
\nunknown.<\/p>\n

If people feel that the film sends out a message in favor of
\neuthenasia, perhaps the viewer should consider what emotions the film
\ntugs to accomplish this, and whether the very existence of these
\nemotions render the issue more complex than they might assume.<\/p>\n

The
\nwhole controversy amuses me because while I had no problem with
\nthe euthenasia angle in the film, I was rather bothered by the film’s
\nportrayal of Maggie’s mother as a heartless welfare recipient gaming
\nthe
\nsystem and ultimately trying to cheat Maggie out of her small fortune
\neven as she lay on life support. Stereotypes of disabled people not
\nbeing able to lead worthwhile lives? How about right-wing stereotypes
\nof big, fat welfare queens? But once I got past looking at the film as
\na
\nwork of propaganda (hard to do on either issue when you know
\nthat Clint Eastwood is a libertarian), though, I agreed with Rachel’s
\nreading that Maggie’s demonic drive to become a boxer must have its
\norigins
\nsomewhere. Whether or not Eastwood believes most people on welfare are
\nundeserving scum, the fact that Maggie’s mother behaves like scum makes
\nsense in this <\/span>story.<\/p>\n

\n

And casting my memory even further back to last autumn’s Incredibles<\/span>,
\nit’s hard not to notice that film’s dig at tort lawyers, especially
\nagainst the backdrop of Bush’s calls for “tort reform.” And the entire
\nfilm’s Ayn Rand-ish theme (positing a world in which “normal” people
\nchain superheroes to desk jobs out of jealousy) also strikes me as
\ndeeply political in an era where government taxes are seen as brakes on
\nthe entrepreneurial spirit of high-achieving Americans (doubly so when
\nsuch taxes go towards helping people on welfare, as already discussed).
\nBut you know what? I don’t recall any Big Government Liberals
\nprotesting that <\/span>movie, and furthermore, at the end of the day… I actually liked it. (A lot).\n<\/p>\n

\n

What sparked this whole tirade is a local controversy<\/a> brewing around a production of Miss Saigon<\/span>
\nthat Asian American activists in Boston have begun protesting. (A
\nfriend of ours stars in the musical; her comments are a few posts down
\nthe linked page). Does Million Dollar Baby<\/span> promote stereotypes of the disabled as useless? Does Miss Saigon<\/span> promote stereotypes of Asian American women as meek or whatever? Since I’ve never seen Miss Saigon<\/span>,
\nI can’t say. As to the first question, I do feel that the reason why the $1M Baby<\/span> scene I cited above was
\nso crushing was that I believed, in my PC heart, that Maggie did have a
\nlot to live for. On the other hand, I also remember watching a high
\nschool production of Annie Get Your Gun<\/span>
\nwith mild disgust at its male-female stereotyping. (And don’t even mention The Phantom Menace<\/a>). But on yet another hand, I
\nalso know that self-important activists and self-appointed
\nrace ambassadors also piss me off. So, in lieu of saying anything important, here are some of the more amusing tidbits
\nfrom the linked discussion:<\/p>\n

\n

At least all those crackers can bring their asian gfs\/wives to this to
\nshow how cultural aware they are in regards to asian culture [<\/span>As one person responds: <\/span>What an angry little man you are. Where did it all start to go wrong for you?<\/span>]<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

Quite honestly, after reviewing the Joy Luck Club, I find the movie
\nmore transparent, shallow, and ultimately, irrelevant. It becomes clear
\nthat it is Amy Tan;s story through her own eyes, not a true
\nrepresentation of Asian Americans in general. [<\/span>Oh I’m sorry: all Asian American artists must capture the essential Asian American experience or be abject failures. My bad.<\/span>]<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBottom line, we should find a way to keep foreigners out of our business and frill the First Amendment…. [<\/span>This
\nreminds me of the fact that even here in America, the Chinese word for
\nnon-Chinese is “foreigner.” But I don’t know what the Chinese word for
\n“frill” is.<\/span>]<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nSO PLEASE get off your high chair, unless you are asian( non self hating sellout one) or asian american
\n
\nWHITE PEOPLE SHUT HELL UP AND STOP TELLING US HOW TO THINK <\/b>[<\/span>Aaaargh!!! Someone stop the mind-control rays!<\/span>]<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

On that note: Happy New Year!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Art is political. It’s pretty much gospel in our postmodern world. So when Rachel and I saw Million Dollar Baby last month, she suspected there’d be controversy over the ending, in which ( ! ! spoilers ahead ! ! ) … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":271,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[96],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/271"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}