Million Dollar Baby
Warning: Very brief, passing mentions of fictional suicide/wanting to die under the cut.
I do swear that I am actually capable of enjoying media. Just not ... the past three things I've had to read/watch for class.
I’m going to admit this - I didn’t watch the last twenty minutes because aeirol told me it was all about wanting to die and suicide and a bunch of things I find incredibly triggery so I chose to spare myself that. I did transcript read a of the ending as well as a summary of the film and, well, I dunno. It seems to be that the extraordinarily depressing ending really problematizes Maggie’s success story. I say that because it comes across as a cautionary tale rather than any kind of empowering narrative: don’t try to reach above your class, your gender, and your abilities, because it’ll end badly. I just. I don’t know. I don’t want to just bitch about gender issues, but with this media I keep finding myself in a position where that’s all I can do. So.
If I look at Million Dollar Baby from a Cinderella-myth perspective, there’s plenty of parallels: the main character, Maggie, is a down-on-her-luck waitress. She meets both Frankie Dunn and Eddie "Scrap-Iron" Dupris, who could be viewed together as fairy godfathers or Scrap could be viewed as the fairty godfather who brings Maggie to her “prince”, Frankie. Except here, of course, the prince is her trainer and father figure rather than a romantic interest. Still, it is Frankie who can make all of her dreams come true. And indeed, all of Maggie’s dreams do come true - until the story deviates from the Cinderella-myth. Instead of overcoming her greatest obstacle, her final test, Maggie becomes a quadriplegic, tries to kill herself, and ends up dying by her own wish. Maggie, who has done her damnedest to pull herself up by her own bootstraps, dies rather than succeeds. And wow, does that make me skeeve meter go crazy.
But, before I even talk about any of that, I want to address the issue of race in the film. The main character of the film? Yeah, it’s not Maggie. It’s not Scrap either, for all he narrates the film. The main character is Frankie. Let’s revise this: It’s Frankie, who is played by Clint Eastwood. A white man. Morgan Freeman plays Scrap, and Hilary Swank plays Maggie, but it is the white man who is the central focus of the film. Moreover, if Frankie is the main character then Maggie is a pretty damn close second for main character. What’s notable? She’s also white. The rest of the cast? Almost entirely non-white. Also? Almost entirely made up of assholes. Barring, of course, Scrap/Morgan Freeman.
So, Million Dollar Baby already isn’t doing to hot with its two white protagonists set against a backdrop of people of color. Aside from that, Million Dollar Baby doesn’t do too hot from a feminist perspective either. First of all, it begins and ends not with Maggie, but with Frankie. This same thing happens in Pretty Woman - the male protagonist is introduced beforehand, thus the reader/watcher’s sympathies tend to be more focused on him. Moreover, the overall narrative of the film is basically Scrap’s letter to Frankie’s estranged daughter and the aim of the letter is to extol Frankie’s virtue and thus, in another way, is the film about not Maggie, but Frankie.
That said, if the film is about Frankie, then what is Maggie’s role? Well, it almost seems to me to be that of a plot device. She is what galvanizes Frankie - she inspires him to trust her, to open up to her, to take risks and rests hopes on her. She is also the thing that ultimately breaks Frankie - after her loss, Frankie disappears. Just as Scrap is simply the narrator of Frankie’s greatness, so is Maggie the device that moves the plot (the plot being Frankie’s story) along.
So, is the film just a huge failure as a feminist narrative? Not really. I mean, for all Maggie is assisted by both Frankie and Scrap, she seeks them out on her own. She requires no prince and she needs no financial assistance - she makes her way herself. It is her hard work, not her kind nature, that convinces Frankie to train her and it is her hard work that gets her to the top (almost). That said, there still is this huge problem of how her hard work amounts to nothing, and while the writer, Paul Haggis, might’ve meant it to be merely a commentary on the “American Dream” and the best laid plans of mice and men and other such tropes, it the film simply turns into a hard-working woman simply not having what it takes to succeed no matter how hard she works.
Also there are some really skeevy economic issues (Maggie’s mother is a money-grubber who is ungrateful when Maggie buys her a house because it means her welfare will be taken away - this perpetuates the myth that all people on welfare are lazy people who just don’t bother working) and Frankie often silences Maggie, telling her not to speak. I don’t know. It’s one of those films that have all the trappings of a “feminist” film but fails to deliver in actual content - no matter how many scenes there are of Hilary Swank being totally badass/beautiful.
I'm also still not sure what the hell the title has to do with the content of the film, but maybe I missed something.
Also, a thought brief enough to almost be profound: Just because there's a physically strong female character doesn't mean that something is feminist, or even that said physically strong female character is a "strong female character".
