I liked how the film used Morgan Freeman's character, a retired boxer named Scrap, to get into the way the boxing industry has historically used and thrown away black men. I liked the explicit way in which class background and class transition were addressed in the relationship between Hilary Swank's Maggie and her family, though I could have lived without the heavy-handed way in which Maggie was painted as a martyr and her family as greedy white trash. And, surprisingly, I liked Swank herself, whose physical transformation (she reportedly gained 19 lbs of muscle in 9 weeks while training for the film) made her believable as a boxer, something I never would have expected.

There were, however, many more things I did not like about the movie. I really hated the paternal relationship Eastwood's character, Frankie, had with Maggie. Is it not possible for a man to coach a woman in a sport without becoming her daddy? I despised how Maggie's path to becoming a respected boxer was to become as little of a "girl" as possible--surely we ought to know by now that denying your gender and becoming an "exception" that can be considered one of the boys is not truly heroinism. More than anything, though, I absolutely loathed the turn the movie took after the accident in which Maggie sustained her spinal injury.

After Maggie is injured, she is paralyzed, unable to move anything but her head or to breathe on her own. After several months of recovery, a major fight with her family about her financial assets, and the amputation of one of her legs due to a bedsore, Maggie asks Frankie to kill her. After some soul-searching, he does. That's pretty much the end of the film. The message is clear: if you can't move, you're better off dead.

Many disability activists and bloggers wrote about Million Dollar Baby when it came out, arguing vehemently against this perspective. They articulate much better than I ever could what's wrong with it. If you haven't read any of them, I suggest starting with this essay by Diane Coleman. Another good start is this essay by Mary Johnson at the Ragged Edge. Basically, the film gives no time or space to any argument for how or why Maggie's post-accident life could be worth living. It is a foregone conclusion that her life is over once she loses her ability to move and breathe independently. This is not only ridiculous, given the number of people in similar situations that continue to live full and happy lives, it's also incredibly irresponsible filmmaking.

Maggie isn't the only character in Million Dollar Baby who is discarded for being disabled. There is also a cognitively impaired character, Danger, played by Jay Baruchel, who may not be meant to exist only for the sake of comedy (much is made of his "big heart"), but comes off that way. And even Freeman's character Scrap is portrayed as someone whose life was tragically altered and somehow devalued when he was partially blinded. This combination leads to a film that feels like nothing so much as an embodiment of Clint Eastwood's disdain anybody who isn't the physical and mental specimen he thinks they should be.

I am giving Million Dollar Baby one star, mostly for the nod it gives to racism in boxing, and also for its attempt, though only partially successful, to address class transition. I am not, however, suggesting that you watch it.