Jackie's+Response

media type="file" key="jackie-drtheodorebaehr-euthanasia.mp3"

Dear Mr. Baerh,

Propaganda is used daily to sway opinions the same way the director feels. While I have never seen a propaganda film by Dr. Goebbels, I have seen Million Dollar Baby, and could definitely understand why someone would see the movie as glorifying euthanasia. The thing is though while watching any movie, most of the time people only remember the ending. I had not seen the movie for several years, and before I watched it again, all I remembered was the fact that in the end the boxer dies from being a quadriplegic. This is not propaganda at work though; this is because it was the most dramatic part of the movie, the ending, in which you leave the theater with a certain feeling. If Maggie had died at the beginning of movie, and a bunch of happy events happened after that situation, or maybe even something worse happened, I doubt that anyone would have a problem with the movie. What the movie goers do not understand, is that the movie was not based around the part where Clint Eastwood helps assist Maggie’s death. The whole point of the movie was to show Eastwood’s daughter that he was he was a good caring man, with passion and feelings, whether she wanted to believe it or not. I do not believe that the janitor writes to the daughter about Eastwood killing Maggie to look like he saved some from the terrible life of being a quadriplegic. But rather showing that he has feelings towards another person, that he could be an awesome loving dad because he treated Maggie like his own blood and loved her. I feel that Ted Baehr only saw one part of the movie, and that maybe he had gone to see the movie already knowing the ending. Ted, Million Dollar Baby is not a Neo-Nazi movie, because the whole movie was not revolved around assisted suicide. I am sure that when Dr. Goebbels made propaganda films, the whole film was based around making Germans alright with killing Jewish people. The whole point of the Million Dollar Baby was not that at all. Yes, assisted suicide was in the movie, but that does not account for the whole film.

I can definitely see why paraplegics or quadriplegics would find this movie offensive though, especially when life has so much to offer. They see this movie and say: well gosh, my life is nothing like that at all, I am not miserable and do not lie in the bed all day. When directors make a movie, they are never going to be spot on; I learned this the hard way. I am in alcoholics anonymous and whenever I watch a movie or TV show where they act like they are in a meeting, they never portray it how it is, but usually as a joke. It makes a person believe something that is not true: that we are crazy, always relapsing, that everyone who comes into the rooms is detoxing and shaking. In this case quadriplegics are shown as worthless, unable to get out of the bed, and unable to be productive. This would be a much worse feeling than just being humored at; having to come to terms with the fact that someone in the same position as you would want to die. This is when the viewer has to realize that movies dramatize everything to make things appear worse or funny for the effect. Someone who has not gone through the experience they are trying to portray probably does not know the ins and outs of it like those who have. Getting upset over a movie is useless, because unless someone takes the time to figure out what the actual life style of a quadriplegic is, they know nothing about it just watching a movie.