Eastwood's 'Million Dollar' Agenda

As the 77th Annual Academy Awards wrapped up on Sunday evening, I could not help but wonder if the American movie-going public had once again been unceremoniously duped. No, I am not referring to Chris Rock’s hosting ability (or lack thereof) or the fact that Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ had been further bitch-slapped around by the Hollywood community in spite of its record-breaking ticket sales but rather the Best Picture winner was chosen, as has become the rule of thumb in Los Angles, based on how it fit best with their political agenda. This of course was Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby, the supposed boxing-drama that, to the surprise of its paying customers, turned out to be nothing more then a propagandist piece pushing the liberal viewpoint on euthanasia, or, in conservative terms, assisted suicide.

Sure, Eastwood may have demonstrated certain right-wing tendencies in earlier times but in the world where political equality is of the utmost importance, how can a conservative such as himself be as loved as he is within the typically liberal, socialist even, Hollywood community? Million Dollar Baby finally gave us that answer.

The following is the Marquette Tribune Viewpoint I wrote in conjunction with the then-forthcoming Academy Awards ceremony later that week …

Though ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ was recently given the long overdue slap of the backhand from Hollywood, at the very least those Michael Moore occultists, more accurately those left who have yet to buck up the nerve to take their Kool-Aid following Bush-Hitler’s reelection, can find some consolation in the fact that some left-wing propagandist piece could walk away with a golden statuette on Oscar night, though seeing as how it is not from imagination of the grandmaster himself it may mean little to them. I am of course speaking of Clint Eastwood’s ‘Million Dollar Baby’.

Note – If you have not seen this film yet but what to do so soon without spoilers revealed to you then it would be best not continue reading this viewpoint from here on …

For those unfamiliar with the film’s storyline, here is a quick rundown – Eastwood plays an aging boxing trainer who reluctantly takes on an aspiring female boxer, played by Hilary Swank, who rises to fame quickly in the ring. After an accident in a championship match which causes her to become permanently paralyzed, Eastwood late one night comes into the hospital and disconnects the woman from her breathing tube as she requested, thus killing her. You read that right – what starts off as an emotional story about second chances quickly spirals out of control into a soapbox piece for assisted suicide.

It is both appalling and disturbing to see critics and the public alike applaud a performance from Eastwood in which he walks down the hospital wing near the end of the film like he was the “Angel of Death” to secretly kill a woman he trained and protected as if she were his own daughter. What is more is that Eastwood’s character is suppose to be a devotedly religious man, going to church everyday and badgering the parish priest on ideological thoughts. There could not be a bigger slap in the face for Christianity then this as far as I am concerned.

“But”, the left stutters “should we truly let those who are confined to wheelchairs, unable to move their limbs, live out the rest of their meaningless lives in utter agony?” Following that sense of logic, Christopher Reeve, in spite of whatever Brother John Edwards may have believed, should have been put out of his misery years before he actually died.

This should not be as difficult an issue to get through one’s head as the left is making it, no matter how thick they may be. Your life does not belong entirely to you but rather it belongs to the Creator. God created you specifically in his exact image with a purpose in this life, though we may not know it at the time, and he will take you from this world when he feels as though it is your determined time. You do not have the privilege of making that decision for him. In spite of what the left may convince you of, man is not higher up on the chain of command then God himself. It’s funny how they, the left, can determine the true ‘value’ of a human life, whether it is merely worthless or just inconvenient, but not the worth of freedom and opportunity in places like Iraq.

In addition, ‘Baby’ promotes the ideal that if you were to reach the zenith of your life, the one true shot at the big time, that even if you were to fail doing so you will have achieved your purpose in this world and you therefore could die with a sense of ‘dignity’ with nothing left to live for. Maybe that one could be better explained to Mr. Eastwood, whether he actually wins or not, on Oscar night. He seems to have achieved enough in his lifetime, has he not? Someone, quick, take him down.

‘Million Dollar Baby’ is positively insulting, bordering on the line of being flat-out slanderous, both to Catholicism and the dignity of the human life in general. In spite of Clint Eastwood’s typically conservative leanings in the past, there should, from this moment forth, be no respect left for him, either in the realm of films or politics, for this blatant demonstration of anti-Catholicism.