Oh my god. It is the attack of the scare quotes. They are everywhere.
I do swear that I am actually capable of enjoying media. Just not ... the past three things I've had to read/watch for class.
I’m going to admit this - I didn’t watch the last twenty minutes because aeirol told me it was all about wanting to die and suicide and a bunch of things I find incredibly triggery so I chose to spare myself that. I did transcript read a of the ending as well as a summary of the film and, well, I dunno. It seems to be that the extraordinarily depressing ending really problematizes Maggie’s success story. I say that because it comes across as a cautionary tale rather than any kind of empowering narrative: don’t try to reach above your class, your gender, and your abilities, because it’ll end badly. I just. I don’t know. I don’t want to just bitch about gender issues, but with this media I keep finding myself in a position where that’s all I can do. So.
If I look at Million Dollar Baby from a Cinderella-myth perspective, there’s plenty of parallels: the main character, Maggie, is a down-on-her-luck waitress. She meets both Frankie Dunn and Eddie "Scrap-Iron" Dupris, who could be viewed together as fairy godfathers or Scrap could be viewed as the fairty godfather who brings Maggie to her “prince”, Frankie. Except here, of course, the prince is her trainer and father figure rather than a romantic interest. Still, it is Frankie who can make all of her dreams come true. And indeed, all of Maggie’s dreams do come true - until the story deviates from the Cinderella-myth. Instead of overcoming her greatest obstacle, her final test, Maggie becomes a quadriplegic, tries to kill herself, and ends up dying by her own wish. Maggie, who has done her damnedest to pull herself up by her own bootstraps, dies rather than succeeds. And wow, does that make me skeeve meter go crazy.
But, before I even talk about any of that, I want to address the issue of race in the film. The main character of the film? Yeah, it’s not Maggie. It’s not Scrap either, for all he narrates the film. The main character is Frankie. Let’s revise this: It’s Frankie, who is played by Clint Eastwood. A white man. Morgan Freeman plays Scrap, and Hilary Swank plays Maggie, but it is the white man who is the central focus of the film. Moreover, if Frankie is the main character then Maggie is a pretty damn close second for main character. What’s notable? She’s also white. The rest of the cast? Almost entirely non-white. Also? Almost entirely made up of assholes. Barring, of course, Scrap/Morgan Freeman.
So, Million Dollar Baby already isn’t doing to hot with its two white protagonists set against a backdrop of people of color. Aside from that, Million Dollar Baby doesn’t do too hot from a feminist perspective either. First of all, it begins and ends not with Maggie, but with Frankie. This same thing happens in Pretty Woman - the male protagonist is introduced beforehand, thus the reader/watcher’s sympathies tend to be more focused on him. Moreover, the overall narrative of the film is basically Scrap’s letter to Frankie’s estranged daughter and the aim of the letter is to extol Frankie’s virtue and thus, in another way, is the film about not Maggie, but Frankie.
That said, if the film is about Frankie, then what is Maggie’s role? Well, it almost seems to me to be that of a plot device. She is what galvanizes Frankie - she inspires him to trust her, to open up to her, to take risks and rests hopes on her. She is also the thing that ultimately breaks Frankie - after her loss, Frankie disappears. Just as Scrap is simply the narrator of Frankie’s greatness, so is Maggie the device that moves the plot (the plot being Frankie’s story) along.
So, is the film just a huge failure as a feminist narrative? Not really. I mean, for all Maggie is assisted by both Frankie and Scrap, she seeks them out on her own. She requires no prince and she needs no financial assistance - she makes her way herself. It is her hard work, not her kind nature, that convinces Frankie to train her and it is her hard work that gets her to the top (almost). That said, there still is this huge problem of how her hard work amounts to nothing, and while the writer, Paul Haggis, might’ve meant it to be merely a commentary on the “American Dream” and the best laid plans of mice and men and other such tropes, it the film simply turns into a hard-working woman simply not having what it takes to succeed no matter how hard she works.
Also there are some really skeevy economic issues (Maggie’s mother is a money-grubber who is ungrateful when Maggie buys her a house because it means her welfare will be taken away - this perpetuates the myth that all people on welfare are lazy people who just don’t bother working) and Frankie often silences Maggie, telling her not to speak. I don’t know. It’s one of those films that have all the trappings of a “feminist” film but fails to deliver in actual content - no matter how many scenes there are of Hilary Swank being totally badass/beautiful.
I'm also still not sure what the hell the title has to do with the content of the film, but maybe I missed something.
Also, a thought brief enough to almost be profound: Just because there's a physically strong female character doesn't mean that something is feminist, or even that said physically strong female character is a "strong female character".
Oh my god. It is the attack of the scare quotes. They are everywhere.